Do female action figures really not sell?

Ok, see, throwing one or two occasionally into a toyline isn't too bad, but if you usually wind up adding any more than that, to most toy companies, that's pretty much signing the death certificate to the "boys" toyline, and making it too "girly".


Even most Hasbro toy lines have ABOUT 2-3 female characters at most, and they usually don't offer them as heavily, due to the fact that- yeah- boys don't want to play with girl characters.


I used to have a few, but I remember when I used to play with other kids, they'd always stick ME with the female character- and might I add I was NOT a very popular kid to hang out with. See if you can figure out the symbolicism here.


Collectors don't have as much of a problem with it, but at times when ya go overboard even THERE, it seems to be a bit of a turnoff( need proof? Check out all the lines of McFarlane figures that had a majority of female figures, and see how well that line did).
 
Now keep in mind I'm a male, so this isn't gender bashing.



Odds are that the guys who drop a girl toy for that reason are actually insecure about their manliness. If one is secure in their sexuallity, they should be allowed to purchase toys whether they're the intended gender or not.

Plus that very reason is a contradiction. Usually a majority of guys in society pass themselves off as tough, yet they're afraid to play with a doll or anything in a girls toyline. And being afraid, according to public perception cries wimpiness does it not?

If you're secure in your masculinity or feminemity, then you should be able to particpate in activites that are typecasted as gender exclusive (Meaning that sports and action movies doesn't make a woman or girl less feminine and neither does watching romance and cooking make a guy man or boy less manly). And I mean manly and feminine in a good way.




Tell me, anything that you watch, read or buy do you do so out of personal enjoyment or do you let your peers make your decisions for you?

If a friend shares an interest in your hobbies, that's great, but your hobbies are suppose to be for you. If thoses you hang out with don't support you interests, then tell them to take their narrowminded views and shove it!

Toylines and tv in general would actually improve greatly if people would tone down the peer pressure (doing away with it would be nice, but toning it down seems more like a possibility).
 
I agree that it just comes down to the company thinking they won't sell. I think a big part of this is working from old logic, since it comes from the time when you had much more clear lines between girls and boys brands. Now however there seems to be more focus on unisex concepts. Look at something like Avatar, which is pretty clearly trying to attract both sexes.

You don't usually see females unless it's aimed at girls or is a collector friendly line with an established older fanbase. When Bandai brought Gundam over, they included some human characters. Wing got a gift set which had the 5 pilots, Zechs and Relena. There were also seperate figures later on for UC which included at least Sayla, Fraw and Nina.
The other side of the coin which is worse- fanservice figures, which Japan gets plenty of. Want figures of a female character? Sure...but you're only getting her in a swimsuit or maid outfit.
 
They pretty much cleared most of the line down all the way to the Dollar Store, which is where I got most of mine. The Cannon I found at TRU for 3 bucks. poor Distribution also helped kill the line.

The Shaman King toys were worse. At least with One Piece, they were in stores.

Playmates used to be equal oppertunity. They had April, Irma, Mona Lisa, and yes... Venus DeMilo.

Now, they still have April, and they had Karai in both the movie and regular 2k3 series, but I'm disappointed they never made a Renet to go with the rest of the Paleo Patrol. But at this moment, I'd like to point out, there were going to make a Starlee figure, but they canned the line after the protos.
 
I remember at the time thinking it had nothing to do with them being female characters but more to do with not being able to simulate their powers. You can have Wolverine's claws pop out, Cyclops' eyes glow, and Gambit have super throwing action, but what do you do for Jean Grey's telepathy and Rogue's absorption? I remember being happy when I saw a Kitty Pryde Marvel Legends figure because they're focused more on the joints rather than action to signify their powers (and Kitty's is another tough one).

However, if there were male characters that had those powers, I'm sure they'd find some way to make them into figure form.
 
This is a topic near & dear to my heart! As an action figure collector for 40 years (I'm 45 now), I was always fascinated with the odd lack of female figures in some toy lines. And, yes, I noticed a distinct lack of interest in the female figures from my playmates as a child.

We had G.I. Joes and the various Mego comic book character lines when I was a kid. I never saw the 12" G.I. Joe Nurse figure, so I never had an opportunity to buy it. Don't know if I even would have wanted it. But, in the Mego lines, I know I had a Star Trek Uhura figure, a Planet of the Apes Zira, and a DC Comics Batgirl.

I think the first time I ever purposely sought out female characters was in Aurora Plastics' old "Monster Scenes" snap-together figure model kits line. I had all four figures: mad scientist Dr. Deadly, glow-in-the-dark Frankenstein, Vampirella, and The Victim. I even had the playset kits. The cool thing about these were that Frankenstein had an extra set of arms so he could "carry" The Victim, and The Victim had a second set of legs that bent at the knees so she could be "carried" in a fairly realistic pose! These kits/figures go parents' groups very upset in the early '70s, and the line didn't stick around too long. I still have my Vampirella kit, though.

As I entered my teens, my parents shamed me into giving away all my G.I. Joes and other "kiddie" toys. But, when Star Wars came out in the summer of my freshman year of high school, I decided to start collecting those figures. At only 3 3/4" tall and $1.98 apiece, they were perfect, as they'd fit on my bookcase and could be "displayed," as opposed to "played with."

This was when I started to notice that female characters were getting a shoddy deal in toy lines. Princess Leia got the one figure for Star Wars. For The Empire Strikes Back, she got two. Return of the Jedi ... yup, just two again! And, these were the costumes from her more action-oriented scenes, too. No Ewok Village Leia or Slave Leia in the vintage Kenner lines, nope. Leia as bounty hunter Boushh (where you couldn't even tell it was her) and Combat Poncho Leia (from the Speeder Bike chase) were what we got.

As I got older, and became a true collector (as opposed to a teenager still buying toys as some sort of half-assed rebellion against my parents tactic), I really started to notice how most figures lines either neglected or outright ignored female characters. And, I started reading how little boys generally didn't want to play with figures of female characters, because they considered them "dolls," and boys don't play with dolls. There were notable exceptions, of course. Kenner put a Wonder Woman in their Super Powers line. (No Batgirl or Supergirl, though.) Mego had Amy (Triple-A) in their The A-Team line, and there was a Daisy figure in The Dukes of Hazzard line.

It seems the younger the boys the lines are aimed at, the smaller the likelihood of their being female figures in them. Younger boys are definitely looking to distance themselves from playing with "girly" toys.

Things took an interesting turn in the early '90s, when bad girl art became popular and independent toy companies looked to cash in on the fad. So, McFarlane Toys had sexy Angela and She-Spawn figures, and Moore Action Collectibles had Lady Death, Witchblade, and Vampirella. When Kenner/Hasbro relaunched Star Wars in '95, their first few Princess Leia figures were atrocious, leading the dubbing of the infamous Monkey Face Leia! But, within a few years, they did more Leias than ever, including Ewok Village Dress Leia, Slave Girl Leia, and actually added the green-skinned Oola the dancing girl to the line.

Playmates Toys did a few interesting versions of April O'Neill, including one with rooted hair and a mini-skirt that became known as "Slut April." But even more controversial were their figures of cleavage-heavy Klingon baddies Lursa and B'Etor from the film Star Trek Generations.

Toy Biz moved from making hideous DC Comics-based figures after their launching with the 1989 Batman movie figure line (including a somewhat plump version of Wonder Woman), to Marvel Comics based figures that included X-Men's Storm, Rogue, and Jean Grey. Early versions of the figures were disappointing at best, but they proved one thing--they sold! Although, most toy lines still kept female characters to a minimum, such as the lone Catwoman figure in Kenner's Batman Returns line in '92. But collectors started having a larger influence on toy companies in that period, and Playmates started embracing the fanboy market with figures of Lt. Ilya, the Orion Animal Woman, and Seven of Nine from their various Star Trek lines. Unfortunately, the drastic drop-off in comic book sales in the late '90s, combined with the end of the bad girls art trend, saw most of the independent toy companies die off. Figures of such indie characters as Hellina, Hari Kari (the first topless action figure), and Widow came out quickly, flooded the market with insipid variants, and then disappeared.

Right around this time, I started prepping an article on female action figures for Femme Fatales magazine. Unfortunately, the death of publish Fred Clarke in October 2000 meant it never got published. A lot of the info and research ended up getting posted at Yahoo Groups' The Female Figure (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TheFemaleFigure/).
 
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