Toys R Racism. :(

[beccatoria]

So something weird happened the other day. I was in Toys R Us (as you are when you're bored and have nowhere else to go), with a friend. And his girlfriend texted him and said could he look out for a present she could give to a kid she knows who's in hospital, since we were there anyway, and she loves Disney stuff, and Jasmine is her favourite Princess. Armed with this knowledge we headed to the Disney Princess aisle. Now, I know that Toys R Us is not the Disney Store, but they have a whole specifically branded aisle, and what I found really disturbed me.

There was no Jasmine doll. I was a little disappointed, but basically figured, okay, fine, for whatever reason there's no Jasmines today, and started looking around the rest of the aisle.

There were dolls for Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Ariel and Rapunzel. There were no dolls, and strictly speaking she's not an Official Disney Princess (because Pixar), but there was merchandise available for Brave in the form of Merida costumes and plushie bears.

There was no merchandise of any kind for Jasmine, Tiana, Pocahontas or Mulan.

When I went home, I looked up the official Disney Princess line-up and confirmed my suspicions. There were dolls available for EVERY white Disney Princess.

Not a single one of the Disney Princesses from other ethnicities was represented at all (nor were any other characters of colour.)

That's like...the 40% of the Princess Line-up who aren't white were nowhere to be found, but the 60% who were white had perfect attendance. That's not fucking subtle. I wish I'd had a camera, I would have taken a picture.

I dunno, man, the more I think about it, the more...pissed off I get. Like, the fact that Disney has an Official List of these Princesses should be a way to make sure this doesn't happen, not that it does anyway. And it's such a clean split.

Anyway, I emailed Toys R Us about it. If they reply, I'll update to let people know what they said.

I was...honestly shocked, which is probably naive of me, but something about the brazen shamelessness of it all was super disturbing. Or like, not even shamelessness, just...fucking epic ignorance. Like the person doing the ordering or sorting out the line-up probably didn't even think for a split second about what was going on there, cus everyone knows thinking about race makes you a racist.

RAGE.

Comments

[goodbyebird]

When I went home, I looked up the official Disney Princess line-up and confirmed my suspicions. There were dolls available for EVERY white Disney Princess.

Not a single one of the Disney Princesses from other ethnicities was represented at all (nor were any other characters of colour.)

Oh, that is absolutely not ok. Mind if I linkspam this? I wouldn't mind if Toys R Us got a massive amount of angry emails.

[beccatoria]

Yeah, sure, if you want. I am certainly in favour of them getting emails on the subject!

Though it's worth noting this may be a partially regional issue (not that that makes it more okay, just, not sure what the situation is on other regions). I was chatting about this over on LJ with someone who said she searched the Toys R Us website and found both Jasmine and Mulan dolls available, and she's based in the US. The UK Toys R Us website, though, seems to only list Jasmine dolls (also couldn't find Pocahontas or Mulan at all, though they were selling Tiana books and DVDs, no dolls or other toys).

Which...again, very happy for publicity on the issue, but people may wish to check what the situation is in their area.

If I had my own car, I'd go back and take a picture. I'm debating asking my Ma to drive me back down there when she gets back home later this week to see if it's still like that and snap some shots.

[chaila]

Well that is gross. And yeah, it's gross any way you look at it. I bet Toys R Us is all, but that's what'll sell. But that's based on that old racist assumption that white (default white!) people don't want to buy dolls for characters of color/watch things with lead characters of color/boys don't want to watch movies about girls/etc. etc. forever, so just stock the "default" white and everything is fine. So they don't even try. And then, how are those dolls marketed? I would think a huuuge part of marketing dolls like that in place like Toys R Us is having them ON THE SHELF.

I'd be curious if you get a response! I bet they'll be all, "our stock is always changing blah blah, you can order anything on our website blah blah" and don't even address what you said at all. If they respond, I guess. :/

[beccatoria]

Yeah I know, it's just...I don't know. I shouldn't have been so surprised, really, but somehow it was just...I don't know, soul-destroying. Someone commented on my LJ who worked there that it was basically the same when she was there - they had Tiana at that point because her movie'd just come out, but she never saw a Jasmine or a Pocahontas and like, one Mulan. Which depresses me because I was hoping my store/Wales was just being uniquely crap about it.

I got a response from the central website saying they'd forwarded my query to my local store to deal with, but nothing since then, which in fairness was only yesterday, but yeah, I'm expecting exactly what you suspect, but hey, I guess we'll have to wait and see. You never know... At this point, though, I think I'd be a little surprised if I got a response at all - the central website has ticked it off as "dealt with", you know? Bah, humbug!

[saturnofthemoon]

I work basic retail and, after reading your post, decided to do a little research in the toy department. We have a few box sets with Tiana but nothing by herself. I also looked at the Barbies and other dolls and, while there were a few olive and dark-skinned dolls, the selection was mostly white. The sad part is that my store is located in a neighborhood that is predominantly African-American and Puerto Rican. It sort of breaks my heart that all those little girls won't have dolls that actually look like them.

[beccatoria]

Damn. :( I mean that's clearly better than the situation at my local Toys R Us, but also, not by that much considering what you say about the neighbourhood it's in. I was sort of hoping ours was uniquely crap because we're whiter than average (not that that would excuse it and not that that means we don't have ethnic minority communities) but the more I hear back from other people, the more it seems pretty standard. It's depressing, right? :(