product: toys/games

Nikki L. sent us a link to this fascinating Tickle Me Elmo commercial.  In introduces a new Tickle Me Elmo product, “Tickle Hands.”

The ad takes place on what appears to be an urban street (reminiscent of Sesame Street).  Two of the kids appear white, while the other two look (probably deliberately vaguely) “racial,” maybe Asian and Latino (perhaps biracial).  At the very end of the commercial the kids pose in front of a brick wall with a picture of Elmo graffiti-style.  Two of them look like they’re flashing gang signs and Elmo, no joke, says “Yeahhhhhh Booooy.”  Here’s a screen shot of the moment:

So let’s trace the evolution of the gangster meme.

1.  Government policy strips urban centers of resources, jobs leave (along with useful things like grocery stores), housing prices fall and the poor become concentrated, and those with means move to the suburbs.  With few “above ground” economic options, people turn to “underground” economies.  With only the “underclass” left, politicians (who tend to listen more to those with economic power and cultural clout) continue policies that disinvest in urban communities of color.  Say “goodbye” to things like nice parks and excellent fire protection.

2.  In a world where obeying the rules gets you nowhere fast, violence flourishes.

3.  The suffering and resourcefulness of young black, Latino, and Asian men in these communities appeals to a (mostly) white “mainstream” America for whom depictions of men of color doing violence confirms their beliefs about white superiority and advanced “civilization.”  Hip hop and rap music becomes a huge money maker for music studios and producers (and a handful of men of color).

4.  As hip hop and rap become commodified, they are depoliticized.  The “oppositional consciousness” that once characterized these art forms becomes largely lost.  For the most part, any artist that wants to “make it” has to be and say what producers think that mainstream Americans want them to do and say.

5.  Now depoliticized, being “hard” and “urban” becomes synonymous with being “cool.”  Everyone wants to be cool.

6.  Being “gangster” is appropriated by white suburban youth.

7.  Stripped of any meaning, it filters down to younger and younger kids.

Enter: Tickle Me Elmo “tickle hand” gang signs.

For more examples of this phenomenon, see these advertising images at a shoe store, Beyonce’s House of Dereon clothing line for girls, the marketing for the Alvin and the Chipmunks remake, and these candy “grills.”

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Not too long ago, we posted about Dora the Explorer’s makeover.  Everyone was talking about it and lots of people felt that it signified  a disinterest in strong role models for girls (Dora being one of the only ones out there), in favor of pretty ones.

A recent post at Vintage Ads reminds us that taking strong female characters and subjecting them to trivializing beauty regimes is nothing new.  Enjoy this ad for the Bionic Woman Beauty Salon:

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

We have, of course, posted a number of examples of toys that socialize girls into motherhood and housework (for instance). But this 1960s commercial for the Suzy Homemaker line of toys, sent in by Monica B., is the most comprehensive example I’ve ever seen, including everything from cooking, doing laundry, vacuuming, to looking pretty:

I’m not quite sure why, but I find this commercial really creepy. Maybe it’s the underlying message that you should do housework and be pretty at the same time if you want to be “queen of your home” and, presumably, the housewife everyone else admires and envies.

Alicja W. told me about this Barbie commercial from 1959 (which may be the first Barbie TV commercial, but I’m not positive about that) in which girls are encouraged to identify with, and aspire to, Barbie’s charm and beauty:

It’s not just that Barbie is fun to play with; she’s overtly presented here as a role model for girls, who can dream of someday being “exactly like” her–petite, popular (“at parties she will cast a spell”), and beautiful. And until they can actually become that person, they can “make believe” they’re Barbie. It’s a great example of how toys can be an important part of childhood socialization. In this case, it’s not just a set of behaviors girls were encouraged to mimic (caring for a doll, for instance); the toy is presented as something they should actually aspire to be.

I found these ads for Matchbox via Copyranter.  In them, war toys are sold by situating small boys in realistic, not at all playful, conditions.   The blurring of the lines between pretend and real war is really interesting.  Whereas pretend war could be fun, real war is certainly not so.  And, oddly, the facial expressions and postures of the children in the ads do not suggest that they are having fun at all.  The ads seem to reveal, more than most, how play is also socialization.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

We recently posted about a baby doll pulled from Costco shelves after concerns that it was racist.  Early news stories reported on a black doll called “Lil’ Monkey” and a white doll called “Pretty Panda.”  As the story developed, it became clear that both dolls came in white, black, and Hispanic versions.  It made for an interesting discussion:  (1) Given the history of associating black people with primates, would it have been racist had the doll only came in black monkey and white panda versions?  And (2) given the history of associating black people with primates, was it racist, regardless, to make a black “Lil’ Monkey” doll that potentially triggered and/or effectively ignored this history?

The CBS affiliate in Denver linked to our post and discussion in their story about the controversy…

…which was published under “weird news.”

Screenshot:

I am trying to keep my cool here.

Justification for African slavery was built on an association of black people with primates designed to deny black humanity.  Institutional, social psychological, and symbolic racism is ongoing in the U.S. and profoundly inhibits the life chances of black and brown people.

And yet when people say “hey, this makes me uncomfortable,” they are ridiculed and slotted into “weird news.”

It doesn’t even matter whether the intent or effect of the doll is racist.  Let me say that again: For this discussion, it doesn’t matter whether the intent or effect of the doll is racist.

Concerns about racism are trivialized when raising the question is defined as simply “weird.”  Even more, it is yet another way to deny the humanity of people of color.  When they and their allies raise their voices to weigh in on what representations of blackness are acceptable, they are dismissed like petty children or lunatics.  It is nothing less than a stunning lack of empathy.

If you needed evidence that we are not post-racial… well, there you have it.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

Here’s another collection of images about gender and marketing of various techy things, particularly video games. You can see my other jumbled post of such images here (check out the links at the bottom of that post–I’m not going to reproduce them here).

Danielle F. found a post at bitmob that includes this old ad for Game Boy:

Notice that the presumed user is either a heterosexual male (or, I suppose, a lesbian…but I doubt it). And as we see, the Game Boy is so awesome it’s better than having sex with a woman tied up waiting for you. I hope the unhappy look on her face is because her partner is distracted and not because she doesn’t really want to be tied up.

NEW! Nov ’09 Another vintage example (well, 1987):

A reader who prefers to remain anonymous sent in this image he was forwarded that someone created equating different browsers with women. Again we see that the assumed user is male:

The reader says,

…notice how all the women are described primarily or entirely in terms of sexual attributes, and criticized for whatever ways they fail to be ideal sex partners…Unquestioned assumptions here…that “women” means “people whose purpose in life is to provide you with sex”.  Male gaze much?

I find the Chrome image particularly icky. The equating of IE with “easy” women, who are of course the “first woman [users] tried” (because she’s not relationship material, just for getting started), and the connection to STDs is also classy.

The sender-inner continues,

Like most software companies, mine has an extremely imbalanced male-to-female ratio, maybe something around 90% male, and most of the women are in the marketing and HR departments so the balance is even further skewed among the people who engineer the software.  (Full disclosure: I’m a man.)  I have no way of knowing how prevalent e-mail forwards like this one are among engineers in the software industry, since most of them get passed around under the table.  It makes me wonder what role they might play in perpetuating or reinforcing a “boys-only-club” kind of culture that makes women feel unwelcome, or whether that has an influence on the extreme gender imbalance of my industry.

We got several more submissions of gendered marketing of techy items. Stephanie G. sent us a link to her post at Mother Jones about Sony Ericsson’s attempt to market cell phones to women by making them “diamond” shaped:

The company claims that “structured forms, intricate corners, hidden depths” are trendy. Stephanie points out,

…”depth” refers to a “variety of different shine and matt [sic] finishes,” not tech specs.

The phone has some features that clearly illustrate stereotypes about what women (should) care about:

“The two inch screen’s clever design means that at the touch of a button the screen becomes a mirror, offering a discreet way to make sure you look as good as your mobile phone. It is also the first Sony Ericsson to feature Walk Mate step counter, to help you stay in shape wherever you go. It also has an exclusive fashion interface which automatically updates with zodiac signs and special events throughout the year.”

Liz noted the following about Ubisoft’s series of Nintendo games aimed at girls:

…includes stuff like ‘Imagine Makeup Artist’ and ‘Imagine Wedding Planner.’ Without exception every game is about physical appearance, performance for the purpose of looking pretty, or nurturing/childrearing.

If you haven’t gotten enough yet, Kate M. sent in these examples of “time management games” (what?!?) at Shockwave:

I don’t know what to make of this one:

UPDATE: Reader Shodan says, about Virtual Families and Virtual Villagers,

…in those games, male and female characters can take on dozens of roles, with males able to take on tasks that have been often portrayed as the role of women traditionally (house cleaning, child rearing) and women taking on tasks that are often portrayed as masculine masculine (research, construction).

On the other hand, I found this tip (here):

Stay at Home Moms- Nursing mothers focus all their attention on the baby for two years of game time. They won’t do any other tasks while caring for the baby.

Also this at Codeblower:

Job: Breeder
If you want (once things are progressing and you’ve got a steady food-supply, a hut or two built, and you’re working on unplugging the lagoon) you can task a couple villagers to be “Breeders”. Be advised that this is only a good idea for females. This was another accidental-discovery. I had everybody but “The Runner” set to Breeder (to get the population moving) and shut the game down for a while. I came back to discover that one of the males had decided that Runner would be a good mate — food-production had halted. Needless to say, the two men in the village were immediately tasked with Runner’s duties while the females nursed the infants.

So maybe I’m totally offbase on those two. Or maybe not.

You can also play Create a Mall, Posh Boutique 2, Diaper Dash, or a variety of games about diners, salons, and boutiques. Kate says,

Even the ones that involve you having a successful career (and saving the community!  What a hero!  Nurturing all of us!) don’t start off with you wanting a career – you fall into it by accident, on account of your love for your family/community/cooking/fashion.

Also see: the Sony OMG Lilac Play Station Portable, mom/daughter domesticity in a Nintendo ad, targeting the new Risk to men, and Miss Bimbo.

NEW! (July ’10): Bri A. sent in another example of gendering technology. This is an image from TeamViewer, a program that lets people remotely access your computer. Notice what it says under Info: “This number identifies you. Tell your partner so he can connect to you.” Because only guys would be using this, obviously.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

Associations of black people with monkeys and apes have been used for centuries to make them seem less-than-human and justify hatred and exploitation.  This associations continue to be propagated (e,g., here, here, and here).  This week Costco pulled the black “Lil’ Monkey” baby doll from its shelves, along with its white “Pretty Panda” counterpart, as a result of protests that it was racist.

As you can see, the black doll has on a hat that says “lil’ monkey,” is surrounded by products that have monkeys on them, as well as a stuffed monkey.  A peeled banana points at the child’s mouth.

Here is the white counterpart, the “Pretty Panda” doll:

The manufacturer of the dolls is claiming that there was no intention to be racist.  Specifically, they argued:

We don’t think in that way. We don’t operate in that kind of thinking.

Social psychologists have shown, robustly, that any given member of a society, even those who are the target of negative stereotypes, will hold pre-conscious stereotypical beliefs common in that society.  (If you’d like to test your own unconscious biases, and see aggregate test results of others, I highly recommend Harvard’s Project Implicit.)

The fact that we are all racist already, whether we like it or not, is the point that the manufacturer completely misses.  They do think in that way.  We all do.  Not thinking in that way consciously doesn’t mean that racism didn’t play a role in the manufacturing of a black Lil’ Monkey doll.  In fact, their defense actually makes things worse.  Their refusal to think about racism, in favor of a defensive reaction, is as racist as the doll itself.  We can’t fight racism unless we’re prepared to admit that we hold unconscious biases.

By the way, in my opinion, the proper response should have been: “Oh hell, we messed up bad. You are absolutely right. We are really bleeping sorry,” but with stronger curse words. And also: “Can I say I’m sorry again? In addition to racist, we were profoundly insensitive to centuries of violent hatred… and it is simply not okay.”

UPDATE: Commenters alerted me to alternative media coverage that made it clear that “Pretty Panda” and “Lil’ Monkey” dolls both came in black, white, and “Hispanic”:

I’m not sure why none of the media coverage I came across noted this.

In any case, I think this raises an even more interesting question: Does the history of associating black people with primates, and I will refer you again to this post, actually make any product that does so problematic?  Does the fact that the doll comes in white and Hispanic erase any concerns about the fact that the black doll exists?

As usual, our readers are quick to ask difficult questions and this discussion is already well under way in the comments.  What do you think?

Images from here, here, and here, via Resist Racism.

UPDATE: Comments on this post have been closed.

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Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.