Speech Outline: Politics in Toys (Fisher-Price Toy Ad)

Introduction: 

• Talk about weird texture and color fascination I had with these toys as a kid. I wanted to EAT them.
• My experience in being conditioned to play with "girl" toys and the recognition of which toys I was able to play with with each parent and who played the most. 
• How does this transfer over into adult life and generationally? This ad is stifling to the entire family system due to the norms it continues to exhaustingly ingrain. 

Thesis: 

Toys are used as part of the heteronormative social grooming process in both motherhood and childhood that targets privileged groups in this ad particularly, due to the framework heavily set up in that time period that can still be seen today. Oh and CAPITALISM.




Point One (Evidence):

• Rhetoric 

1. The language is overtly directed at mothers. (QUOTE)
2. Use of male child pronoun "his" but not a female child pronoun "her". The "his" in the ad has a certain element of power. (QUOTE)
3. Phallic symbols 
4. Kids are the mother's job. What else would they be doing? (QUOTE.  (If we are using a Marxist lens, we would chat about how shitty value is assigned to women in this way.)

Point Two (Evidence):

• Visuals 

1. Font: Immediate identification with Fisher-Price. In this way, we know what they are standing for as soon as we look at the ad, for better or worse. 
2. Color/Hue: Bright colors on a heavy amount of the page makes you really look at what is there and occasionally drags you over to the verbiage in the middle. The starkness of the title gives you a clean break from the color and causes you to shift towards the top of the page over the verbiage again. 
3. Position of child/toys: Makes one feel like they are able to observe child playing. Because of this, it almost makes you wonder where the mother of how easy it would be to take it off the page. Hate that. is A drawing of a child would not have been as potent as an ad, I don't think. 

Point Three (Evidence):

• Fisher-Price's role in all of this 

1. Taking it upon themself to assist mothers (QUOTE)
2. What are they saying to everyone who falls out of this heteronormative, Pampers-wrapped, candy-coated, milk-frothed image? 

Connector:

• Patterns and progression we can see from then to now. 
• What does this mean with our current political climate.
• Was there ever progress made or did white people just do a really good job of faking that they thought women could be more than breeding beings? A combination, I think. 

Conclusion: 

Everything is political. Grooming starts from a young age. Yes, even in toys. Our toys today still do this. I need to see some non-heteronormative, POC, or realistic body type Barbies or action figures or something. There is sexism and misogyny. There was then and there is now. Don't @ me. Or do. I will probs respond.