Mr. Potato Head, the root vegetable toy that’s enthralled children since the 1950s, is getting a present-day makeover: Going forward, Hasbro will rebrand the name and logo for the sake of gender-neutrality.
This fall, Mr. Potato Head will be branded Potato Head “to better reflect the full line,” the company said in a Thursday press release. “But rest assured, the iconic Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head characters aren’t going anywhere and will remain Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head.” Hasbro is also launching a “Create your Potato Head Family” toy as “a celebration of the many faces of families” including two large potatoes, one small fry and 42 accessories. In an accompanying video, Hasbro called it “a modern look for modern families”
Hold that Tot – your main spud, MR. POTATO HEAD isn’t going anywhere! While it was announced today that the POTATO HEAD brand name & logo are dropping the ‘MR.’ I yam proud to confirm that MR. & MRS. POTATO HEAD aren’t going anywhere and will remain MR. & MRS. POTATO HEAD pic.twitter.com/6I84KrxOLQ
— Hasbro (@Hasbro) February 25, 2021
After initial reactions, Hasbro clarified their plans for the Potato Head brand. The tweet included a photo of what appears to be redesigned packaging.
While Hasbro did not return Yahoo Life’s request for further comment, Kimberly Boyd, senior vice president and general manager of global brands, told Fast Company, “Culture has evolved. Kids want to be able to represent their own experiences. The way the brand currently exists — with the ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ — is limiting when it comes to both gender identity and family structure.”
She added, “The sweet spot for the toy is two to three years old. Kids like dressing up the toy, then playing out scenarios from their life. This often takes the form of creating little potato families, because they’re learning what it means to be in a family.”
According to PBS, the idea for Mr. Potato Head came from an inventor named George Lerner, who believed that children would enjoy poking real potatoes with his plastic accessories (hands, feet, eyes), though in 1949, he worried that such play would turn off food-insecure families on the heels of WWII. Lerner then sold his idea to a company later renamed Hasbro, which manufactured the plastic body. Mrs. Potato Head came along in 1953 and the couple had “children.”
Today, the Mr. Potato Head line is sold in the likeness of Star Wars‘s Luke Skywalker (Luke Fry-Walker), Iron Man‘s Tony Stark, Spider-Man‘s Peter Parker and even hasselback-style.
The announcement made for Twitter news.
literally nobody cared about the gender of mr potato head, all this headline does is give conservatives an opportunity to mock LGBTQ people https://t.co/cRMG58Tb8u
— matt (@mattxiv) February 25, 2021
Funny how people are freaking out over a toy that has always encouraged removing and swapping body parts.
— Mike Marlow (@MKEMarlow) February 25, 2021
“Hasbro’s decision to introduce Potato Head as a gender-neutral toy is the latest move in a larger movement towards greater diversity and inclusion in toys and media aimed at kids,” Rich Ferraro, the chief communications officer at GLAAD said in a press release sent to Yahoo Life. “By offering a toy that exists outside of the binary of male and female, Hasbro is helping kids to simply see toys as toys, which encourages them to be their authentic selves outside of the pressures of traditional gender norms.”
The toy revamp follows inclusive moves by Mattel, whose American Girl line has expanded to include dolls of different abilities and sexes and Barbie, whose animated Facebook vlog tackles gender stereotypes.
“We’re seeing through research that there’s more acceptance today — particularly among Gen Z — of the spectrum of gender identities,” Christia Brown, a professor of developmental psychology at the University of Kentucky and author of Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise Children Free of Gender Stereotypes, tells Yahoo…
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