Why Parents Want ‘Star Wars’ Action Figure Off Shelves
As moms and dads call the “Slave Outfit” Princess Leia doll “indecent,” experts tell Yahoo Parenting how to answer the uncomfortable — if inevitable — questions that curious kids may ask about it. (Photo: Hasbro)
Parents of young children browsing toy store aisles who assumed that questions about slavery and sexism were far, far away got a rude awakening when their kids encountered Hasbro’s “Star Wars The Black Series Princess Leia (Slave Outfit) Figure recently.
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The doll — for kids age 4 and up, consisting of a scantily clad Leia with a chain around her neck as she appeared in Return of the Jedi scenes when she was one of Jabba the Hutt’s slaves — is “inappropriate,” father Fred Hill fumed to Fox 29 on Tuesday. His pre-teen admitted, “It kinda creeped me out.” Hill called for the toy to be removed from store shelves, griping, “I [have] two daughters. They’re like, ‘Dad, why does this doll have a chain around its neck?’ I don’t have any answers. I was just blown away looking at it.”
Photo: Hasbro
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The news outlet reports that Hill is just one the parents who were upset by the figurine, first introduced in 2013 and prompting occasional outcry from parents ever since. This week, along with Hill, a mother interviewed by the local station also called it “indecent.”
The toy manufacturer, Hasbro, did not return Yahoo Parenting’s requests for comment.
Debate about the doll has gotten so hot this time around that even Carrie Fisher, who portrayed Princess Leia in the original 1977 film, weighed in on Twitter. “SlaveLeiaDollsR causingOUTRAGE 4Sum parents onFox TV& Im thinking-if folksR outraged NOW, shouldnt I have beenOUTRAGED40yrs ago?” she wrote Tuesday. “MAYBE I WAS!”
But when it comes to parents confronted by kids’ inevitable questions about the controversial toy, expressing outrage is the last thing you want to do, experts tell Yahoo Parenting.
“Simply tell young kids that this is showing a character from a movie scene where one of the bad guys gets Princess Leia and chains her up to try to hurt her, but don’t worry, she gets away,” advises SuperBaby author and psychologist Jenn Mann. Then use kids’ questions as an opportunity to teach that “we don’t hurt people, we don’t enslave people, and we don’t buy toys that encourage acting out hurting other people either.”
The doll is “upsetting,” adds Brooklyn-based child psychologist Laura Markham. “Just as the scene was upsetting.” So she agrees with a matter-of-fact explanation to dial down kids’ concerns. “Simply say, ‘It’s from a movie, where she was captured and kept as a slave until she escaped. Slavery is a terrible thing. It’s treating people as property that someone else can own and even put a chain on. That’s why slavery is illegal now, everywhere in the world.’"
As for Leia’s barely-there getup, Markham offers this script, to turn the conversation into a learning opportunity about sexism: “She looks like she’s going to the beach, doesn’t she? This outfit doesn’t look like it would be good to run in, or climb trees in, does it?” Markham also encourages parents to add that in the movie, Leia was actually a very strong woman, and explain “how brave and strong and smart she is."
Family therapist Paul Hokemeyer sees the doll as a launching pad for a more overreaching conversation about mistakes. “For younger children, it’s best to steer the discussion away from toys,” he tells Yahoo Parenting. Parents can tell kids that the things you play with are supposed to be fun and “there isn’t anything fun about this,” he says. “You could even say, ‘Daddy doesn’t understand how this figure got into the toy section. Someone must’ve made a mistake,’ then, rather than getting bent out of shape about the inappropriateness of the doll front of your child, use the opportunity to teach your children about mistakes — how they are made in the general course of life, and most importantly how to move on from them.”
Flipping kids’ questions about any seemingly inappropriate toy, movie, or game for young children into lessons about family values is great parenting, concurs Mann. “It’s an easy entry into talking about your beliefs and philosophies and how we treat others,” she explains. “Any time you have the opportunity to do that, take it.”
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