Tag Archives: Batgirl

Michonne of ‘Walking Dead’ joins our female action figure collection!

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I made a few attempts to watch ‘Walking Dead’ with my husband but I couldn’t take the violence. (I had the same reaction to ‘Game of Thrones’ along with the rape scenes. ‘Mad Men,’ I had to give up as well,  because while I understand the show is about sexism, not sexist, I couldn’t handle Don Draper’s serial cheating. All those shows, I liked– the acting and the storylines– they’re just not for me at this time in my life.) But my husband held strong with ‘Walking Dead’ and became a true fan. He loves that show. So today, while picking up a prescription at Walgreens when I spotted Michonne grimacing at me from the toy aisle, I couldn’t resist buying her as a present.

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You probably know how rare it is to find a female action figure, not to mention a non-white female action figure, without her breasts popping out of her shirt, wearing pants even, just sitting there on a shelf in a store and not hiding out on some obscure internet site. Let’s just say she’s far rarer than the unicorn in fantasy figure world.

Here are some figures I’ve found for my kids to play with. This is my youngest daughter with Catwoman, Serafina Pekkala, Buffy, and Coraline. Coraline is my absolute favorite. I love her blue hair and droll expression. My kids are all fans of the book and movie, though I know some kids get scared of the movie.

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Here are Batgirl, Hawkgirl, Wonder Woman in her invisible plane, another Catwoman on a motorcycle, and team of soccer players.

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Here’s Katniss, Merida, Rue, and Coraline again.

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Though, in theory, I’d rather my kids play with Michonne than Barbie, I wasn’t sure if I planned on letting them near her, when she comes with exotic weapons and also a couple severed heads. But when my daughter heard my husband’s joyful cry after he saw the package, I thought all was lost.

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My concern turned out to be unfounded. Not only did he tell her he’s not sharing, but he’s not even taking her out of the package. He’s worse than the evil dad in “The Lego Movie,” pre-epiphany.

(If you’re looking for any of these toys, I found quite a few on the website Toward the Stars.)

Kids want to see heroic, female protagonists

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Yesterday, I posted about A Mighty Girl’s news that kids’ underwear with female superheroes on it sold out. I also posted about a dad shopping with his 5 year old daughter who complained about the lack of cool female characters on clothing.

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He bought his daughter boy underwear. A commenter expressed the same frustration: her daughter is fan of Spider-Man and she started a petition to get girl underwear designs integrated with boy underwear. I signed this and I hope you do too, but I want to recognize the deeper issue here and make sure this info isn’t misconstrued into: See, girls like boy characters, so let’s just keep making them and let girls go missing.

All kids want cool characters. They want to see exciting narratives where heroes take risks, make choices, and act.

Why is there no Spider-Girl movie and 5 movies about Spider-Man? Where is Spider-Woman? Why are there 7 Batman movies while Batgirl, like Supergirl, is practically invisible? And why, for God’s sake, are we still waiting for a major release of a Wonder Woman movie in theaters? Not to mention multiple sequels?

I read this on Pigtail Pals Facebook page, Melissa Wardy’s talk with her daughter, the Original Pigtail Pal.

“Mom? Every time I watch that Spider Man movie I can see there are no girls in it. I get really mad! I just don’t get why there can’t be more girls in it.” -7yo Original Pigtail Pal Amelia, girl and Spider Man fan
“I think it is really important that you noticed that. There should be and easily could be more girls in it. How could we change that?” -Me
“Oh. Oh ho ho. We’ll just show them what girl super heroes look like.” -OPP
“Maybe that could help them have more balance with girls.” -Me
“Yeah, they need more bad ass girls.” -OPP
“Uh no, I said ‘balance’.” -Me
“I know. I said ‘bad ass’.” -OPP

Hollywood and Target, are you listening?

 

More cool female action figures

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I tore these cool women away from my kids long enough to get them photographed. My husband took the pictures.

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So here we have soccer players (they come with a ball they can kick), Catwoman with her whip and motorcycle, Batgirl, Wonder Woman with her plane, Hawkgirl, and Princess Leia.

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Next we have Coraline (who you’ve seen in an earlier post) Katniss and Merida (who were not Christmas presents but wanted to join the party) and Rue from the Hunger Games.

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Catwoman, Serafina Pekkala, Lyra Silvertongue, Black Widow, Wonder Woman (already missing her laso) and another Batgirl

All figures except for Merida and Katniss were found on A Mighty Girl or Toward the Stars. That little Wonder Woman on A Mighty Girl’s promo was the one who started me on my shopping spree.

Cool collection of Halloween costumes for girls (and boys)

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Tired of sexed-up, “cute,” and endless princesses and rainbow fairies marketed to your daughters on Halloween?

A Mighty Girl has put together a great collection of awesome costumes.

My three year old is super- psyched to be Batgirl. We actually own this, but I bought a new one because ours is worn, ripped,  and missing parts.

(Of course, potential Batgirl enthusiasts would be helped along if there were multiple Batgirl movies and derivative toys, games, and clothing. As is stands now, most kids haven’t heard of her, though her existence makes perfect sense to a three year old. Sadly, an eight year old, not so much.)