As the Adult Time crew carefully arranges beakers and synthetic body parts to transform a nondescript warehouse space in the San Fernando Valley into an artificial intelligence robotics lab, Chief Creative Officer Bree Mills shares a bit of generational culture shock.
“I’ve spoken with the different trans women that we work with a lot, and I’ve asked them questions about their own interests and backgrounds,” Mills explains. “The most common thread was that so many of them told me they were inspired by Bratz dolls!”
Bratz emerged in 2001 to offer a sassier, more diverse alternative to Mattel’s hegemonic blonde juggernaut, a decades-strong industry dominator you may have heard about, with a love for all things pink and for her genital-less himbo boy pal Ken. In fact, the stories of the Bratz and the Barbies are so intertwined that a former Mattel employee actually created the former, and the newer dolls were embroiled in litigation for years with the powerful toy market leader over the concept.
“I’m not of that generation, I don’t really know the whole story,” Mills protests, laughing. “But so many of the trans girls do bring up the Bratz dolls — Khloe Kay in particular. I remember an interview we did together, where she talked about how Bratz dolls were a real influence for her and how she chose to express herself.”
Mills is here in triple capacity as CCO, feature co-producer and — in a small but pivotal role — as an actor. She recounts how this new project began when she and her creative team prepared to mark the fifth anniversary of Transfixed, Adult Time’s high-end, lesbian-focused trans banner.
Their plan: do a feature following up on last year’s highly successful “Office Misconduct,” a wacky 1980s-style office politics comedy that ended up being one of 2023’s best-performing releases on the site.
“It was the first time we were making a movie for that studio, and it exceeded all of our expectations,” Mills says. “So going into the anniversary, we tried to up the stakes a little bit. We used what we had learned over the years to see if we could deliberately create another fan favorite.”
Mills wanted to make the project ultra-timely, so the team was brainstorming about current news events and obsessions — and what could be timelier than the “Barbie” movie and AI?
Once Mills had her concept — fabulous trans robots called “D.O.L.L.s” — she immediately remembered Khloe Kay and her Bratz obsession, which was shared by so many in the adult trans sisterhood.
“I knew I wanted to cast Khloe in the project,” Mills says. “She’s an OG Transfixed performer. She was in many of our first-season episodes and has really been part of our brand from the very beginning. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if I could make Khloe’s dream come true, style the top Transfixed talent as characters inspired by Bratz dolls, and really just give them their favorite kind of experience in the process?’ What ‘D.O.L.L.s’ really ended up being is a project done out of love on all sides.”
The creative team behind Adult Time’s “Oopsie” series worked with Mills in developing the story. Midnight, a member of the platform’s writer’s room who is a trans man, wrote the comedy sci-fi script. Mills tapped Stella Smut, making her feature debut, as director and co-producer.
Hoping to create an instant fan favorite, Mills cherry-picked Eva Maxim and Zariah Aura — both extremely popular, especially among fans of Transfixed content, she notes — to join Kay as her fellow D.O.L.L.s. All three performers have been featured as part of Transfixed's “Muses” series, which highlights performers who “have stood out as ambassadors” of the studio brand.
Mills says of the six “D.O.L.L.s” cast members, “They are all proven talent whom we’ve worked with on productions, marketing and also creative collaborations. That’s a big initiative for me — looking at the way we can evolve our talent relations and work alongside performers and creators to build our respective brands.”
Not far from where we are talking during our set visit, cast member Kay is getting her hair and makeup done in preparation for the day’s shoot. This will be a dialogue-heavy day, which will require her to lie naked on a lab slab as three comically contrasting scientists — played by cis performers Avery Jane, Leana Lovings and Siri Dahl — bicker over how to bring their trio of “trandroids” to life.
Ambling over, Kay shares the origins of the passion that inspired the production now coming to life all around us.
“When I was a little kid, I was obsessed with Bratz dolls,” she reveals. “When Bree interviewed me about transitioning, and where it all had started, I brought up how I was super into dolls. My parents knew there and then that I was going to be a girl eventually.”
Kay says her dad was “super supportive” about her special interest.
“He’s the one that bought me all my Bratz dolls,” she reminisces. “I had like a million of them. My parents supported my doll habit! The fact that Bree listened to me voicing how obsessed I was and created this project is really sweet and super wholesome.”
Kay thinks the unique appeal of the Bratz had something to do with the urban, edgy dolls giving off “both masculine and feminine energy.”
“They were more edgy than Barbie was,” she adds, laughing. “So they’re still super cunty, a little bit slutty, and they played into both energies. I’ve always felt edgier things appeal to me more and those dolls gave off how I perceive myself.”
Maxim joins us next, also fully dolled up and ready to lie on the slab as a soon-to-be-animated trandroid.
“All the girls who played with Bratz dolls instead of Barbies ended up in porn!” she quips. “The Bratz had some more spice to them. I feel like a Bratz doll has a more sensual attitude than just a Barbie girl.”
Maxim adds that she is really looking forward to making her “D.O.L.L.s” character come to life.
“They represent pure femininity, essential, gorgeous feminine energy,” she says. “I’m also really happy to be doing this for Transfixed and Adult Time. I love working for them. It’s just like they say: ‘porn done differently.’ I’m going to get to shine and play my character to the fullest. Bratz!”
The following day’s shoot will be the moment when the D.O.L.L.s come to life.
“I’m going to embody the Brat that I would want myself to be in that moment,” Kay declares in anticipation. “This is the ultimate fantasy for me. Hopefully it becomes a franchise!”
Aura prepares to stand on a literal pedestal where the lead scientist, played by Jane, will exhibit her to her colleagues, extolling the craftsmanship of the statuesque creature her experiments have wrought.
“Being able to show the ‘doll’ side of us as trans women is something I love,” Aura reveals. “We literally all call ourselves dolls, because we’re always primping up or getting ourselves together. For me, that’s the exciting part of this project because a lot of the time the characters that we get to do can be very normal. I like the fantasy of being a D.O.L.L.”
In trans culture, she explains, “doll” means extra, bigger than life, more than human.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen ‘Lifesize,’ the movie with Tyra Banks where she is a life-sized doll and then she becomes a living doll and she’s confused,” Aura says. “She’s like, ‘What is this?’ and she doesn’t know about eating or walking. She’s never moved her legs before! I want to play into the unknown of the world. I’m very confused about where I am — but I am also very sexual, of course.”
Of course, indeed. The feature comedy, which is being released as a single full-length film, involves the D.O.L.L.s becoming exceedingly horny, leading to a full-on orgy with their makers.
“This is such a fun project to work on,” says Adult Time brand ambassador Dahl, who plays a “mad scientist” type. “I truly enjoy getting to play such a wild character, but also I love this set because everyone has the best energy. I just know the audience will be able to tell how much fun we are having making this movie.”
Jane walks up, clad in her lab coat and ready to lead the team of bickering researchers and their lab assistant, played by Mills, to whom — spoiler alert — there may be more than meets the eye. Chiming in, Jane seconds Dahl’s praise for the contagiously fun “Let’s put on an insane sci-fi show about sassy Y2K-era dolls” atmosphere.
“They gave us the story outline but they’re allowing us to improv a lot,” Jane shares. “So we’ve been having a lot of fun with it. This is my favorite type of porn script to do, where you’re allowed to create your own character, go with the flow and bounce off of each other, and make really, really funny moments. People like to laugh when they have boners, you know. Both are happy things!”
Lovings, the final member of the sextet and another Adult Time brand ambassador, joins us next. Her signature IRL glasses have been repurposed for her character, whom she describes as a “shy, awkward, nerdy researcher who collates data.”
“I play one of the scientists developing trandroids, which are D.O.L.L.s or Digitally Optimized Lifelike Ladies,” Lovings explains, although the acronym hilariously goes through different outlandish variations throughout the three-day shoot.
“The D.O.L.L.s are designed specifically for sexual pleasure,” Lovings continues,” blurring the line between the actress explaining the plot and the character pitching the venture to shadowy investors. “When the D.O.L.L.s get a little bit rowdy, we have to make all of them orgasm at the exact same time in order to put them back into their place. As one of the scientists, I am going to have sex with Eva, in order to get her nice and settled back to normal.”
As the crew puts the finishing touches on the set, rearranging disturbing disembodied silicone ears in an aesthetically pleasing manner, Director Smut confides, “I’ve always been interested in the sci-fi world, and consciousness and AI’s rebellion against humanity — I’ve always liked those themes. So the idea of a bunch of sexy D.O.L.L.s kind of taking over and running amok is quite cool to me. Also, I like to be rebellious — rebel scum, unite!”
Before leaving this world of mad scientists and their sex-crazed trandroids, we ask Kay one last question: Does she still have the Bratz dolls that inspired her dreams when she was a kid?
“I do!” she beams. “My dad kept them all from my childhood. And then when I bought my house and moved out, he was like, ‘Do you want to bring your dolls with you?’ And I was like, ‘Oh my God, wait, you have them?’ And he gave me this big trunk, like where you put Christmas decorations, and he had every doll from when I was a kid. So I still have them in my garage — and it says ‘Bratz’ on it. It’s super cute!”
