Friday, May 1, 2015

Cute commercial, but something's missing...

Have you seen Target's new commercial featuring action figures from the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron movie? Cute, right? But even I - not an Avengers expert by any means - noticed something "off" about it right away, in that not all the Avengers were included. Most notably, the female Avenger - Black Widow - is absent. And apparently this is a big deal in the comic book community. As one reader has informed me: "There has been an uproar about this issue for a while on comic book, Marvel, Disney, and movie sites. They believe that no one wants Black Widow toys as girls aren’t interested in toys and boys don’t want a female action figures." 

This is indeed a hot topic; Variety posted an expose asking why Black Widow merchandise is missing, and MSNBC has reported on it. Even my local paper - The San Jose Mercury News - picked up on the story, and now actor Mark Ruffalo (who plays The Hulk) is demanding more Black Widow merchandise.

The bottom line is that Disney and Marvel - for whatever reason - are choosing not to manufacture very much Black Widow merchandise, perhaps because they don't anticipate as much demand for it as for the "boy character" products. However, a Black Widow action figure already exists. And, it's sold at Target. Which circles back to the original question: why didn't The Bullseye include Black Widow in their cute commercial? Target has posted a "behind the scenes look" at the making of the commercial, but it still doesn't answer this question.


3 comments:

Music said...

I think there's some weird issue with thinking that only boys play with Marvel character action figures in general and that girls only want to play with the princess stuff that Disney is always pushing. (They are freaky protective about their princesses - to the extent that Into the Woods had the edge taken out.) And I think boys are okay with female characters when they are a critical part of the action and the mythology. I guarantee you, going back many years, there are plenty of now-grown men who had a Princess Leia (the little figure not the freaky big Darcy-like one). And I myself had her plus Vader, Luke, Obi-wan, C3PO, R2D2. And I don't have brothers. Just me with Star Wars toys and Hotwheeels. So this is just silly all around. What? Is Disney now not going to make female Star Wars characters when the new movie comes out next December?

Critifur said...

Thank you for covering this.

58 Cherries said...

Yes, it bugged me, too. I'm a girl and I like Avenger toys. Okay, maybe girl is pushing it - I'm a grown woman and I like toys - I bought Thor's Nerf hammer at Target. Get with the times, Target!!

58Cherries
http://58cherries.blogspot.com/