Dolls for Boys and Superheroes?
Dolls are things you typically associate with girls. Girls have dolls, and boys have toy soldiers. But more boys became obsessed with dolls when certain ones were made available that appealed to boyish aspirations of power and action. With the rise of superheroes in comics came the rise of superhero dolls (often called ‘figures’ to remove the gendered stigma of ‘dolls’). These have a curious history, and many of them today are coveted collectors’ items.
Early Days
It might be good to begin with a few dates in charting the itinerary of male role models, which are either superhuman, or perpetuate the stereotype of the hyper-masculinized physique.
Although created in 1933, Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1 in June 1938, Batman a year later (Detective Comics #27, May 1939). Captain America was born in 1941, while Spiderman took a little longer to arrive in 1962, coinciding with the Hulk, and Thor, with Iron Man coming a year after that. These would eventually incarnate into action figures but not before G.I. Joe, who appeared on the market in 1964.
Superman. A DC Comic character that First appeared in Action Comics #1 (cover-dated June 1938; published April 18, 1938). Created byJerry Siegel (writer) and Joe Shuster (artist). Via wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman
Batman and Robin. An American comic book ongoing series, created by Grant Morrison and featuring Batman and Robin. Via wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_and_Robin_(comic_book)
G.I. Joe
Responding to Barbie's extraordinary sales, the only woman on the planning team of the firm Hasbro, Janet Downing, suggested that they could make dolls appeal to boys if they were suitably masculine, which meant making G.I. Joe a soldier an obvious choice. Influenced from the television show The Lieutenant, G.I. Joe was a reticulated figure accompanied by an extensive array of costumes, weapons, and tools.
The figure produced by Sears a year later, called Johnny Hero, was still referred to as a 'boy's doll'. 'Action hero’, the convenient sanitization of ‘doll’ began to stick as a term along with the descriptor of G.I. Joe as ‘America’s Mobile Fighting Man of Action’.[i]
G.I. Joe. A line of action figures owned and produced by the toy company Hasbro. The initial product offering represented four of the branches of the U.S. armed forces with the Action Soldier (U.S. Army), Action Sailor (U.S. Navy), Action Pilot (U.S. Air Force), Action Marine (U.S. Marine Corps). Via wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe
When his popularity dwindled due to the disapproval of the Vietnam War, G.I. Joe increasingly became painted as a “Man of Action’ and a member of an ‘Adventure Team’. Mego, the company that created Action Jackson to compete with G.I. Joe in 1971, made its most significant success in 1972 with 'World's Greatest Super Heroes', a line of figures licensed from DC and Marvel Comics.
Big Jim
At around the same time, Mattel produced its highly successful Big Jim line that lasted until 1986. When not having superhuman powers, all of these figures fitted an unequivocally masculine stereotype. Despite their inherent immobility, their trappings and accessories bespoke every dynamic and dangerous activity ('action').
Big Jim was the nodal point from which came a litter of countless variants and offshoots. His off-sider was Big Jack, perhaps the first benign, non-derogatory Afro-American doll, Big Josh (a bearded version of Jim), Big Jeff (an extreme Aryanised version of Jim), Dr Steel (with Kojak bald head, a steel right hand a dragon tattoo on his chest—my favourite as a boy), and Chief Tanuka, an American Indian.
Big Jim. A line of action figure toys produced from 1972 through 1986 by Mattel for the North American and European markets. Via wikipedia.com. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Jim_(toy_line)
Successive releases sometimes had the same figures renamed. Still, they continued the tendency for outlandish names that merged military codenames with the futuristic and supernatural: Double Trouble Big Jim, Torpedo Fist, or Zorak Ruler of the Underworld.
Big Jim figures could also be outfitted with a helicopter, safari truck, or jet airplane. Strength and prowess were of the essence. Tellingly, Big Jim initially began its concept as 'Mark Strong', which was marketed together with a karate board, a dumbbell, and a belt that tested strength.
These lines were occasionally interspersed with female counterparts, such as G.I. Jane and later Wonder Woman. It is open to argument whether they were examples of the capable and assertive woman, or just a woman in the shadow of a man's role, in drag, as it were.
Masculine Play
With these dolls, boys could partake in a world of racial tolerance but where the default was comfortingly white, and securely in masculine play, where the default was sport, wealth, and war, thus mirroring the commercial films produced in the US from the 1960s onward, and picturing a stable, if one-dimensional, model of what real men were like. Such figures, also largely more movable as dolls than stiff Barbie, perpetuated the cliché that women were passive and men active.[ii]
Dolls, figurines, and action figures have become a ubiquitous component of every major television and movie franchise. From Dracula to Frankenstein, all the major horror creatures have a range of figures by several companies: there are Star Wars figures as there are X-men figures.
As witnessed by the highly successful Lord of the Rings then Hobbit trilogies, both articulated and non-articulated figures amassed a tidy profit, the latter style boasting itself to be a high-quality collectible, like Meissen figure but made of resin and trophy piece all rolled into one.
In the early 1980s, people dressed up as their favourite fantasy figure became more numerous and conspicuous at comic and science fiction conventions. Impressed by the quality of these dress-ups, upon returning to Japan from attending World-Con in Los Angeles, Takahashi Nobuyuki, founder of an anime publishing company Studio Hand, coined the word ‘cosplay’.
This was favourable to ‘masquerade’, whose Japanese translation is ‘aristocratic costume party’.[iii] Cosplaying parties and competitions are the masquerade of global culture, with thousands of members, and practice that has become highly encoded and specialized.
Now you needn’t just have your favourite action figure, and you could inhabit one. You could become an action hero. What came first, the hero or the doll?
References:
[i] Thomas Holland, Girls’ Toys from the Fifties and Sixties: Memorable Catalog Pages from the Legendary Sears Christmas Wishbooks 1950-1969, Sherman Oaks: Windmill Press, 1997, 210
[ii] See also T. Attfield, ‘Barbie and Action Man: Adult Toys for Girls and Boys’, in Pat Kirkham ed., The Gendered Object, Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996, 58, and Anna Wagner-Ott, Analysis of Gender Identity Through Doll and Action Figure Politics in Art Education, Studies in Art Education, 43.3, Spring, 2002, 251-252.
[iii] Teresa Winge, 'Costuming the Imagination: Origins of Anime and Manga', Mechademia, 1, Emerging Worlds of Anime and Manga, 2006, 66-67
