So You Think You’ve Found Rey

#wheresrey has come under fire because unlike #wheresgamora and #wheresblackwidow figures of Rey actually exist so it must be ok and everyone must be overreacting right? Nevermind that you can’t just walk into a store and get a Rey toy like you can Kylo or Finn or all the troopers you can shake a fist at.

JJ Abrams at least thinks this is preposterous and wrong instead of going the oh you just have to look harder route that’s been going around the internet. It’s very frustrating reading posts, especially from women, claiming Rey is everywhere when sure, if you’re an adult willing to check stores constantly or pay resellers their inflated prices you can find Rey toys easily enough but why does anyone think that’s ok?

I do wonder if a little of it is the “well I had to look hard/pay more so other people should have to too” mentality. Like having Rey figures be more available some how diminishes their enjoyment of their find. Or perhaps it’s just geek blindness. People used to digging around to find what they want don’t realize that for casual fans, for kids without parents willing to look, not being on the shelves is pretty much the same as not existing.

Another thing that has been pointed to as proof that “Rey is everywhere” is the clothing that exists with her on it. Sparkly and soft coloured clothes. Sure it’s great that they exist, and that actually is more than Black Widow and Gamora got, but clothes are. not. toys. Little girls have always been told to go play dress up while the boys go play with toys. By waving the clothes around as some sort of victory it’s reinforcing the idea that girls shouldn’t be toys (not even dolls apparently, which sorry, calling it a 12″ action figure doesn’t make it less of a Barbie, well, Ken doll).

Go to Target and you’ll maybe find the Rey Funko Pop. Go to the Disney Store and you’ll probably find the Deluxe Figure Playset (which also has a General Organa!) and Reys Speeder. But finding any of those other toys that technically exist but were made in much lower quantities than her male counterparts? Good luck.

This isn’t even accounting for her missing from the Target Exclusive set and the Millenium Falcon toy set which are an even bigger problem. The existence of her individual figures is a grudging admittance that maybe there’s a small market for Rey toys but her exclusion from sets screams “but boys still don’t want icky girls in their toys” no matter what the reality of the situation is.

Which is why settling for what we’re being given right now, accepting the scraps Hasbro and Disney are throwing our way, is a mistake. Saying Rey is everywhere just tells them oh it’s ok, you don’t have to make her as prevalent as Kylo Ren, people will accept the least.

Rey deserves more than the least.


Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s