Barbie's got a beeper - and an automated answering machine, too. Is there a deep meaning to this development? Has the U.S. toy industry suddenly realized that, just as women jostle alongside men on the corporate battlefield, little girls can play with little boys on the same types of high-tech toys and games? Is an era of preteen sexual equality upon us?
Naaaahh.Judging from the exhibits of the big corporations at the Toy Fair, the toy industry's recent annual trade show, the gender chasm yawns as wide as ever.
Hasbro, a super-giant of the business, made the case explicitly, dividing several of its displays into separate wings - one labeled "Boys Toys," the other "Girls Toys."
In Boys Toys lurked cool stuff from "Batman," "Star Wars" and "Superman," remote-controlled Tonka trucks and 20 new Nerf products, ranging from dodge-ball to wrist- and shoulder-strapped multiple-rocket-firing Cyberstryke Gear.
In Girls Toys gurgled the likes of Choose Baby All Gone, Baby Sip 'N Slurp, Juice 'N Cookies Baby Alive. There was one concession to the more adventuresome girl, Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders, based on the cartoon TV show, but it was just static figurines - princesses, horses, friendly forest animals. They don't do anything.
Christopher Byrne, editor of Market Focus Toys, the industry's leading newsletter, says this bifurcation of product lines simply reflects life. "Boys and girls have different play patterns," he says. "Boys - you like power and conflict. Girls - you like things where you play with their hair, you play with their clothes, you fantasize about being a little older."
Some would disagree. More and more schoolgirls are excelling at soccer and other action sports, and these successes seem to be having some effect on their patterns of play. A survey last fall by Duracell concluded that action toys "traditionally favored by boys" such as Mighty Morphin Power Rangers were also coming to "score top marks with girls."
Still, a walk through Toy Fair suggested that toymakers rely on Duracell a lot for batteries, but not at all for sociological analysis. In fact, it seemed all too clear that when it comes to designing girls' toys, most of the big companies don't even try very hard.
The boys' toys - even the crudest race cars, gooiest slimeballs and goriest cybermagnums - embody a remarkable attention to anatomical detail and sleek, innovative design.
The girls' toys, on the other hand, are pretty much the same old same old. The only new feature in Easy-Bake is a real blender that makes chocolate milk. If Easy-Bake were a boys' toy, it would probably fry up an omelet.
You can see the disparity in the way retailers, male and female, walked through the fair exhibits - quick glances at the girls' departments, long stops and delighted grins at the toys for boys. "Oh, look! Gargoyle!" one merchant cried out. "We had a very good year with Gargoyle!" At the booth for Beast War Transformers ("The next step in Transformer Evolution is here!"), a gleeful rep boasted, "In March, we're a Happy Meal!" Raised eyebrows all around.
The makers of boys' toys are out to grab customers for life. A rep at the exhibit for Toy Biz, which makes Marvel Comic action-hero figures, said 25 percent of the company's revenue comes from "collectibles" - sharply detailed, finely crafted dolls, figurines and wind-ups aimed at grown men who collect this stuff. They even design the kids' toys in ways that lure the adults as well. "This year," the rep said, pointing to an example, "Slayer will come with a specially decorated Spider-man, which will come only with Slayer, so it will be a toy and a collector's item."
Byrne says this adult toy market is growing, a trend most graphically seen in the models for the once-underground, now-mainstream comic book "Spawn," which stars heavy-metal superheroes, medieval spear chuckers, outer-space monsters and scantily clad, pointy-breasted heroines. Byrne notes, "It's the basic story - power and conflict - with an arrested-adolescent view of sex."
It may be just as well that the girls' market isn't sought so avidly. Somebody has to grow up. Not that the toy tycoons are ignoring the country's moms-to-be altogether. Take Cap Toys' Melanie's Mall, a sprawling consumerist fantasy for 8-year-old girls that seems designed to inculcate shopper's mania for decades to come.
Is it for this that Barbie has a belt-clipped pager? So her friends can call to see if she wants to go to the mall? Some girls might look at it that way, but this year's Barbie line actually stands as one of the very few that give a girl a different way out. Mattel sells a software program that lets her design her own Barbie clothes on a computer and print them out on sheets of fabric, which she can then use to dress the doll. A creative new girls' toy!