I get what you’re saying, but I think it’s a leap to make that assumption. Perhaps their female designers don’t usually work on action figures–and they hired another team to come in specific to these. Either way, there’s not enough info here to explain what’s going on exactly. Just that they went out of their way to make sure women made design decisions.
I don’t. Honestly, my sister and brother and I grew up playing with Lego and Breyer action figures (ex1, ex2). Any time my sister got barbies for birthday/christmas/etc, we returned them and replaced them with Breyer sets (trying, when possible, to keep to the theme of the original gift). Eventually, the extended family learned her preference and didn’t have any problem with it. The prices are pretty comparable, too.
I love these. I would have played with these SO HARD as a kid. I was really into She-Ra, but in retrospect the design of those figures were terrible.
These are cartoony and exaggerated in a good way. I hope this trend continues.
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Right. The standard argument against the way our comic books are designed is that they’re ALL fantasy. But boys GET power fantasy and girls ARE sexual fantasy. Both are for the boys. These to me feel like a little girl’s power fantasy: slim, strong, and pretty, while being reasonably dressed to kick ass.
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Perhaps their female designers don’t usually work on action figures
In other words, they only have male designers working on action figures which doesn’t negate my concern. This is how we get situations where Mattel releases an Iron Man figure riding Black Widow’s bike. To me, the problem is not how they handled the creation of this one line of toys but the fact that their normal action-figure toy line appears to be made by a relatively homogenous group of designers and so the team designing is assuming a male and most likely white and most likely straight preference for toys, yet action figures and superheroes are hugely popular with kids of all kinds.
Still highly sexualized but now prepubescent!!!
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Why???
You really are confused by everything.
What do you find sexual about them?
Yes, exactly, they seem to strike a good balance that way.
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Despite what someone said earlier all of them except batgirl are wearing heels or platforms of some kind. Their necks, waists and ankles are impossibly thin despite their hips being larger. They have the eyes of two-year-olds despite still having breasts(pick one). Their eyebrows are all exactly the same(plucked). And while I might be picky, all of those combined with the fact that they are all smiling “like good ladies should” seems to make them identical objects rather than individual personalities.
There isn’t a tough one, a strong one, a short one, etc. People seem to think we’re stuck in the eighties where huge boobs are the ideal but the fact is that they are not and each one of these figures (while all having very unique hairstyles) conform exactly to modern beauty standards and fit a tired mold. They all look like supermodel/snowboarders and the fact that their calves are more curvy doesn’t make up for the fact that there is more distance from their crotch to their feet than there is to the top of their head.
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And that’s sexual?
Hell of a Rorschach Test.
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I think it’s interesting. The idea that girls look more at the face/personality of the character. Boys are more interested in physical/muscles.
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I agree that there is a lack of distinct character to their physiques, but I assumed that this is more a lack of imagination or design skill rather than being a sexual quality. OTOH I often find that people’s coding of “sexually available” is more or less arbitrary, which is why I like to understand how people reach such conclusions.
And so not allowed to exaggerate things to make them easily visible at a small scale? Like eyes, and such? Cause you would not be able to see them all that well.
If figures that size were truly proportional you wouldn’t be able to tell they have muscles much less hips.
These are great for cartoon/comic book characters, the look female and are not overly curvy or buxom, and mega props to having outfits that actually look functional.
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I don’t know how you see heels as functional but I’ll give you that they’re a lot better than Bratz dolls.
Yes, having opinions is revealing. You should try it some time.
Let me ask you something: if they enlarge the eyes to make them easier to see, then what’s with the impossibly tiny corset-waist? What’s the rationalization there? I thought the way girls were portrayed in comics was harmful because of unrealistic expectations. You’d have to break some ribs to get a waist that small.
As everyone said before, kind of Bratz-y, kind of anime-y. Reminds me of the controversial Lego Friends for Girls as well.
Looks like fun enough character design IMO, but very generic in context. Does focus-group style marketing always lead to everything copying everything else?
