Barbie used to be the ultimate It Girl.

But then came those new kids in school: the Bratz.

From their 2001 marketplace debut, the pouty-lipped Bratz dolls — including the original fab four: Cloe, Sasha, Jade and Yasmin — have given Barbie a run for her money, netting an estimated $2 billion a year in sales, plus associated products such as DVDs, cameras and CD players.

Still, all is not rosy in toyland. Increasingly, parents and others are wondering whether the Bratz — with their tight clothing, heavy makeup and heavier doses of attitude — are exerting a bad influence on the girls who adore them.

And with a movie just opened in theaters, that question looms larger than ever.

Sure, the 10-inch Bratz figures aren't the first bits of plastic to raise eyebrows. Some parents weren't exactly thrilled when Barbie — she of the fantastical body proportions, who once supposedly famously declared: "Math is hard" — set her impossibly high-arched foot on toy store shelves in 1959.

"There are people who've based their entire Ph.D.s on how Barbie shapes how young girls think about womanhood," says Vera Chan, senior buzz editor for Yahoo.com, from her Sunnyvale, Calif., office.

But although Barbie has definitely had her share of controversy over the years, Chan says, the Bratz are more troublesome these days for the way they portray adolescence.

"Barbie was created to look like a woman — a projection of what a child would grow up to be," says Chan, whose job includes tracking the nation's pop-culture index.

"The Bratz dolls look like (teens) now — a girl's identification with them is more immediate."

'VERY SAVVY MARKETING'

Sharon Lamb agrees. Co-author of "Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters From Marketers' Schemes," Lamb says she does appreciate the dolls' ethnic diversity (the line includes Asian, African American and Latina characters) but objects to the Britney Spears wardrobe (Fallen Pop Idol Era) and the Paris Hilton manners.

"If you put the Bratz's clothing on a real teenager, she'd look pretty sleazy," Lamb says. Plus, she gives a big thumbs down to such related items as the Bratz Rock Angelz Party Plane and their pretend "juice drinks," packaged suspiciously like cocktails.

"The manufacturers are selling a lifestyle," Lamb says, on the phone from Burlington, Vt., where she teaches psychology at Saint Michael's College.

"It's really giving girls the message on what it means to grow up and be a teenager. It's very savvy marketing."

Of course, the Bratz aren't the only culprits. Today, girls (and their parents) are besieged by influential entertainment and pop culture choices. There's the privileged, brand-name dropping Gossip Girls, for instance, who, come September, will graduate from a best-selling book series to a new prime-time CW drama by the creators of "The OC."

And one can't dismiss the impact of the Britneys, Parises and the Lindsays, who hawk movies and music aimed at tweens and teens.

Indeed, in February, the American Psychological Association raised a red flag over potential long-term emotional damage that such people and images can pose to girls. The association targeted everything from advertising and video games to cartoons and music videos.

The Bratz did not escape notice. The association called it "worrisome" that "sexily clad" dolls "designed specifically for 4- to 8-year-olds are associated with objectified adult sexuality."

CRITICISM CALLED 'GARBAGE SCIENCE'

However, Bratz creator Isaac Larian calls the report "garbage science." Furthermore, he says, any criticism of his dolls are just part of a "media-driven" and negative publicity campaign.

"All of this (attention) is crazy — it's wrong," says the MGA Entertainment CEO, on the phone from his Van Nuys, Calif., office.

"Take the doll to your daughter, to your niece, and ask her what she thinks of them," he says. "Not one will think the doll is 'sexy' — she'll think they're just beautiful."

Larian also defends his dolls' reputation. They're hardly party-mad boy-chasers, he says.

"I don't know where that idea comes from," he says. "We promote things like playing sports — one of our best-selling lines is the Bratz Play Sportz line."

Besides, he says, parents can't be too concerned.

"They're obviously buying the products for the kids," says Larian of the dolls, which range in price from $9.99 to $29.99 (the latter of which buys you entry into a virtual Bratz community.)

MOVIE'S MESSAGE PRAISED

Liz Martin, for one, doesn't see what the fuss is all about.

"They're just cute dolls," says the 48-year-old Galt, Calif., resident. "I've never been too concerned about how they look or dress."

Martin, along with her 14-year-old daughter Johna and 12-year-old family friend Jennifer Cloutier, caught a matinee of the "Bratz" movie this weekend at an Elk Grove, Calif., theater.

Both girls, longtime Bratz fans, agree that the PG-rated, live-action film, loosely based on the dolls, was "fun" and "cute" — high praise.

And the elder Martin says she appreciated the film's message.

"It has a nice outcome," Martin says. "It shows that (being a teen) isn't about belonging to a clique but about being yourself."

Perhaps, she adds, it's time for everyone to just lay off those poor Bratz girls.

"Maybe they shouldn't worry so much about what the Bratz look like on the outside," she says. "Think about who they are on the inside instead."

DOLL WARS

It's a doll-eat-doll world. With Barbie and the Bratz at the top of the playground pecking order, who really reigns supreme?

For your consideration, here's a plastic-on-plastic smackdown, with information courtesy of the NPD Group, Yahoo! and Wedbush Morgan:

BARBIE

Born: 1959

Size: 11-1/2 inches high

Parents: Mattel Inc.

By the numbers: Mattel doesn't release its sales figures, but industry analysts estimate that Barbie rakes in about $3.1 billion annually. Sweet.

Miss Popularity: Barbie's the winner here, garnering twice as many Internet searches than the Bratz.

Signature quote: "Math is hard."

BRATZ

Born: 2001

Size: 10 inches high — although a lot of that is the head.

Parents: MGA Entertainment

By the numbers: MGA doesn't release sales figures, either. Still, according to the NPD Group, a consumer- and retail-research organization, the Bratz pulled financial rank in the fourth quarter of 2006 as the top-selling fashion-themed doll in the United States.

Miss Popularity: The Bratz may not garner as much Internet interest as Barbie, but at least these girls boast more Web hits than the Disney Channel's "Hannah Montana." (More than half of the users digging for Bratz info are younger than 13, and 77 percent of those searchers are female.)

Signature quote: "I have a passion for fashion."

Join our discussion about Bratz — bimbos, or role models?