Apparently Americans Aren’t Interested Enough for Hasbro to Sell Us the Rey Token for ‘Star Wars’ Monopoly
The toy controversies just never stop, do they? With #WheresRey and the Black Widow and Gamora controversies only just behind us, it seems like toy companies would have gotten the hint by now. But Hasbro’s Star Wars Monopoly game unveiled after The Force Awakens opened still hasn’t fixed their Rey problem. Well, they’ve fixed it overseas, but apparently Americans just aren’t interested enough.
Hasbro got some grief from parents last year for not including a Rey token in their Star Wars Monopoly set. After a strongly-worded letter from an 8-year-old girl and the ensuing online controversy, Hasbro promised the situation would be rectified. But it’s been more than twelve months since then, and still no Rey in those Monopoly sets. When the Associated Press asked Hasbro what the heck was up, they had a pretty weird answer:
In early 2016, Hasbro updated the 2015 Star Wars: Monopoly game to add a Rey token. This product was sold to retailers in several markets around the world, but is not available for sale in the U.S. due to insufficient interest.
So… America doesn’t care enough about the Rey thing for us to get a figurine? I wonder which countries have been deemed worthy enough by Hasbro to merit one in their game boxes. But, honestly, this answer isn’t that surprising, if only because the excuse they gave before was so weird: Hasbro didn’t put the Rey figure into the set at first because they didn’t want consumers to know that Rey fights Kylo Ren and joins the Rebels. Which is… the whole point of the movie. She’s the main character. It would be more of a surprise if that didn’t happen.
The takeaway from all this is that toy companies are still insisting that there’s no demand for toy versions of female characters. Maybe there is a marked difference between how Luke Skywalkers and Princess Leias sell in Target, but there are also legions of little girls who are disappointed that they can’t find their favorite cool female characters in their toy sets. Do not pass Go, Hasbro, do not collect $200.