A New Generation of Toys
I went to the toy store the other day, looking for a board game like Scrabble or Taboo, when I somehow got lost and ended up in the Legos Section. But these weren't the Legos I remember growing up with. Most of them were special movie Legos spinoff packages. Harry Potter. Spider-Man. Star Wars.
There was a section for making a Legos "world city" but most of the boxes had pictures of tanks or F-16's or highway patrol and undercover police vans on the boxes.
And that's when I realized, toys aren't just toys. They're cultural communicators. Paradigm creators. Societal indoctrinators. Toys have the culture and the values of the society embedded within them, almost everywhere you look.
Video Games are obvious, with their never-ending war and militarization message, but think about some of the other games and toys out there.
Monopoly, where the goal is to buy up as much property as possible and gouge everyone else around you with the highest prices until they are bankrupt and you "win".
Life, where the goal is to make it to the end of the game with as much money as possible, and where kids are considered an economic "drain" most of the time, but at the end of the game are thought of as a clever "investment", for which you are rewarded monetarily. Every spin of the wheel it seems leads back to thoughts of money. You land on a space where it says your Uncle's House just got destroyed by a Tornado and the first thing you think of is, "How much is that gonna cost?"
Then there's Barbie and Ken sitting in a corvette, with a sticker on the box near Ken's face saying, "Hey, you wanna go for a ride?" And the sticker near Barbie's face saying, "Only if I get to drive."
O.K. So maybe that's a symbol of female empowerment.
But what about Barbie and Ken taking the train? Or riding a bike? Or driving a hybrid? Or a hydrogen-cell vehicle?
Why doesn't Barbie have a solar-heated spa or a solar powered mansion?
Or a nice little windmill in front of the house?
When I asked a store clerk these questions, he said kids probably wouldn't get it. But the fact is, kids are extremely adaptable and highly intelligent. They're only as intelligent as you encourage them to be. The fact is there are six and seven and eight year olds out there that know how to do more with the computer than I do.
The fact is, Barbie may come in a variety of colors these days with all new accessories, but she's still thinking the same old thoughts, living the life of a doll, surrounded by cute little games that don't really encourage thinking, but rather doodling, whittling away the time, getting dressed up and doing her hair, painting her nails, trying on clothes, waiting for Ken to come pick her up so that they can go cruising, driving around in circles until they get tired or maybe just bored and decide to come home, take off their clothes, get into bed, roll around under the sheets for a while and eventually just stare, wide-eyed, up at the ceiling, wondering why every day feels exactly the same, and so unfulfilling.