Tag: toys
President Grinch: Toy Makers Warn Tariffs Will ‘Sharply” Raise Prices

President Grinch: Toy Makers Warn Tariffs Will ‘Sharply” Raise Prices

The Toy Association slammed Trump’s escalating trade war with China on Tuesday, warning that the cost of toys will “sharply increase” if Trump follows through with his promise to increase tariffs on Chinese products to 25 percent.

“The return of a dark tariff cloud threatening the retail communities,” Steve Pasierb, president & CEO of the Toy Association, said in a statement. The tariffs are “nothing more than a tax on American families and their children,” he added, saying Trump’s decision “will lead to projected losses of tens of thousands of U.S. jobs.”

By all indications, the Trump administration will increase tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on Chinese goods starting on Friday. As a result, not only will toys be more expensive, but families will also be forced to pay more for electronics, clothes and shoes.

Hasbro Should Know Courage Has No Gender

Hasbro Should Know Courage Has No Gender

I used to consider women pitifully weak and pathetically delicate. For this, I blame Marvel Comics.

As a boy in the 1960s, I was seldom without my nose in one of that company’s fables. From them, I learned many valuable life lessons:

Always lock the portal to the Negative Zone

Never ignore your spider-sense

Mutants are people, too.

But I also learned that women — “girls,” actually — were like fine china, fragile and decorative. The Avengers, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men all had distaff members, but when the fighting started, the girls usually stood — or were ordered — to the side, if, indeed, they were allowed to go on the mission in the first place.

Yes, occasionally, Marvel Girl would trip a bad guy with her telekinetic powers or the Invisible Girl would throw up a force field to protect her partners. Then they would promptly faint from the exertion. Once revived, they’d start dinner. So the idea of girls in the center of the action would’ve seemed pretty far-fetched to me.

This was a pretty common mindset back in the “Mad Men” era, but you wouldn’t think it’d have much currency post Cagney and Lacey, post Lara Croft, post Ronda Rousey and the Williams sisters. Apparently, some of us think otherwise.

Or, to put that another way: Where’s Rey?

That’s the hashtag of a Twitter campaign that has exploded in recent weeks. The Rey in question is no piece of fine china. Rather, she’s a scavenger and a scrapper; she pilots — and repairs — the iconic Millennium Falcon spaceship, and she’s handy with a lightsaber, too. Rey is the undisputed star of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” which has earned over $1.9 billion worldwide at the box office.

Yet if you buy the new Star Wars-themed Monopoly game, you won’t find her in it. You’ll find a Darth Vader token, and he’s not even in the movie, but no Rey. Ditto the Millennium Falcon playset. Ditto a six-pack of movie figurines.

In response to international (yes, international!) umbrage, a spokesperson for the Hasbro toy company told Entertainment Weekly that the character was omitted because her inclusion would have revealed a key plot point. The company said Rey will be featured in the second wave of toys reaching stores this month.

Which may sound reasonable until you remember the same company has faced the same complaints before. In 2014, bloggers were upset that the character Gamora was segregated out of playsets based on the “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie. Last year, the omission of Black Widow from much of the Avengers merchandise was glaring enough for Mark Ruffalo, a star of the films, to tweet a plea for more Widow toys “for my daughters and nieces.”

He’s right, of course. Toys are the medium by which children act out their aspirations and dreams. My granddaughter, Lena, who is 6, regards herself as a princess. And a superhero. She sees no reason she can’t be both and I want her to have toys that help her maintain that sense of herself as a person to whom all possibilities are open and for whom gender is no barrier. Girls can do anything. That’s something girls need to know.

But it is also something boys need to know, even if — especially if — they are resistant to the idea. Although frankly, I’m not sure if boys really are resistant or if Hasbro just assumes they are.

You hate to think, after all, that boys who understand a hero can be a sentient tree, a green monster or a shaggy, dog-faced furball, would be stymied by the idea that a hero can be a woman. Surely we have done a better job of teaching our sons that courage has no gender.

OK, maybe that’s something we couldn’t be expected to understand when I was a boy a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. But haven’t we all grown up some since then?

NOTE: In a recent column, I wrote of the stricken city of Flint, Mich. that it “doesn’t even have a grocery store.” Several people have since contacted me to dispute that, one of whom even shared a link that seems to indicate that Flint, in fact, has multiple grocery stores. I got my information from Flint Mayor Karen Weaver as quoted by CNN. I’ve tried twice to reach her office to clear up the discrepancy, but have not been able to get through.

(Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.)

Photo: Women are already cosplaying Rey from “Star Wars” — so why didn’t Hasbro release a toy of her? Carsten X/Flickr

Endorse This: Blue State, Red State — Blue Toys, Pink Toys?

Endorse This: Blue State, Red State — Blue Toys, Pink Toys?

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Fox News is now aghast at the latest development in American culture: the Target store chain’s decision to no longer separate children’s toys by gender.

Watch this news clip on a decision by a private corporation in the free market — or as the Fox hosts call it, “the tyranny of the minority.” But make sure to stay to the end, for a refreshing take from a rather interesting guest panelist.

Video viaOutnumbered/Fox News.

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Target Says It Will Remove Gender-Based Labeling In Toy Aisles

Target Says It Will Remove Gender-Based Labeling In Toy Aisles

By Kavita Kumar, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) (TNS)

MINNEAPOLIS — After a tweet of a sign in a Target store that distinguished between “building sets” and “girls’ building sets” created a social media firestorm earlier this summer, the Minneapolis-based retailer said Friday that it will use gender-neutral signage in toys aisles as well as in other areas such as kids’ bedding and in children’s books.

In addition, the company said it will remove the pink, blue, yellow and green paper on the back walls of its toy shelves that indicate a gender and replace it with wood paneling. Target said its teams are identifying other areas to phase out similar signage, but added that gender-based language still makes sense in some departments such as apparel where sizing and fit are different. The changes will be phased in over the next few months.

But the gender references for toys and other products will remain on Target.com, where gender is often used as a search term when people shop online, said Molly Snyder, a Target spokesman.

In a blog post on its corporate website, Target said that in the past, shoppers have said signage by brand, age or gender has helped them find gifts faster. But the company went on to say that shopping preferences change and it has heard loud and clear from customers that signage by gender in some departments is unnecessary.

“We never want guests or their families to feel frustrated or limited by the way things are presented,” the company said.

The news was greeted with delight by Abi Bechtel, the mother in Akron, Ohio, who tweeted the initial picture that sparked the debate back in June.

“That’s fantastic,” she said in a phone interview when she was, coincidentally, heading to Target to do back-to-school shopping for her three sons. “I think it’s great they are paying attention and re-evaluating how they are doing this kind of marketing.”

In June, Bechtel had been shopping with one of her sons who had birthday money to spend when she saw the sign in the aisle that called out “girls’ building sets” apart from just “building sets.”

She tweeted a picture of the signage and wrote “Don’t do this, @Target.” It was retweeted thousands of times.

Bechtel was surprised that her tweet got so much attention.

“I didn’t expect it to become the center of this entire discussion about gender and the way toys are marketed,” she said. “But Caitlyn Jenner’s pictures had just come out. And the Supreme Court’s ruling on same-sex marriage came out soon after. So there was a whole lot of discussion about gender and gender roles anyway. The tweet just landed at the right time.”

Up until a few weeks ago, she had still seen the “girls’ building sets” sign in her local Target in Green, Ohio. But on Friday, when she got to the store, she happily reported that the sign was no longer there.

The “girls’ building sets” sign in Target stores was mostly a reference to a line of products called Lego Friends, which include items such as hair salons and flower stands.

Snyder said the “girls’ building sets” signs were recently taken down across the chain and that the changes to signs in the home and entertainment departments will happen in the next few weeks.

Photo: This is the tweet that changed Target’s policy. Via Abi Bechtel/Twitter