Toys and Chaos

"Boy Books"

"Girls Books"

 When I entered Toys R Us the first aspect of the store that struck me was gender roles. I overheard several employees directing customers to the "girls section" (where Barbie can be found) and the "boys section" where Star Wars and Jurassic Park are located. As a I wander through the story I remember in Seiter's article about how the girls section was closer to Arts & Crafts, and walking over I did find the "Books" section which was relatively close to the Barbie House section. At the book section I noticed there was a huge variety of "girl" books compared to "boy books." Pink is definitely associated with female though I would say Green is more associated with males. Like I said earlier, the books weren't far from the Arts and Crafts section which was definitely geared more towards women. I wouldn't say all the toys were necessarily Arts and Crafts but more

"How to be a Lady." Back when I was younger the Arts and Crafts section had more DIY sets and kits but now I see more junky

Why?

Ew

disturbing spa items. One of the toys that was in front with it's own tower of boxes stacked up being sold was "Orbeez Luxury Spa." Why would my kid want to soak their feet in bubbles and sit around and talk about nothing? In my mind, children are suppose to be creative, exploring their imaginations, running around, .. not sitting at home enjoying a "luxury spa." Their feet aren't tainted and gross like us adults yet.  We go to the salon to get pedicures and have professionals remove our rough patches of dead skin. This toy was must less interesting and quite a "fail" in my book compared to the movie-TV show toys. At least the licensed toys could speak to the inner fan-girl in me.

Near the Arts and Crafts, I saw a huge sign for Imaginarium. Excited I ran over and saw nothing but Lego and Thomas and friends except for a little rack. My friend and I both discussed it and decided

that maybe Imaginarium was becoming obsolete and it probably won't take long before the store updates and remove the sign. It was only walking to the Arts and Crafts we saw Imaginarium toys hidden behind a wall near the books, behind Thomas and Friends. We discussed that now a days people have grown more into niche's and Imaginarium might not be keeping up as well anymore. No cult following, and especially since this is the Landmark store, there will more likely be tourist to come here and buy exclusive toys from Lego and other large manufactured and branded toys then boutique toys.

This particular store made it very obvious which toys were licensed toys and owned by media conglomerates. Toys linked to movies such as Star Wars, Superman, Jurassic Park, Transformers, and Lego Land had large and over the top displays where the only large display I saw that was geared more towards females was Barbie. It seemed that male-oriented toy displays dominated the majority of the first floor. 

Hidden in the corner of the store I saw a tiny display and sign that showed love to our police and Fire Department. This was in the part of the store that was abandoned, with no associates, and very few consumers. The couple of people I did see here were tourist who asked me where the bathroom was. I decided to take my time and show my love to NYC by taking a selfie.  Much like the other popular toys, these toys weren't far off from what the other merchants were selling but no-one was interested.

I couldn't really tell which toys were this year's "hot toys" so I asked an associate why. The past year the store's "hot toy" was any merchandise from the movie "Frozen." The sales associate explained since this was the landmark Toys R Us, people from all over the world come to specially purchase "Frozen" merchandise, leading them to often be out of stock.

AND THIS IS MY "WHAT IN THE WORLD.." OF THE EVENING...