I was watching The Toys That Made Us (on Netflix) and one of the women from the She-Ra / girls toys team said that one...

I was watching The Toys That Made Us (on Netflix) and one of the women from the She-Ra / girls toys team said that one of theories (from the men on the He-Man / boys toys team) about the decline of the Masters of the Universe franchise was that boys felt emasculated that She-Ra existed and now that their little sisters had their own toys and cartoon set in the same universe it became uncool or whatever. I don't really buy it but what do you guys think? Were any of you kids during this time and if so did you feel this way?

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She-Ra the sexy addition to the Masters of the Universe. I personally didn't mind She-Ra but it's not like either franchise were fantastic writing.

Naw, although it was disappointing that the she-ra line was dolls instead of action figures. It really had more to do with all the off-characters being the only thing available, and none of them getting any screen time outside of their one episode. I mean I had stinkor and gatorman(?) and probably a few others, but I never saw them on screen. GI Joe did a better job of throwing a bone to every kid who got Eskimo Bob or whoever because he’d at least get a scene every now and then.

>dolls
>action figures
same difference

Hordak was the only good thing to come out of She-Ra. Companies would do well to remember that it's the villains that sustain a toyline. She-Ra did not follow this asides from Hordak.

It’s the difference between teela with her plastic hair and build similar to the cartoon versus she-ra being ogre sized relative to he-man and having actual hair.

I remember the villain figures being pretty bad ass, after double checking, looks like they were released with the He-Man line.

I dont buy it either, personally i blame the fact tht funimation stupidly canceled the he man cartoon, and the fact that mattel cancelled the line too quickly without trying to salvage it.

Hordak was a MOTU toy in the she ra cartoon, i dont even consider hordak she ra. But yes, he is fucking awesome, the best horde member is mosquitor and modulok and mantenna

>funimation
Fuck, i meant filmation, im too tired this morning

As a kid, I would've avoided She-Ra because I'd have been afraid of being picked on for wanting a girl toy. Emasculation would've been from my male peers, not from She-Ra being in the same universe as He-Man.

I watched this too. I think maybe introducing She-Ra as part of the main cast/line as opposed to a spin-off would have maintained the integrity of the line.

If anything killed the line it was the constant introduction of new characters and the inability to find main characters on the shelves. TMNT had the same issue to be honest. Finding April O'Neil on a store shelf was like finding the Holy Grail.

>personally i blame the fact tht funimation stupidly canceled the he man cartoon,

what's funny is that Colleen Clinkenbeard, one of the VA's and ADR directors at Funimation really wants to voice She-Ra in the new reboot.

Guys, what if Teela wore a mecha-armor?

Sounds pretty bullshit, plenty of franchises merchandise to both demographics successfully

She's retarded. He-man toys disapeared because the show ended.

Modulok is great, and it gets better the more you bought it.

Really? Every time sexy girls showed up in cartoons when I was a kid, most boys I played with couldn't get over our desire to will those 2D ladies into reality to do things with.

When 18 finally showed up in the DBZ dub, more than a few of us started thinking Krillin was actually pretty damn rad and we totally wouldn't mind being a short bald midget.

See, I would have loved a she-ra action figure, but the only thing they sold was a barbie that said She-ra on it.

Thundercats did the whole thing better in my opinion. Kept the cast moderately sized, didn't inundate you with variants, and left you at basically one big vehicle (Thunder Tank) and one big playset (Cat's Lair).

You define the original GI Joes as dolls, then?

I’m imagining Texans voicing He-Man characters

This isn't a doll?

Well, they literally came up with the term "action figure" for it to avoid describing it as a doll.

I swear i hope goyer gets cut in half in a car crash for ruining the MOTU movie
Eh, i wouldve waifud she ra if i lived in the 80s, so i probably wouldve snuck a she ra doll and only her while focusing on the horde or evil warrior figures
I love action figures but i admit this is a doll, and that all action figures are just a different kind of doll.

>it's not like either franchise were fantastic writing

Well, that's the charm of it, see.

As a kid I thought it was weird that She-Ra's cartoon had better friends and a scarier villain than He-Man's. Also, a better theme song and a horse that sounded like Tom Waits. She even dressed manlier than he did.

I always liked She-Ra more than He-Man. He-Man fighting from a position of dominance isn't exciting from a narrative standpoint as She-Ra fighting a guerilla war against the dominant power.

Not to mention her own personal quest of redemption.

>He-Man fighting from a position of dominance isn't exciting from a narrative standpoint as She-Ra fighting a guerilla war against the dominant power.
I like the wandering maraudering barbarian fighting against conan style foes rather then the tired “rebellion” story. Also, its a crime they took away she ras boobs.

She should play Light Hope

That's not true; they just got boring and there were other toys out there.

He-Man isn't a roving barbarian in the cartoon though. He's a Prince chilling in his castle until some faceless dork tries something then he goes and shoves him in the locker.

I read once that She-Ra's demographic was surprisingly male but they found boys were ashamed about enjoying it. Filmation focusing on She-Ra over He-Man though was what killed the brand.

Well the cartoon sucked, read the minicomics from the first few years mate, theyre all online

I think the point is that to play with them together they need to be at the same scale, have the same articulation and compatability with accessories like vehicles, weapons, and even articulation, and have the same look/style
and a barbie sized doll designed for changing clothes does not fit in with smaller action figures designed for sitting in plastic vehicles and shooting plastic projectiles at one another

I hadn't realized that He-Man's Battle Cat was one of the chosen.

The girls got She-Ra Dolla though. I think the lack of compatibility was an issue for She-Ra. It was launched to take advantage of He-Man's female fans so really making the lines match would have been best.

no. i never stopped liking MOTU.
if anything, she-ra was off-putting for me as a young kid because she was my first boner-giver

both toy lines were the same height though?

Hahaha! Holy shit.

dunno if youve read the last dc comics on MOTU, but they make pretty clear skeletor/keldor is the legit king of eternia, with his brother only taking over due to racism and prejudice against blue people. so there is a mounting argument in that story against he-man

Were they? I recall she-ra seeming bigger, but maybe it's all the accessories.

That sounds kinda odd
Can't speak for every kid but I would have loved if my sister liked the cartoons I enjoyed.
It would just mean I get to see them too

Honestly when I was young the concept of "girls shows, boys shows" meant nothing to me
If it was cool, I would watch it.

It's not a cartoon but I loved Sabrina growing up becuase it was interesting, I didn't like Sister Sister becuase it wasn't.

This is what I always imagined they should have looked like.

Pants are illegal on Etheria.

>skeletor/keldor is the legit king of eternia, with his brother only taking over due to racism and prejudice against blue people

I prefer skeletor being some rotted wizard kept alive due to black magic, and not this keldor shit

I think the case assortment problem they discussed in the documentary makes a lot more sense, as a former /toy/ guy.

If you're going to fill waves with side characters, you need to give them focus in the show. Transformers did a good job (movie massacre besides) showing the whole cast off every now and then, and letting other characters besides the main group take the spotlight.

But even with side characters taking spotlight, you gotta re-release or re-tool your core characters decently often. Pack 'em in with vehicles and stuff.

>I think the case assortment problem they discussed in the documentary makes a lot more sense, as a former /toy/ guy.
>But even with side characters taking spotlight, you gotta re-release or re-tool your core characters decently often. Pack 'em in with vehicles and stuff.
Thats total bullshit, people wouldve bought the masters of the universe figures anyways, and there were more then enough skeletor and he man variants.

>I don't really buy it but what do you guys think?

I think it's a shit opinion from guys who would rather mock "girl's toys" than think girls would want to play with toys of all kinds. Also, "The Toys That Made Us" comes off as pandering to toy collectors who share similar opinions about "girl's toys" and "normies" and other exclusionary gatekeeping bullshit.

if you were a kid back then, you would get at least 3-4 variants of he man and skeletor each, then the bad guys and then a couple of the good guys
it was never about the characters being deep or whatever, they were just cool looking

Children are much less fragile than adults about this kind of stuff, so I doubt it was about kids feeling emasculated.

For me, it stopped my cousin from stealing my he man toys because she had her own cool lady warriors to play with. She also used to borrow action man accessories for her barbies which was fucking annoying.
Just make some Battle Barbies already, toy gendering is stupid because little girls love murder and action just as much as little boys. They just like it if it has pink sparkles, too.

>Just make some Battle Barbies already, toy gendering is stupid because little girls love murder and action just as much as little boys. They just like it if it has pink sparkles, too.
Yes, if we raised girls to be more violent like boys then they wouldnt become such bleeding heart pacifists

>Children are much less fragile than adults about this kind of stuff, so I doubt it was about kids feeling emasculated.

I have no reaction images.

You seriously fucking believe that kids, the same kids who'd eat tide pots or produce foot fetish porn because somebody who's pretending to be their age online tells them to would actually not chuck their He-man toys if two of their friends said that they're gay three times in a row?

Not saying that kids can't like that shit, but they're normally basically slaves to their peer's opinions, no matter how outrageously retarded those opinions may be.

>reddit line jumping
>"I have no reaction" as an argument
>loaded question
>projection and insecurity all over the place
yup, you are an idiot.

I personally didnt care what other people said and lived my life more a slave to my parents inane demands, but i can see where you are coming from.

>Children are much less fragile than adults about this kind of stuff

are you twelve

Peer pressures are different from deciding you are emasculated by your little sister or whatever having toys that are the girl versions of yours. Kids are less likely to go full retard and claim that girls are stealing their brand if girls get pandered to by the same company that panders to them, because either they aren't playing together and thus don't care what the others have, or they are playing together and there's more toys for the battle.

I think we have some very different definitions of what "kids" means.

>Peer pressures are different from deciding you are emasculated by your little sister or whatever
That's literally an example of peer pressure you absolute stupid cunt do you even know what the term means

This was the real cause.

Children are lacking a real identity and are so unable to ponder negatives and positives that if their peers tell them sucking dirt is cool, they will.

Unless all your other dumb friends have decided that (and honestly, i'm a teacher, kids really aren't bothered by who has what toy because they are all more into roleplaying minecraft), and they probably haven't, there isn't going to be peer pressure. Peer pressure is pressure from your peers, not seeing your kid sister has a similar toy to you and going full retard.

Have you never seen kids call each others pussy, fag or even just "girl" for doing something or another?

toxic masculinity is real, people. Fuck the double standards of girls being "empowered" by playing with boys toys but not the reverse.

And yeah the waifu potential is there but very few marketing execs realize that (save for horse show).

Kids can be assholes for the sake of it.
If they see some other loser sharing toys with some girl they could definitely jump at the opportunity to put them down a bit.
Have you ever wondered why fag and pussy are the favourite insults of 8-12 year olds online?
Emasculation is one of the easiest ways to put others down, and young boys learn it easily.

Yeah, they call eachother fags for every last thing. The fact is, girls having their own similar toys to boys doesn't bother them like you'd think.
A boy who comes in wearing a tutu or who only bought said girl figures would be another story, but the existence of toys for girls from the same line as the ones they are playing with is not an issue.
Kids are fragile about certain things, but feeling emasculated simply because some unrelated girls are also getting toys like yours isn't what happens.

>boys felt emasculated that She-Ra existed
yeah nah, I would probably blame He-man's blonde bobcut and fur panties for a ny lack of masculinity

No, it really isn't. "Toxic" is just a term being used to turn public opinion against traditional male characteristics and tendencies. It won't work, there will eventually be a backlash.

The reason for there being "girl" toys vs "boy" toys is ourely because marketing people in the 70s realized they could make tons more money by splitting the market. Toy stoves and things used to have the same colors as their real life counterparts but then someone realized that if they color it pink they can target girls exclusively with a particular product, then develop things like action figures for boys.

I was a completionist and it used to frustrate me when female main characters would not be included in a toyline.

Did skeletor ever win in an episode?

He always won our hearts

Can our hearts get him what HIS heart desires?

Hell yea he did.

youtube.com/watch?v=nqhLn76kCv0

Blaming the death of He-Man on little boys being lukewarm to She-Ra is at best a misunderstanding and at worst a cheap scapegoat for their own incompetence.

The toy line debuted at the start of 1982 and was supported by a brief DC comics series (82-83) and a cartoon (83-84), that was essentially just a 30 minute add for the toys.

Then, for no particular reason Mattel and Filmation opted not to renew the cartoon for a third season. They also decided their own mini-comics were sufficient and ended their partnership with DC.

So in 1985 they had a still hot brand with no advertisement to speak of. They decided at this precipice to devote a new cartoon to a spinoff character She-Ra.

They also made a dramatically different (in terms of scale/ accessories/ aesthetics/ etc.) toy-line for She-Ra, that would run concurrently with He-Man...except for the villains, which were canabalized into the He-Man toy-line. So the She-Ra figures had no villains for the figures to interact with and the He-Man toy-line became wave after wave of unadvertised nobodies and he-man/skeletor retooling figures. The She-Ra cartoon would last until 1986, when it was abruptly cancelled.

By 1987 there was no cartoon, no comic and a rapidly collapsing She-Ra toy-line. The live action movie was made on a micro budget and was still a massive flop. Shockingly the He-Man toy-line limped it’s way to 1988 with literally no advertisement to speak of before it finally sputtered out of existence.

So...no, it wasn’t the fragility of little boys that killed the line it was corporate hubris and penny-pinching. They were lucky to make it as far as they did considering how little money they invested in their own damn product. I know it’s 2018 and it’s hip to market yourself as some sort of pioneering feminist-conscious ahead-of-your-time company but you just wanted maximum profits for minimum investment...just like every corporation in existence.

>traditional male characteristics and tendencies

You mean rape, right? Just say rape.

No, he means male behavior. Like the ability to control your emotions, to handle competition, or simply being honest in social situations.

She-Ra was when I lost interest because the focus moved away from He-Man and Skeletor for a time in the cartoon. As for little girls liking She-Ra, not one girl had a She-Ra figure. In contrast, I knew more than a few guys with Teela, Evil-Lyn and the Sorceress of Castle Grayskull.

DING DING DING!

It's amazing how fucking stupid of an explanation they hoisted up when logically there were TONS of opportunities to get a He-Man and Skeletor throughout the line's lifetime via variants. Hell, there's a variant in more waves than not: only waves 2 and 6 lacked a He-Man and Skeletor variant. They even covered the god damned things when they were discussing action features! If anything, that was the primary cause for the demise of the 200X toy line (and subsequently the MYP show) so we know that too much of that sort of thing is just as toxic. Funny that they completely glossed over that aspect of things, which would have provided a full context for the history of the franchise.

MOTU fell to the wayside because trends can't stay piping hot forever, even if they are amazingly clever like MOTU's villains and the sheer breadth of amazing vehicles and playsets that the line provided. If you think that an inability to find He-Man was a cause, you are fucking retarded. Grandma could definitely find a He-Man on the shelf for her grandson's birthday, but he was just asking for other things. New lines were coming out, and diverting attention away from MOTU while using their own strategies. RAH was absolutely a powerhouse, seeing as how every kid got like 5 Joes for their birthday and Christmas, plus vehicles, because of how inexpensive they were. Thundercats were big, plus Centurions, and MASK, and on and on and on.

>kids really aren't bothered by who has what toy because they are all more into roleplaying minecraft
We really need to start beating gen z kids for their stupidity

>Fuck the double standards of girls being "empowered" by playing with boys toys but not the reverse.
Yes, and fuck girls thinking they are better just because they are girls like people are teaching them
This

>realized they could make tons more money by splitting the market
How does this make sense? Surely it would be better to appeal to as wide an audience with your product.

What is this meme that She-Ra toys weren't the same height as He-Man toys?

Okay... the hair was different and there was a focus on fashion... but that's it. They fit in just fine.

Pic related.

Then explain the exponential jump in profitability from creating a television and online news media industry heavily divided along party lines with zero accountability towards unbiased reporting. If Fox News or MSNBC were right down the middle with everything and appealed to everyone... they'd be the AP, and Rachel Maddow wouldn't be a propaganda shill raking in literally tens of millions of dollars annually from advertisers on top of a multi-million dollar salary.

But narrowing it back down to the topic at hand: people have children, and they come out as boys or girls. And if the boys and girls all had the same exact items given to them as they grew up, then you'd have a shit ton of hand-me-downs. And a shit ton of hand-me-downs means destroying the consumer-based economy that has pushed America along and kept the cold hard truths of the economic world out of sight. So you make something "girly" in aesthetics beyond its natural and neutral function (i.e. a "masculine" thing, or what an engineer would come up with that is utility driven) and in effect you force a typical family with a girl and a boy to buy the same things twice but in different styles. It's a very typical scenario, where you use women to artificially drive a requirement for something simply to rake in profits.

...

Eh he is half He-Man's and half She-Ra's villain.

The MYP He-Man cartoon used him and the comic adaptations used him and changed his story to have him be trapped in Despondos to have him come from Eternia. But he still has tied to She-Ra since the MOTUC line has her be part of the horde and the new comic also had her.

It also looks like the new cartoon will be using the Horde for She-Ra.

What is this shit?!

Learn to read, she said it was a theory from one of the guys working on the MOTU line.

No, that's Muslim tendencies.

Yeah that's the thing, they made her look like Barbie and in that case why not just buy a Barbie? Also She-Ra didn't look like how she was in the cartoon.

Read a book on marketting. Women buy most of all products sold in the US and Europe by percentage of cash sepnt and it's not because they're housewives; if you stopped marketing things to women, you'd have a huge drop off.

no mater the source of her stupidity, it's still stupid

>He-Man fighting from a position of dominance isn't exciting from a narrative standpoint as She-Ra fighting a guerilla war against the dominant power.
>Not to mention her own personal quest of redemption.

Apparently the new show is going to ve really different, which makes me worry they'll drop this setup.
If they do they better damn replace it with something equally or more interesting.

There is a big factor that wasn't stressed on that show that well. Mattel had it's divisions cut into girls and boy toys, and while there were different people in both departments the upper management and workers just saw two divisions: Girl brand of the company, Boy brand of the company. The Girl brand was always stronger until He-man showed up, then the tides turned and for the first time it's was the boy's department being #1 which caused a lot of drama on both sides. When the girls brand decided to do their take on He-man, a lot of the staff on the boy's side objected, loudly, to the idea because to them it was just the Girl brand of the company being cranky they were 2nd string now and when things went tits up with He-man it was really easy for many on boy staff to throw stones at She-ra because they saw her as a the enemy. I'm 43 and grew up in the time and what my teen view saw in stores was gluts of solid cases of figures like Dragstor, Stinkor, and the like that were getting clearance out because supply was passing demand. Again, I want to stress that was just my area of south PA, it is by no means an account of the whole country/world. In irony we see this issue again with the 2000s He-man toy glutting shelves but this time instead of solid cases it was having to many He-mans and Skeletors variants which is honestly confusing it failed because both Batman and Spiderman do the same thing with no issue but other brands are lucky to have two versions and not clog shelf space.

Nah they're both good and the redemption thing has only just recently been explored with her and before that the cartoon and comic just blamed the Horde for her being evil.

But I agree it is something that makes Adora interesting and one of the things I liked about the recent DC MOTU comics was having her deal with the guilt and consequences about being in the Horde.

Then there's the fact that she was raised by the Horde and she ends up fighting against them. Turning against the people who were your whole world while growing up and fighting against them must be pretty hard.

I also liked how Shadow Weaver loved Adora in the DC comics. I always liked the idea of her and Hordak genuinely caring about Adora as their daughter (well as much as Hordak can care for another person), it makes her betrayal sting more and if you take the whole secret identity away it makes She-Ra more anger inducing and personal for the bad guys.

Didn’t say height, I said scale and honestly that was the least of complaints.

The She-Ra figures were slimmer and much softer in appearance. Even comparing the female characters from The He-Man line with the She-Ra line exposes this issue. The leg stance (and mechanics) were tighter, the faces softer and with much more makeup, the shoulders were narrower. The He-Man women had sculpted battle armor, while She-Ra had cloth skirts. The accessories for He-Man favored weapons and armor (like Teela’s cobra armor), while She-Ra came with combs for their hair and sparkly gowns.

Even comparing the one male Bow with his male counterpoints in He-Man was a joke. He had a golden fabric headband and a sparkly cape. He had no muscles and had a soft passive stance.

Even as a 6 year old that, barely considered the differences between genders, I could recognize the difference between these toys at a glance. I favored the ones that were ready for battle and adventure over the ones that needed combs to tame their flowing locks of silky hair.

I thought the interest in the whole thing sort of died out by that time. Kids had so many more new shows that drew them in and they wanted the toys from that instead.

>one of the women from the She-Ra said that one of theories about the decline of the Masters of the Universe franchise was that boys felt emasculated that She-Ra existed

I'd need to see a lot of evidence to back that up. She didn't diminish He-Man at all as far as I remember (admittedly limitedly). Honestly if someone is going to make such a bold controversial argument like that, they ought to have some evidence to back it up. I'd like to see studies about what constitutes emasculation cited.

I mean, declines happen for lots of reasons, including multiple little ones. People in general have a real problem with wanting a simple-single reasons for the cause of things, including their problems. Life isn't like that, and we need to get over it.

I think far more likely is that the decline of the Masters franchise was competition. The 80s ushered in a lot of competition and the Masters was old even before the start of the 80s. Market driven, not socially drive. But asserting such a theory sounds just like what I'd expect from someone who sees social-causes EVERYWHERE instead of accepting that sometimes things aren't sexist related. Just sometimes.....

He was also an illegitimate son and the hate for the Gar is because they fucked up Greyskull.

But all Skeletor needs is a lust for power and control, in the DC MOTU comics he stopped caring about thw throne of Eternia and was just looking for power and to beat the Goddess and the always losing to He-Man fate he was given (he tells She-Ra he went to other dimensions and saw that he always lost and it angered him).

As a matter in fact he starts turning because future Skeletor and Hordak start persuading him to the dark side with promise of power. He wants the power not the kingdom.

> Masters was old even before the start of the 80s
Not to mention far worse animated than a lot of the competition.

As it should be of any advanced civilisation.