Even though the section on "Toys" in Roland Barthes' Mythologies was really short, I really enjoyed this mini text. Perhaps because in a way, I agree with him and the fact that he tries to exemplify that this whole "French toys" movement is associated or connected to a social norm. He writes: "...medicine (miniature instrument-cases...) the air force (parachutists)..." and expresses that these toys are set up for children to look up to in a way. For example, a child who plays with the medicine case will aspire to become a doctor one day and this is the same concept for all the other toy comparisons he makes. The most concrete comparison, however, is that of the child (girl) who plays with her doll that urinates, associating her with motherhood. All these connections are very pertinent even to modern times...society has a way of "conditioning" people at a young age, children in this instance, to be "users, not creators". Therefore, the social norm was also created for this child and all he/she has to do is fit the shoe, so to speak, and become that certain individual that society is looking for. Reading “Toys” reminded me of my childhood and made me think of what kind of roles my brother, my sister and I were conditioned to. My brother always had the toy cars and the army men/toys and Nintendo, etc. My sister and I had the barbies and whatever pertained to them. I always wanted one of the water babies Barthes is referring to but I never got one but I did get a doctor case, which automatically came into my thoughts when I read this short text. I remember clearly carrying this case around with me wherever I went and telling people I wanted to be a doctor...as in medicine and what not...but in reality, I don’t think I could ever do that. So according to Barthes, this was society conditioning me to think a certain way, it doesn’t always become a reality, but this “case” was my way of knowing that I needed an education to get somewhere. My parents never had the same educational experience I’ve had so the fact that at a young age I was able to recognize that I did want an education, without really knowing what this meant, just reinforces Barthes vision. In conclusion, society will always have a role for humanity and maybe it’s up to us to be the creators and not the users? I’m not so sure now…
I think that the most obvious ways that toys condition children is by way of gender roles. Boys play with 'manly' things such as soldiers, cars, trucks, carpentry tools, etc. and girls get 'feminine' toys such as kitchen sets and dolls. I remember going to Toys R Us last year to get my friend a present for her baby shower and I was shocked at how sexist the store was: the girls side was completely pink and full of barbies and house sets and the boys side was all construction tonka toys, trucks and what not. I don't know why there is no middle ground and why it has to be segregated so much into those two groups. Stereotyping toys is a way to tell us which gender role we are supposed to fill and when we go outside of it we get scolded- especially in the case of little boys playing with barbies. So to an extent, I think that toys are created deliberately to try to condition us into our 'appropriate' societal roles, at least in the case of gender.
ReplyDeleteGender stereotypes, for sure, but also most modern toys seem to function by generally dulling the capacity to think imaginatively, originally or creatively and diminishing the need for it... for me that's even scarier than the gender role enforcement.
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