So there you are — in bed, wide-eyed at 4 a.m., hostage to the anxiety once again.
You can’t help but be troubled — someone’s assigned sex…to a potato.
My friend, tonight, you’ll sleep like the dead.
In order to wrong a right, Hasbro’s rolled out its new gender-neutral Mr. Potato Head.
That’s right — the root vegetable with no voice, body, or genitals now comes in a form that’s neither woman nor man.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you:
Potato Head.
Simple, beautiful.
“Many toymakers have been updating their classic brands in recent years,” says The Associated Press, “hoping to relate to today’s kids and reflect more modern families.”
Hasbro — producer of a potato that already lacked a french fry — is ready to finally ketchup.
According to The Toy Insider Editor-in-Chief Ali Mierzejewski, youngsters want their toys to mirror them:
“It’s a potato. But kids like to see themselves in the toys they are playing with.”
Do they?
Either way, the play world is certainly in mid-revolution.
Manufacturers are retreating from the traditional.
It’s all the rage.
American Girl will release its first boy doll and it's kind of a big deal https://t.co/SkKmWyLurQ pic.twitter.com/5MKz3zVOzV
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) February 14, 2017
Gay Uncles Catch Mattel’s Attention with Their DIY #Barbie Wedding Set #LGBT https://t.co/E0Zaq8Ec2f pic.twitter.com/FTBY2Gzuo7
— 𝕂𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕟 𝕂𝕝𝕖𝕙𝕣🕺 🏳️🌈 (@kevinklehr) December 26, 2018
Man-bun Ken doll just interrupted me to tell me that Bernie would have won. pic.twitter.com/Mnu8pAXV7F
— summer goth 🦇 (@NicCageMatch) June 20, 2017
As I relayed Wednesday, UK organization Let Toys Be Toys is asking “the toy and publishing industries to stop limiting children’s interests by promoting some toys and books as only suitable for girls, and others only for boys.”
“When toys are narrowly divided into ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ or signposted along the pink/blue divide,” the group asserts, “we risk limiting the possibilities and interests of our children.”
Here’s something they’ll love — Mattel’s 2019 gender-fluid doll playset:
Not only are toymakers changing the world with an 86’ing of sex, but government is, as well: California’s state assembly will consider a bill requiring merchandisers to display most of their child-related products — including childcare items, clothing and toys — in a shared gender-neutral section.
Back to Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head — which began in 1952 as a set of facial features kids could stick on their preferred produce at home — there’s more in store.
Hasbro’s making a starch staunch statement, and Potato Head’s no doubt politically aware; but don’t get it twisted (or scattered, smothered, covered, or chunked) — he’s she’s they’re no commontater.
Per the AP, progressive potatoes will be rooted in diversity:
As part of the rebranding, Hasbro will release a new Potato Head playset this fall that will let kids create their own type of families, including two moms or two dads.
Further down the road we go, as binary sex gets dropped like a hot potato.
But not hot in the sexual sense — after all, it’s a potato.
Sweet dreams.
-ALEX
See more pieces from me:
Obama Starts a Podcast, Drops the Bomb of Why He Never Pursued Reparations for Slavery
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