Last December, sci-fi fans everywhere were treated to the revival of the famous film series “Star Wars.” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” is the seventh installment in the multi-part trilogy, and only after a month in theaters, the film has become a box office hit, earning almost $2 billion. The franchise of classic sci-fi action films has given us wonderful, empowering female roles since its initial release in 1977. But shortly after the film’s release, there seemed to be a disturbance in the force, and that disturbance came in the form of sexist merchandising. When new Star Wars toys started hitting the shelves, it didn’t take long for fans to notice that there was a disturbing lack of women present in the franchise’s merchandise.
As a woman and an avid Star Wars fan, I’ve known the struggle of being left out of the target audience for Star Wars merchandise. After the first six films, there was only a small amount of merchandise geared toward female fans or depicting one of the franchise’s female protagonists. But with the release of “The Force Awakens,” there was hope for equally-balanced merchandise marketed toward both genders, especially with a strong leading lady like Rey. However, I was horribly wrong. Not only has the amount of merchandise available for women barely increased, but Hasbro has also purposefully left Rey out of a number of toy sets.
Rey is one of the three protagonists in the film and, without a doubt, one of the most important characters in the film. But Hasbro apparently didn’t think she was important enough to be a part of the newest merchandise line. The toy-making company reportedly left Rey out of a box set of characters that featured the two other male protagonists, Finn and Poe, as well as four other male characters. The “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” Battle Action Millennium Falcon comes with three action figures, but, again, Rey is nowhere to be seen. As someone who collects Star Wars action figures, I know just how hard it was to find anything with Rey’s face on it.
Rey’s exclusion from the toy aisle was no accident either. In an interview with The Wrap, Global Toy Experts’ Richard Gottlieb said, “I can say that there is, in the toy and movie industry, a long-standing belief that a boy will not go to a ‘girl’ movie and that if you put a girl in a boy’s toy, boys will not buy it.” Female characters like Rey and Captain Phasma were purposefully excluded from the merchandise line because young boys would be angry if there was a female action figure in their toy box. If that doesn’t scream sexist, then I don’t know what does.
It took massive backlash on social media for toy companies to finally cave and release action figures of Rey. Disney and director JJ Abrahams have given us a phenomenal film with a strong and empowered leading female, but Disney has also disappointed young girls everywhere by leaving their remodel, Rey, out of a majority of their merchandise.
