Hasbro Excludes Rey and Captain Phasma From Action Figure Set, History Repeats Itself

Looks like Hasbro is at it again. There’s a set of six action figures from The Force Awakens being sold at Target, and you’ll never guess who’s missing. I’m mostly kidding, you already know who’s missing: Rey.

Included in the set are Kylo Ren, Chewbacca, Finn, Poe Dameron, a First Order Stormtrooper, and a First Order TIE Fighter pilot. Yeah. They decided to go with two generic troopers instead of putting Rey–one of the main characters–into the set. They also failed to include Captain Phasma, though that may be marginally more understandable as she’s a bit of a minor character. Still, though.

It really sucks that we have to keep sharing news like this over and over and over again. The erasure of female characters from merchandising options is still a problem we have to deal with, apparently. This isn’t to say that there’s no Rey merch at all–in fact, there’s the Hasbro Black Series figure, and a few things like that. But still, it’s just super ridiculous to make a set of six action figures and not have two of the female main characters in it, right?

Many folks have tweeted their reactions to this omission on the #WheresRey hashtag, which originated on Legion of Leia.

Hasbro hasn’t commented on the set yet, so there’s no way to know what issue lies at the heart of this decision. Is it that they’re gendering toys and assuming that girls don’t play with action figures? Is it an assumption that boys don’t like playing with female characters?

Whether it’s both (or neither) of these, the exclusion of merchandising options like these just harms their own bottom line–that’s money left on the table every time these misguided decisions are made. This adamance towards staying so old fashioned costs them money. When will they stop shooting themselves in the foot?

(via The Daily Dot)

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Jessica Lachenal

Jessica Lachenal is a writer who doesn’t talk about herself a lot, so she isn’t quite sure how biographical info panels should work. But here we go anyway. She's the Weekend Editor for The Mary Sue, a Contributing Writer for The Bold Italic (thebolditalic.com), and a Staff Writer for Spinning Platters (spinningplatters.com). She's also been featured in Model View Culture and Frontiers LA magazine, and on Autostraddle. She hopes this has been as awkward for you as it has been for her.

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