It's kind of a chicken or the egg situation, though, isn't it? Do companies not market action figures towards girls because the girls are not interested in them, or do girls not have more interest in them because companies rarely market towards them? It seems like when female action figures are offered, like individual figures of
Rey and Captain Phasma, sales are through the roof, yet for some reason prominent female characters are frequently excluded from box sets of action figures.
The studies / retail figures used by toy manufacturers do not support the idea of girls being a significant consumer base for action figures (in general), and its never been that strong. In fact, one study (from USA Toy Experts) suggests that there is a definite
decline in girls' interest in action figures, compared to that of their surveyed mothers memories of their interest at the same age range.
In the case of Rey/Phasma, in
Star Wars action figure consumers, males still make up the vast majority of
Star Wars action figure consumers, which is no different than the figures seen during Kenner's original 1978-86 production of their trilogy-based 3 3/4 inch line, vehicles & playsets. The link in your post:
Richard Gottlieb, from Global Toy Experts, attributed this to a belief in the toy industry that boys won’t play with girl action figures, and that “Star Wars” has always been considered a “boy’s brand.”
...because SW always was a "boy's brand" beyond any doubt. Unlike the situation of superhero-based action figures, for
The Force Awakens, you must zero in on certain facts about sell outs:
- It was a new Star Wars film, so interest in characters would be high, just as in 1999, Toys 'R' Us' pre-release sales of the Darth Maul figure sold out thanks to long lines of consumers forming before the rare midnight opening of the toy retailer.
- Rey was advertised as one of the lead, new characters, so if (for example) her figure was shortpacked in shipments, or under produced, it would be easy for the figure to sell fast. If her figure were mass produced, the sales might've taken a different direction. Next, in keeping with SW toy tradition, Phasma was the new masked villain (more than Ren, since he spends most of the film unmasked), so on appearance alone, there was pre-release interest in her, so again, if she was shortpacked or under produced, that figure would sell out in any case.
Rey's character has been hugely popular with boys and girls. And maybe if boys were presented with more prominent and positive examples of female characters like Rey, there wouldn't be any kind of stigma, whether real or imagined, against playing with them.
So I don't see it as just some throw up your hands and say "That's just the way it is" kind of thing. If you create more prominent and positive female roles, and if you actively market female action figures, then more girls (and boys) will buy them.
It is not a matter of not having more prominent and positive female roles, since many exist on TV and on the big screen. Some female characters are not the kind that will lead to empty pegs at Walmart. That's a fact based purely on some characters having
less appeal than others. You cannot pull the strings of audiences' mind to make that happen in an inorganic fashion.
To the point, there's been a Wonder Woman & Batgirl figure of some kind available in nearly every decade since Ideal toys had the DC license in
1967. By no means were they the only female characters in the 60s, or the 70s (where there was an explosion of new female characters during comics' so-named Bronze Age), and forward, but their high visibility/accessibility never meant every one of the other female characters (aside from Jean Grey and to a lesser degree, She Hulk) were all going to rise to the top in terms of popularity. There's no "equality" in audience interest, and never has been, and toy manufacturers rarely invest in characters their consumer base does not support (in great numbers) in its native source. When the superhero characters are supported, you tend to see numerous action figures based on the characters, such as (for example) DC Direct / Mattel's generations of Batgirl, Wonder Woman and Supergirl figures, and Toy Biz/Marvel Legends' various Jean Grey, Storm, and Invisible Woman figures.
Finally, Black points the finger at the corporate end of Marvel, but do you think their resistance to a female villain (and toy concerns) is
not using data that supports the directive?
