Six-Year-Old Upset By Lack of Female Friendly Avengers Toys

[Flatfrog]

MLP is a perfect example of this, actually. MLP is specifically marketed to little girls. However, a male demographic emerged that enjoyed the show, and as such, began buying the toys as a show of support to Hasbro. This surprised Hasbro to such a big degree that the show was already starting to pander to its new audience by the start of Season 2, and started pushing more types of MLP merchandise out there for fans to gobble up. This succeeded so well for Hasbro that MLP has singlehandedly kept them in the black for the last few years, despite falling sales in almost all of their other franchises.

All right, so why does the same not happen with superhero movies? That does have a significant number of female fans who might be more attracted to it if it had more elements aimed at them. Instead, they're told 'no, this is a boy's thing, get over it'. They can buy into the boys' stuff or fuck off.

The same COULD happen for superheroes, but only if the female demographic is willing and able to show their support for the products that are available. Right now, what this girl and her parents are doing is pretending that the toys don't exist (they do) and refusing to support the market until they do. So....the company is going to ignore her, as they should. Why would they take a risk on a market that hasn't given any indication that it really wants these toys?

No, that's just a crappy argument. (I haven't watched this particular video because it sounds stupid, so these are just points in general) You're saying that if girls hang in long enough, keep buying the boys' toys like good little consumers, eventually Marvel will deign to market to them? Is it not more likely to happen if they make a fuss and say 'we'd love to buy your merchandising if you provide us with something that doesn't exclude us?'

You really don't get a say in what a company sells (unless it's "scandalous" in some fashion) if you're not a customer of that company. Period.

Is that how marketing works? I thought the way it was supposed to work was that companies researched potential consumers, made products and marketed those to those consumers. Since when are we supposed to buy the products *first*?

You realize you just answered your own question of why companies don't invest more money in superheroines, right?

The only two recent movies with female superhero leads have been Catwoman and Elektra, two movies that were almost universally panned by critics and sold poorly at the box office.

Of course no one wants to pour money into female superheroes: they clearly don't do a very good job making movies for these people, and they don't sell very well either.

Oh, I'm quite aware that this is their logic, but that doesn't make it right (Although I don't know why Elektra was so badly received by critics; it was a much better film than Daredevil). The same logic was what kept studios from making comic book movies at all for years after a long string of flops. And I'll bet until Twilight everyone thought you couldn't market supernatural fantasy to girls either. One day someone will take the plunge, make a really good superhero movie with a female protagonist - probably a little-known one, since Wonder Woman seems destined to be in development hell forever and almost certainly will end up a mess. Only then will we be able to see whether the prevailing wisdom is actually correct.

 

[D-Class 198482]

...Are people really complaining that the female characters are 'attractive?'
There's a difference between sexualized and attractive. The most you get of sexualization with comic book characters most of the time is cleavage. Oh noes.
Otherwise, they are just pretty.
Are people suddenly clamoring to have heroines that look like Deadpool without his suit?

 

[Iron Criterion]

No one deserves to be treated like shit, but true equality means, everyone gets treated like shit. Equality means you no longer get special interest groups, or special rights, equality means no chivalry, equality means neither sex is subordinate, but that neither sex gets any sort of courtesy either.

And this is a bad thing because?

Go on, spin me a story; I challenge you.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

In fairness Black Widow is hardly one of the films "big guns". She was certainly a fun character but is nowhere near as iconic as Thor, Cpt. America or Iron Man, each of whom has had one or two movies just for themselves.

 

[s0p0g]

[sub]i think she wants to tell us that it's not fair[/sub]

good job, mommy, get your kid to deliver the message YOU want to get across - now that's what i call good parenting!
really, a toast to her for a job well done - Anita Sarkessian's heritage will live on.
...
......
oy.


seriously though, you don't market (or even produce) the less known characters (i got "who's this Black Widow?" quite often from my friends - nobody needed info on Iron Man or Captian Nationalism/Patriotism/ America or the Hulk, though - not only because of the movies each of them had, but because these are overall better known characters - and THAT'S what you can sell; at least easier than a product you have to raise awareness for beforehand)

 

[Abomination]

It is up to society at large to change its norms, NOT individual companies!

That's pretty much the end of it.

A company is not and should not be under any obligation to change societal norms. A company REACTS to them, it doesn't try to change them.

The very nature of supply and demand is that you supply the demand - you don't supply what might be a demand because someone states there "could" be one. The feminist agenda here wants the company to take a massive risk with the company's money for the feminist movement's benefit with no promise of returns.

They've tried catering to females, it didn't work. It might work but it'll require a lot of restructuring and shifting focus from its primary consumer base - something that seldom has positive results.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

1. I'm sure she thought that little tirade up by herself and was in no way encouraged.

2. Do I complain when Ken doesn't have any weapon accessories? No. These are marketed at boys. Yes, it is a stupid decision because girls would be more than happy to join in that market properly than be incidental to it. But that is the strategy that the toy manufacturers have chosen, whatever their reasons. But I don't think it says anything about gender issues.

-snip-

Then I'm not sure what you ARE trying to argue, because we've already established:

1) That the toys actually do exist and are easily purchased on Amazon or other such sites.
2) That since she didn't know the toys existed, that would suggest that she's either not an actual customer of the toy line or else is significantly ill-informed about products she allegedly buys.
3) That if she's not actually a customer of the toys in question, she really has no right to demand that companies cater to her.
4) That previous attempts to invest in female superheroes as a market have all met with considerable failure, suggesting that the demand simply isn't there.
5) That asking a company to invest millions into a market which (as point 3 states) isn't actually there to begin with is a considerable risk with a low probability of significant returns on that investment, thus making it an unreasonable demand to make in the first place.

So....what exactly do you have left to stand on?

The correct answer, of course, is nothing.

Can I just say...boom, headshot.

 

[Lightknight]

It is up to society at large to change its norms, NOT individual companies!

That's pretty much the end of it.

A company is not and should not be under any obligation to change societal norms. A company REACTS to them, it doesn't try to change them.

The very nature of supply and demand is that you supply the demand - you don't supply what might be a demand because someone states there "could" be one. The feminist agenda here wants the company to take a massive risk with the company's money for the feminist movement's benefit with no promise of returns.

They've tried catering to females, it didn't work. It might work but it'll require a lot of restructuring and shifting focus from its primary consumer base - something that seldom has positive results.

Right, it is good business to expand one's market but while it's easy to say, doing it is quite another problem. There are actual differences, socially and biologically, between men and women. Just offering something or even marketing it appropriately to a demographic does not mean that it'll be liked or accepted.

So while a company may try to broaden their market, and be unsuccessful at it, it is not their responsibility to do that. It isn't their job to waste millions on a project that may not work at all. The genders are evolutionarily wired differently and are socially programmed differently. That doesn't mean that the regular Joe can't think like a Jane or that the regular Jane can't like things a Joe likes. But it does mean that in aggregate we do see different trends in some products. Toys have historically been one of them. Though I suspect that the parents are the consumers there.

 

[ResonanceSD]

"Child wants toy she doesn't have, writers scramble to the headline-cave".


Seriously, it's a 6 year old wanting a toy.