John and I each had a Happy Meal for lunch today. I thought it was interesting that the illustration for the boys' toys is so unfriendly looking. Especially compared with the one for the girls.
This reminds me of the differences between the comic books that many boys enjoy and the ones for girls like me. I like Archie comics and other cheerful fun comics. I don't get the same enjoyment from what I call "testosterone comics". They seem to me to full of angst and bad feelings. Characters frown and grimace while they fight each other.
And don't get me started on those lumpy bulging muscles so many of them have! I should create "Couch Potato Comics" where friendly pudgy characters smile and avoid conflict.
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2 comments:
I worked at a toy store, Miz P. Would you believe that moms who were raised in the 80s believe themselves "entitled" to polite, clean, trouble-free, quiet girls? Especially if they have "suffered enough" under the little monster sons that their husbands got to raise in their own images. No joke. I tried to sell the moms bongos, science sets, erector sets, and other items I saw as gender neutral but creative and fun, but if it was not pink, stinking of vanilla and lavender, and with goofy flowers on the box, it was not feminizing enough to appease these diva-factories. I was scandalized at the moms themselves were generating the gender role definitions for infants as well as teens. They also only bought Disney brand films because they were guaranteed that the Princesses would get EVERYTHING they wanted, and it would require less dialog with their own little princesses when they wanted to know why one must choose between a handsome prince and a fish tail. I chose the fish tale, and I have never looked back.
I think that it is a SUPER idea to create "Couch Potato Comics".
Go for it Carolyn, you can do it.
Marie
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