#WheresRey they say.

Toys are serious business and i agree that toys marketed to a specific gender is a horrid idea to begin with. But the issue that has have been sweeping the western world is why Rey have been underrepresented or even nonexsistant in the market. Disney and Hasbro say it was to avoid spoilers and thus pushed the Finn character as the main one for the movie. Now understanding that a toy can take about a year if not more from design to production the fear of spoilers is real for Disney. So it makes sense to tuck away the big plot points. If anything the fact that Disney felt that Rey was such a big impact point tells us a lot about how they view the Star Wars franchise. No longer has a boys club it is now opened to all.

But ofc it got spun all out of proportion, the “press” made it out like there are no toys at all, and I agree she is missing form some collections and was missing from the Monopoly. Now I have some limited insight in to these sort of things, being a big toy geek myself and I have no problem accepting the idea that spoilers forced Disney/Hasbro to act like they did… After all Rey has at least 9 different toys including two Lego sets and her own Infinity figure. There is also another one coming based on her outfit by the end of the movie (this also lends substance to the “no spoiler” theory)

Now with all that said we do have a big litmus-test for this theory coming up on the 13-16 February when the New York Toy Fair happens. If Hasbro and company shows off new Rey toys we know they did in fact tell the truth. Simply because there is no way they could have whipped them up in the time from the outbreak to now

Now I agree that we still have some way to go when it comes to toys, but I feel this thing got blown out of proportion by people who as usual had no insight in to the process and just reacted with their gut cheered on by “journalists” and bloggers trying to score some quick hits.  Combine this with the usual short packing and retailers stuck in their old ways and you have something of a clusterfuck.

Now my bet is that we will see a lot more Rey toys (and perhaps even some Black Widow ones) going forward, and should I be wrong. Feel free to tell me so.