IAmElemental Action Figures
for Girls were designed to be a positive and fierce re-interpretation
of the traditional female action figure. Their store is currently
taking pre-orders.
As a kid, I had dozens, maybe hundreds of action figure, including practically every G.I. Joe and Star Wars figure ever released in the eighties. Looking back, I'm surprised at just how few of those toys were female characters, and I imagine that, had I been girl, trips to the toy store might have been a good deal more frustrating.
Looking through my own collection (which of course, I am faaar too old to still display in my bedroom), I can't help but reflect that toy manufacturers are even worse at representing the female gender than comic publishers. Not only are female characters under-represented, those that do make it to shelves are often highly over-sexualized.
New Yorkers Dawn Nadeau and Julie Kerwin set out to address this disparity with a line of super powered action figures specifically designed for young girls and funded through a recently successful Kickstarter campaign.
"We set out to design a series of figures with healthier breast, waist
and hip ratios; fierce, strong females worthy of an active,
save-the-world storyline that fosters creativity in kids," the pair stated on their Kickstarter page.
Unlike male superheroes, whose powers come from external sources such as
spider bites, these female action figures find their powers through positive emotional qualities that include
bravery, persistence, enthusiasm, and honesty. "IAmElemental action figures encourage girls to reinvent the superhero
myth by creating their own empowering stories. In the traditional,
male-dominated superhero universe, action figures are endowed with
powers from without (via a spider bite, mutant DNA, or some sort of
"accident"). In the IAmElemental universe, the girl herself is the
superhero - and she has all the superpowers she will ever need already
inside of her."
Unlike many of the female action figures on the market today, these brightly-colored action figures feature a more realistic body shapes and are designed so that they can move their
bodies properly and sit down without splaying their legs.
Read more about the project at Time Magazine.
Bravery
Energy
Enthusiasm
Fear
Honesty
Industry
Persistence
No comments:
Post a Comment