Let's say you're a girl. And you've just gone to see How To Train Your Dragon. And you really liked the character Astrid, the girl Viking who is the best dragon fighter in the training class. (Hiccup is better, but he's cheating, he knows Dragons don't like eels, and he knows they are trainable.)
Astrid is pretty, she's strong but feminine, she's smart, everything a little girl would like to be (one hopes.)
So you go to a Walmart with your parents, intending to pick up an Astrid figurine, and maybe even the rest of the characters - both the boys and the dragons...
And what do you see? The only character not available is Astrid!
Well, you decide maybe you'll get an Astrid t-shirt. You can't even do that. But there is a T-shirt with brother and sister Vikings Tuffnut and Ruffnut. (Ruffnut being the girl.) Tuffnut has his sister in a headlock and appears to be giving her head an Indian burn. The text on the T-shirt? "Only the strong can join!"
So what is this saying - "hey girls, don't you dare try to get involved in baseball, football, fencing, playing with us guys when we play "How to train your dragon," because you're not strong enough?
I find this all infuriating. It reminds me of a few years ago, when the last Pirates of the Caribbean came out, and all the toys that accompanied. There was a series of notebooks, with Jack Sparrow and WIll Turner. But Elizabeth Swann, in her really, really cool Chinese armour outfit? No - she doesn't appear in the series at all!
Having said that, I've just checked Amazon and there are a couple of Elizabeth Swann action figures. So that's something at least.
Nevertheless, back to the notebooks. I like buying notebooks, and what I'd really like to do is buy notebooks with female role models on them. And you can get Wonder Woman covers, but that's it. There's a Batwoman, Batgirl, The Invisible Girl, Black Widow...plenty of female characters they could choose, but they don't. It's Batman, Superman, a variety of other characters, but only Wonder Woman for the girls.
But for the younger movie-going audience, for the 4 - 8 age group that probably loves How To Train Your Dragon, there's no Astrid to be found.
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This also infuriates me. The same thing happened with Avatar: The Last Airbender, a phenomenal cartoon series with many strong female characters. Heck, of the 5 main characters, 2 are girls. Of the villains, 3 are girls! And yet, not a single girl figure in the whole line. There are random male guard no-name character figures. There is no Katara, Toph, Azula, or anyone of female gender.
ReplyDeleteIt's am embarrassment, really, and it lost me as a customer. I would have bought every character if I could, but without the possibility of getting the girls, I avoided the line entirely.
Such a shame.
My son loves everything about HTTYD and asked for an Astrid character immediately (after Hiccup). I had to make a custom costume for one of his small generic girl play characters that had blond hair. Turned out pretty good actually, but it would have been nice to have one that actually looks like the one in the movie.
ReplyDeleteTHey have now released an Astrid figure. They also have ruffnut so maybe tuffnut will be released too.
ReplyDeleteWhere can you buy the newly released Astrid figure? My little sisters love the movie and they have been begging for one for a long time. It's so incredibly stupid that they didn't release one right away! You'd think the movie studios would realize that both girls and boys would like the movie. It's like assuming that only boys like Lord of the Rings! Stupid.
ReplyDeleteThe movie is my daughter's favorite movie. When I found that they made toys, we immediately wanted to get all of them. I am upset that there is not an Astrid figure also. We are going to get the Hiccup for now and hope that they Astrid becomes available sometime soon. They have all of the dragons available, they should have all of the riders for the dragons available.
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ReplyDeleteNow the second movie is out and my 5 year old daughter really wants an Astrid action figure to go with her Stormfly dragon (which she picked because Astrid rides her). What gives? The blog post is on page 1 of a google search for "Astrid action figure" - hopefully someone is paying attention who can move on this missed opportunity.
ReplyDeleteWe are looking for Astrid as well. My 2.5 year old daughter is obsessed! I would like to be able to encourage her to like non princess characters but it's so hard to find a toy. The only ones we've found have been $50 plus on eBay and amazon. Sure hope they come out with something!
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