Nerdy feminist grumble

[ISaySteadyOn]

In John Lewis toy section idly browsing Star Wars toys. I see Han Solo, Chewie, Luke, Yoda, R2, Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron, Finn, Darth Vader, random snow troopers and stormtroopers. Do I see Leia or Rey? No. And no sign they've ever been there at all so not sold out. It's not as if they're important characters after all /sarcasm. Aaaaargh!

Just had to get that out and this felt the best place to do it.

Google #wheresrey
Its bloody shocking and very annoying

Right?! What the actual fuck.

There was a huge uproar about this when they first released the toys. Sad to see they haven't fixed it. Unfortunately it extends beyond star wars. They released a marvel toy that was from an actual scene from the film. The scene involved black widow riding a motorbike and they axed her and made the toy with the male characters instead.

Wow, what a shitty thing to do. Boycott the male toys. I know it is hard, if you're a fan, but you have to hit them where it hurts, and not making money will hurt them more than uproars on twitter.

I find all the decision making behind it fascinating (apart from the off9cial "spoilers" line, which is just ludicrous)
LucasFilm apparently vetoed rey in merchandise as they thought it would alienate their envisaged male target audience. Seems a bit strange when you've just out out a film with one of the str0ngest female characters I've ever seen.
Also apparently hasbro made marketing decisions along gendered lines and didn't want to produce rey toys in case it took consumers from their "girls" line which is Disney princesses.
Just goes to show some aspects of the capitalist interests behind maintaining and driving a gendered market :(

Just remembered. They even had fecking Jar Jar. I don't tend to buy toys much but was waiting for DH and searching for a birthday present.

And yet, apparently, the new Ghostbusters toys are flying off the shelves. So children will want women figures.

I have a 12inch Rey action figure, it's like the titan hero series, so only moves at the hips and shoulders. Good basic figures for younger kids, robust etc. I also got Captain Phasma. So they do exist! It just seems some shops don't bother to stock them.

I also have a black widow action figure of the same sort (we have lots of the basic 12in figures from avengers etc as both ds and DD are mad for them)

My son got the Captain Phasma suit (he's a sucker for shiny things) - he went round telling everyone that Captain Phasma was a girl but that it was OK, anyone can be a storm trooper (he meant himself, wearing what was officially the costume of a woman)!

I don't go in the Disney store much after taking him in there when he was 3 and his brain virtually bluescreened with overload looking at the Disney Cars wall of toys (I had to carry him out, he just stood there stunned), and normally it's very gendered, but the Star wars section was all mixed together in a most pleasing manner - Rey costumes in between Kylo Rey and the 2 colours of storm trooper etc.

Big hero 6 was the one that wound me up. I wouldn't even buy the t-shirt I liked because all the other t-shirts had intentionally missed the female characters.