It’s been three days of straight rain starting out Winter Break. These books are helping us get through:
Imogen: The Mother of Modernism and Three Boys
I think this book just came out. In any case, I saw it for the first time a couple days ago, and I love it.
Imogen is the real life story of the great photographer, Imogen Cunningham. What I love most about this book is that it shows the challenge of being and artist and a mother and how that challenge was not only overcome but used to create art. Reading this book made me think of a post I wrote some time ago: Why aren’t there more women artists? The theory I wrote about– and that this book shows– is that in order to create, if you’re a mom as well, you need to be healthy as possible. The tortured, romanticized Marlboro Man, separated from the rest of life, doesn’t apply. This book shows all that beautifully.
Reel Girl rates Imogen: The Mother of Modernism and Three Boys ***HHH***
The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything
My daughters adore this story about a woman who goes off by herself in the woods to gather herbs, spices, nuts, and seeds.
When she starts back home, she is followed by a pair of shoes. Not freaked out one bit by shoes without feet in them, the woman says: “Get out of my way you two big shoes! I’m not afraid of you!” A pair of pants is added, a shirt, and on and on, each with a different movement: the shoes go clomp, clomp; the pants go wiggle, wiggle, the shirt goes shake, shake. You get the idea.
So my confession here is that I have a hard time with repetition. It gets on my nerves. Goldilocks is an absolute nightmare for me. I get so bored reading the same thing over and over, knowing more of the same is to come. But repetition is in so many stories for kids because they love it; it helps them learn, too. My three daughters get so excited when they know what’s coming next. They call out all the sounds with huge grins on their faces. I love the old lady, so this book works for us.
Reel Girl rates The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything ***HHH***
Zita, the Spacegirl
This graphic novel features one of the few female superheroes. Zita is very cool.
This epic describes Zita’s journey from earth to another world, all to rescue her friend, Joseph. This story features monsters, magicians, and all kinds of scary space creatures. My only issue is that most (all?) of the other characters in this story appear to be male. Unfortunately, that gender division– when the female gets to be the protagonist, she is surrounded by males– is all too common in kids media. Still, I cannot wait to see the movie. I wish someone would make it.
My daughter is home sick today, and we got under a blanket, lit a fire, and watched “Secret of Kells.” Wow. Besides Miyazaki, I don’t think I I have ever seen an animated film so beautiful. The colors and the patterns are mesmerizing. Not only is this film drop-dead gorgeous, but it features one of the coolest female characters to grace animation. If that’s not enough to gush over, that female character, not the protagonist, is the one on the posters and DVD cover. (On Google, there is an alternative cover featuring the protagonist, Brendan, but I’ve never seen that version off the internet.)
“Secret of Kells” came out before my blog, back in 2009 when I still rented DVDs. The guy at the store recommended it to me. Remembering that today and because my daughter was too sick to argue with any movie choice of mine (i.e. one she’d never heard of) we watched “Kells.” As the film went on, I fell in love with it but also remembered why it slipped off my radar.
The story is about how the famed Book of Kells came to be. The narrative revolves around monks and monasteries. You can’t get a much more exclusively male as far as settings go than that. Today, as a couple years ago, I was impressed with the diversity of the monks. They are all body types, (rectangles and circles); they are old and young; they are varied ethnicities, and they are all male.
Brendan, our hero, is an apprentice monk (I’m sure there is a better term for that.) He is the protagonist of the movie and the narrative follows the traditional quest myth pattern. Brendan goes into the forbidden forest to search for some special berries that will make green ink that an old monk needs for the book. In the forest, Brendan runs into a pack of wolves. He is rescued by the brave fairy, Ainsling when she shouts: “What are you doing in my forest?”
Ainsling has me with that opening line. I love how territorial and confident she is. Her magic and familiarity with the forest is evident throughout her scenes. When Brendan sees the berry tree swarmed with bees, Ainsling assures him: “Don’t worry, I told them not to sting you.”
Not only can Ainlsing talk to and control animals, she can climb the tallest trees. She is totally at home in the forest and a protector of it. She is great looking, with long, white hair, bushy-black eyebrows, and huge green eyes.
Ainsling is wonderful, but she is not in the movie nearly enough. I remembered today that the last time I watched “Kells,” her absence annoyed me. This time, immersed for three years in animation, I know how rare a character like Ainsling is, and how rare it is to see a cross-gender friensship like hers and Brendan’s. I still wish she was in the movie more, but I really love this film.
Are you looking for a Middle Grade book that will magically transport your child and you to a different time and place?
I just finished reading Leyla, The Black Tulip to my daughters ages 6 and 9. Wow. We read this book in just one day. You know how sometimes you are reading to your kids and you’re so bored with the story, you want to scratch your eyes out? (If you think that’s an exaggeration, you’ve never been a victim of the endless Rainbow Magic series.) Leyla had us all hooked, and I’m 43, from page one until the end. When we took a reading break, I found my 9 yr old sequestered behind a chair, secretly reading ahead.
The narrative takes place in the 1700s. It is the story of a twelve year old Turkish girl who, after her father doesn’t return from war, sells herself into marriage so that her family won’t starve. On a ship to Istanbul, from the horrible conditions and whispers of other girls, Leyla realizes that she has, in fact, sold herself into slavery.
By using her wits and her talents, Leyla is able to avoid the worse fate and ends up tending the gardens of the Padishah’s harem at his palace in Istanbul. When Leyla passes the “gates of felicity” into the harem, we enter a different world.
Reading this book, my daughters and I leaned all about Turkey, Istanbul, the clothing, the food, the architecture, religion and traditions. We learned Turkish words and about the history of the Ottoman empire, all in a way that was integrated with the story and completely engrossing for all of us.
Not only all that, but Leylais the story of a brave girl who saves her family and discovers her destiny. It is about the meaning of love, freedom, and art.
Leyla is my first venture into The American Girl series. This one is one of eight books of the Girls of Many Lands. The only reason I knew of this book is because I was lucky enough to meet the writer, Alev Croutier, at a party. When I told her that I was writing a MG book, she told me about Leyla. I since learned that Croutier is the only female novelist from Turkey to be published extensively worldwide. Her books have been translated into 21 languages. She is best known for her international best-seller: Harem, the World Behind the Veil. Here she is with my daughter, Alice.
Like many American Girl books, Leyla comes with a doll. Leyla is fascinating to look at. Her expression is so thoughtful, you can see how smart she is.
The details of the doll are amazing, replicating the description in the narrative exactly, from the pearls woven into her braids, to her earrings and slippers.
It’s hard to believe that the other books in the series are as good as this one, but I will be finding out for sure.
George and Martha: The Complete Stories of Two Best Friends
The George and Martha series is practically perfect. The characters are great, smart, compassionate, and real. Their friendship is magical and special; there is nothing saccharine about this pair. The stories are beautifully illustrated and as short and poetic as haikus.
Of course, I love that the entire series is based on a cross-gender friendship; it’s impossible to label this series for girls or for boys.
As with most books that feature a character of each gender in the title, George comes first. This annoys me. If this sequence happened once in a while, or even half the time, it would be no big deal, but the consistency of this pattern in kidlit is quite amazing.
Reel Girl rates George and Martha ***HH***
A Bargain for Frances
I named my first daughter Lucy after the heroine from Narnia, my second Alice after you know who, and I almost named my third Frances. I didn’t because Frances doesn’t hold the iconic stature in my imagination as the other two (no one did except for Dorothy, but because that isn’t one of my favorite names, I went with Rose.) But I will always love Frances.
The entire series is great, but Bargain is my favorite. Thelma, Frances’s frenemy does some serious mean plotting, but Frances uses smarts to get her back. The only issue with this story is that young kids won’t get it. It takes some sophistication to keep up with Frances’s revenge. One thing I love about this story is how it shows the high-level strategies going on behind an “innocent” tea party game.
Other books are great to see how Frances copes with her little sister, Gloria, and also to witness the cross gender friendship between Frances and Albert.
If you have a kid who loves to make up songs, this is the perfect book for him.
Reel Girl rates A Bargain for Frances ***HHH***
Madeline
Madeline is one of the absolute best children’s books of all time. Madeline’s spirit is remarkable. She’s not afraid of mice or tigers or teetering on a bridge over the Seine. When she gets her appendix out, she proudly bares her scar. And when you read the book, you get to take a trip through the most beautiful places in Paris. You can’t beat that.
My daughter and I have a favorite song on Red: “All Too Well.” I think it’s about Jake Gylenhaal, clues being: reference to sister, plaid shirt, he’s close to his mom, Taylor had Thanksgiving with his family at Maggie G.’s house and that’s scarf season, right?
Whatever you think about Swift, and I’m a fan, she’s great with lyrics. Some lines from “Well” I really like “you called me up again just to break me like a promise”…”Cause here we are again on that little town street, You almost ran the red cause you were looking over at me” (Can totally picture that) and finally “Time won’t fly it’s like I’m paralyzed by it.”
Swift is a talented story-teller. I recommend the whole CD.
“All Too Well”
I walked through the door with you
The air was cold but something ’bout it felt like home somehow and I
Left my scarf there at your sister’s house
And you still got it in your drawer even now
Oh, your sweet disposition
And my wide-eyed gaze
We’re singing in a car getting lost Upstate
The autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place
And I can picture it after all these days
And I know it’s long gone, and that magic´s not here no more
And it might be okay, but I’m not fine at all
Cause here we are again on that little town street
You almost ran the red cause you were looking over at me
Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well
Photo album on the counter
Your cheeks were turning red
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-sized bed
And your mother’s telling stories ’bout you on the t-ball team
You tell me about your past thinking your future was me
And I know it’s long gone, and there was nothing else I could do
And I forget about you long enough to forget why I needed to
Cause here we are again in the middle of the night
We’re dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light
Down the stairs, I was there, I remember it all too well
Yeah
And maybe we got lost in translation
Maybe I asked for too much
But maybe this thing was a masterpiece
´til you tore it all up
Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well
Hey you called me up again just to break me like a promise
So casually cruel in the name of being honest
I’m a crumbled up piece of paper lying here
Cause I remember it all all all too well
Time won’t fly it’s like I’m paralyzed by it
I´d like to be my old self again
But I’m still trying to find it
After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own
Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone
But you keep my old scarf from that very first week
Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me
You can’t get rid of it, cause you remember it all too well Yeah
Cause there we are again when I loved you so
Back before you lost the one real thing you’ve ever known
It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well
Wind in my hair, you were there, you remember it all
Down the stairs, you were there, you remember it all
It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well
I LOVE TowardTheStars.com so much, I interviewed the founder, Ines Almeida.
The pics I posted below include images of girls b/c that is what Reel Girl is about, and I love collecting these images. Check out Merida’s expression, how cool is she? And in all the Merida dolls, I never saw this one before. That’s why I love TowardTheStars, Ines culls through everything and finds the best. My oldest daughter is also into detectives and spies, so I posted some of those images, and a few other toys/ games that I’m buying. So this is my personal list. TowardTheStars has all kinds of great toys and products for kids.
Why did you start TowardTheStars?
I have an engineering degree in Computer Science for all of my life I have been part of male-dominated environments where I was a minority. My career progressed from engineering to management and executive roles and during this journey I was confronted with the gender biases from others and with my own limiting beliefs that sometimes stopped me from voicing my opinions or applying for a particular role.
As I started coaching my female colleagues, I found out that we shared a lot of common patterns: we struggled with the lack of female role models, and we were trying to overcome the “fairy tale syndrome”, a need to be perfect, congenial and at the same time highly effective. This left little space for taking healthy risks and for being audacious.
Six years ago a little girl came into my life, Ally, she was 2.5 years-old at the time. As I spent more time with her and started to look at the world through her eyes and started experiencing the messages she was getting all day long from society, toys, media and marketing, I started becoming more uncomfortable with what I was experiencing. I was looking at the root cause for all my own limiting beliefs; I was looking at the reason why my colleagues struggled to speak up, why women were risk-averse, why girls don’t pursue science, engineering, technology, math, sports and leadership.
Ally was surrounded by toys, books and media that were constantly telling her that her worth came from her external appearance. Everything related to science, maths, leadership, risk taking, audacity, sports seemed to be missing from products targeted to girls.
I decided to do something about it and started to raise awareness with parents and educators via social media. I created my own ipad app with empowering stories for girls 7Wonderlicious, I created a small website with a list of empowering books for girls and another focused on short youtube videos with all the PSAs and documentaries I could find about gender stereotyping and sexualisation of girls, it was all cobbled together very quickly. My community grew to 100,000 people online across several social media channels. This year I decided to leave my corporate executive role in IT to launch TowardTheStars a global online marketplace for empowering gifts for girls. It is a natural progression and I am now pulling together all the work achieved previously into one single site and committing all my time to this worthy cause that I am so passionate about.
What are your most popular items?
We have a couple of small clothing businesses with empowering messages that are doing extremely well turning over close to 1000 dollars in the first month.
Products that support charitable causes are also very popular, people love to know that by buying a gift they are helping to improve the lives of girls somewhere in the world. We have fair trade gifts that are handmade by Indigenous communities in Africa and Australia for example.
Of course my book site (now fully integrated with TowardTheStars) is also extremely popular, people love to discover books with young bold female protagonists. I also spent years compiling top quality resources for parents, our parenting books are a huge hit, parents are always very grateful and enthusiastic when they discover that there is expert advice in book form that will help them counter stereotypes, sexualisation, body image issues etc.
Do you mostly support small businesses?
My goal with TowardTheStars is to create a venue for parents, educators, businesses, independent producers and not for profits to come together to discover new innovative ways to put an end to the stereotypes that are so prevalent in our society and in products targeted at children. I strongly believe that small businesses, artists and craftspeople are central to this movement because until we create great alternatives we are stuck with media and toys that belong in the middle ages.
This is why I invested in developing a true multisided marketplace where people can setup their shop in a few minutes and list their items directly on the site. This was a huge software development project but now the movement can grow organically. New independent producers join every day. It is a real pleasure to wake up every morning and discover new delightful items listed on the site. This girl empowerment intension box was listed last week for example, I was delighted to discover Ann’s work for the first time because she found TowardTheStars and decided to join us.
TowardTheStars will always give more visibility, priority and support to small businesses; I consider them my partners in crime and will do anything within my reach to make them successful. These are the people that welcomed me into the community two years ago and inspired me to create this venue.
TowardTheStars also provides products from larger businesses via our affiliate model with Amazon.com. We do this for the following of reasons:
To give access to parents and educators to our growing list of empowering books that was created more than 2.5 years ago. We want to ensure our amazing authors are represented within our community. I am privileged to be able to call some of these authors and experts my friends, many have supported this project from its inception.
To ensure that our community has access to products related to STEM that are less likely to be produced by small businesses.
To ensure our community has access to good alternatives being created by the large corporations. Great movies like Brave by Pixar, series like Doc McStuffins by Disney or anything from Studio Ghibli.
By providing a comprehensive range of products that counter stereotypes and/or are gender neutral we keep our community coming back to the site, which of course will benefit our small businesses too.
How does a business join your site? What are you looking for?
As soon as they register and login they are able to create their own shop and list their items, it is very user friendly and a business can setup shop in just a few minutes. Of course all items must comply with the strict guidelines that we put together with the help of some of the top child development experts in the world. This site will remain free of sexualisation and stereotypes. I review all listed products myself.
This video gives an excellent summary of what we are looking for.
My hope and dream is that this movement will inspire many others to innovate and produce great stereotype free products. I am already quite impressed with the level of conversation between buyers and sellers. The community is keen to provide feedback and our small business quickly respond to the desires and feedback of the parents and educators. Several of our businesses have already adapted/evolved their products based on feedback. We had a number of awesome t-shirts listed on the site with really great empowering designs and quotes but they were only available in pink initially, after some feedback from the community our sellers were happy to provide new colour options.
What are your future plans for TowardTheStars?
Continue to provide great resources and options to parents and educators looking for media and toys for their children;
Continue to support and engage small businesses and independent producers, inspiring them to innovate and produce outstanding items;
Do as much as I can to drive visibility to the site and promote the great work of our businesses, make them successful;
Expand our community functionality on the website to enable real conversations and ideas to emerge.
Get help! This project is growing fast. I am looking to expand my team as I am literally working night and day. I barely get any sleep. I am tired but very happy!
There is a lot to love and admire about “Wreck-It Ralph.” In many ways, both conspicuously and more subversively, the movie challenges gender stereotypes. That said, the gender matrix– a sexist framework that dominates animated films made for children– remains intact. Watching “Wreck-It Ralph,” for me, is like reading the Greek Myths; there are strong, complex females to admire but they are only permitted to demonstrate their power within a firmly established patriarchy.
Vanellope von Schweetz is such a cool Minority Feisty. She is smart, funny, daring, talented, compassionate, and vulnerable. She kicks ass but also has a huge heart. Vanellope is voiced by one of my favorite comedians, Sarah Silverman, and let’s just say, those two have a lot in common. Icing on the cake: Vanellope saves Ralph’s life with her speed and smarts. The cross-gender friendship between Vanellope and Ralph is the heart of the movie.
Vanellope is not the only Minority Feisty to love in “Ralph.” Sargeant Calhoun, voiced by Jane Lynch, also plays a complex and cool role. She is a fierce military woman but also passionate with a strong moral fiber.
A third Minority Feisty is Moppet Girl who hangs out at the arcade. Though her gender is a minority in the arcade crowd (I know, I know, that’s how it is is the “real world”) she is there and delivers the key line in the plot. Moppet Girl tells the arcade owner that the Fix-It Felix game is broken. She is also the character who provides the plot bookend, giving a fist bump to Vanellope at the end of the movie when she returns to her rightful position as ruler. It is a rare scene in animation to see two females interacting with each other, expressing power and victory. To put that scene in perspective, the awesome Minority Feisty of “Puss in Boots,” Kitty Softpaws, never meets any of the other 4 females in the movie.
More coolness: One of the crowd scenes– in Vanellope’s game, Sugar Rush– is female dominated. The trio of girls who actually get to speak in that crowd are a stereotype, the trifecta, of mean girls: one bitchy leader flanked by a pair of followers (as seen in “Mean Girls,” “Heathers” “Never Been Kissed,” and many more “chick flicks”.)
But still, females dominating a crowd scene– a crowd scene of race car drivers, no less– is nothing to sneeze at. Those cars may be made out of cookies and candy, the drivers may have names like Taffyta, reminiscent of “My Little Pony” but, still, progress noted.
There are still more depictions of female power in “Ralph.” A few weeks ago, I posted about “riding bitch:” how whether a female in kidworld is on a magic carpet (“Aladdin”) a dragon (“How to Train Your Dragon”) or a hippogriff (Harry Potter), she’s is almost always found behind the male. The message is: the boy leads, the girl is along for the ride. Not in this movie. In “Wreck-It Ralph” Sargeant Calhoun piloted some kind of motorized, flying surfboard and a space ship while Fix-it Felix rode shotgun. Not only was Felix in the passenger seat, but he gazed, admiringly at Calhoun as he watched her do her stuff. Calhoun was shown as attractive and powerful simultaneously. That, my friend, is almost never depicted. Vanellope, herself, becomes a race car driver. She is also shown in the driver’s seat with Ralph behind her. Ralph does teach her how to drive (when he doesn’t know how either) but her skills surpass his and he is shown admiring her for her talent. (I cannot find images on the web of Calhoun piloting with Fix-It Felix by her side or Vanellope driving with Ralph in the back. If you do, please send me the link.)
But here’s the gender matrix. Even breaking all these sexist barriers, Ralph is clearly the protagonist. The movie is named for him. He’s the hero. Fix-It Felix is the “good guy” to Ralph’s “bad guy.” The real bad guy, the villain of the movie, Turbo, is also male. Turbo masquerades as King Candy but when Vanellope is restored to her rightful role as ruler, she is “princess,” not “queen.” In an often used cliche in children’s movies trying to straddle the princess-empowerment image, Vanellope tears off her puffy, pink dress. Later, in the movie, when she has to wear the dress to attend a wedding, she is uncomfortable and scratches her neck. (I actually appreciated that detail much more than the overused “rip off your princess-dress/ corset” cliche. Another awesome factor: the toys from the movie. As far as I can see, the Vanellope figure is shown in her regular clothes or driving her car, not wearing the princess outfit she hates in the movie, which is, unfortunately, how Disney sells Mulan.)
The Bad Guy Anon meetings were hilarious and creative. I was cracking up watching them but these scenes fortify the sexist matrix.
The whole thesis of the movie is about being a bad “guy.” There was only one female in the bad “guy” group and she didn’t get a single line. It is mostly that cast of characters that made the poster that is all over San Francisco.
The bad female is not on this poster, nor is Vanellope, Calhoun, and Moppet Girl. When I posted earlier about the sexist poster, “Wreck-It Ralph” fans responded with hundreds of angry comments on Reel Girl and all over the web. Their first complaint was that the movie features strong female characters. It does. But the male is still the lead. That is what this poster clearly shows. That is why the poster was created to look this way and why the film is titled for Ralph.
Also, the poster is its own media. Even if you don’t see the movie, your kids see the poster on buses and looming over them on the sides of buildings. And again, if 50% of posters around town featured females, there would be no problem with “Wreck-It Ralph.” But, “Wreck it Ralph” fits a pattern, echoed and repeated, where males star and females are sidelined or missing.
Commenters on that blog post also told me the movie is called “Sugar Rush” in Japan. I think that’s pretty cool, but it’s still not called “The Racer, Vanellope” and it’s the U.S. version that sets the cultural standards here. Also, once again, Ralph narrates, the movie is Ralph’s story. Vanellope is his friend.
Why is the gender of the protagonist so crucial? We are all the heroes in our own lives. Again and again, with these films, girls see that there is a limit, a ceiling, to their potential, and it is marked with a male. No matter how important they are or how big a role they get to play, there is a guy who gets more.
Reel Girl rates “Wreck-It Ralph ***HH*** Take your kids to see this movie!
Update: A commenter tells me one of the 3 mean girls is, in fact, a boy. The one on the left. Beggars can’t be choosers, and I claimed claimed RF in spite of evil ways, but she is a he.
Stanford educated engineer, Debbie Sterling, was always bothered by how few women were in her program. (Of 181 students in her program, she was the lone female.) It’s not that she didn’t understand why the gender gap existed. She related. As a child, her parents didn’t play LEGO or Lincoln Logs with her. It never occurred to them– or to her– to encourage exploration in building toys. Sterling didn’t get interested in engineering until high school. Now, she’s found a way to get more girls into building earlier. And guess what? Her tactic doesn’t involve turning a toy pink.
Sterling created Goldieblox. She describes it as “a book and a construction toy combined. It stars Goldie, the girl inventor and her motley crew of friends who go on adventures and solve problems by building simple machines.”
One thing I LOVE about this toy is that Sterling created a narrative with a female protagonist around the activity of building. While I don’t necessarily agree with her reason for this tactic (“Boys like to build, girls like to read”) I do think that there are not enough stories starring females that revolve around action, adventure, and building. Most action toys– Batman, Star Wars figures, Superman on and on– have stories that go with them. If you gave a kid a Darth Vader figure without a billion dollar marketing movie machine, let’s just say that toy wouldn’t sell so well. While there is no Goldieblox blockbuster in theaters, helping children to create a story around a character is key to inciting interest and play. I create stories in order to get my kids dressed in the morning or into the bath. Narratives are the most powerful tools we have. Sterling uses narrative brilliantly to sell her toy, not only in the product itself but in the video she created to raise the money she needed to get it in production.
Here’s the video she made for Kickstarter. Please watch, it’s so inspiring.
After this went around the web, Sterling surpassed her goal of 5,000 orders. Goldieblox is in production. Not only that, the company has already started receiving orders from toystores. Goldieblox.com was just launched and you can order your toys there.
Sterling says, “The thing is 89% of engineers are male, so we literally live in a man’s world. Yet 50% of the population is female. So if we want to live in a better world, we need girls building these things too, We need girls solving these problems.”
I started Reel Girl just after Christmas almost three years ago, so freaked out by the pile of pink toys my three daughters received, most involving some form of dressing dolls: paper, wooden, plastic, magnetic, tiny, large, soft, and hard. I have to say, this year, with sites like A Mighty Girl’s and Toward the Stars, new toys like Goldieblox, books and DVDs I’ve sought out (Reel Girl recommends) this is the first year since I had children that I am actually excited about Christmas shopping.
I can’t wait until Christmas and my kids get Serafina together with Merida and Katniss, there will be an army of archers.
But, I’m kind of bummed about Hawkgirl.
Is it me or are her breasts seriously distracting?
Her head is cool, her wings are cool, but I don’t know if I can get past that bright yellow cleavage. The whole point of buying these toys is to give kids an alternative so why the torpedo breasts? I get that my kids were not foremost in the toy designer or comic book artist’s mind, but I wish they were. They should be, right? I have 3 girls, but I don’t think I’d be psyched to give this toy to my son either.
But tell me what you think. And what you think a kid would think. Just don’t compare big breasts to big muscles. If you feel tempted, read this post.
Update: So I showed Hawkgirl to my husband: “What do you think of her?” He said: “First she blinds them with her boobs, then she attacks!”
Basically, he thinks she’s fine as long as she’s one of many, diversity is key. He reminded me of a castle the girls had filled with all kinds of magical creatures. Barbie was there, but she was just one of so many different figures. I think I agree. So at this point, it looks like Hawgirl will make it under the tree. I’ll update you on the post-Xmas reaction.
