When I walked around the Time Square toys r us I saw that the majority of toys had to do with a movie or tv show. Most of the sections are broken up by the product and have some form of art or interactive piece tied to it. What I picked up on is there were a lot more sections dedicated to boys as opposed to girls. The first section was action figures based on a movie then directly after that was some stuffed animals and NewYork based products. Once you make your way passed there you are greeted with more boys toys. Here is the tricky part about that though, even with in the boys section there are scattered pink toys for girls which to me sort of made it seem like the toy manufacturers were making it ok for girls to play with the boys toys. Most of these toys were out doors things such as bikes, scooters and random sports products. These sections also had a good amount of neutral colors such as green, yellow and teal.
What caught me by surprise was the amount of action figures based on video games, cartoons, and movies. There was a whole side of video games and within the mix were all these action figures based on the game. Then when you go upstairs there is a whole section for super heroes and of course ninja turtles since the movie will be out soon. Even when you go to the creativity section where they have all the instruments, I noticed the boxes had boys on all the packaging except the pink one, so even the neutral teal with purple had a boy on the packaging. There was a whole section of building toys, legos, playmobil, megabloks and duplo. While I walk through all of these sections I kept asking where is the barbie dolls and baby dolls? All the way tucked in the back corner on the third floor. Over in this section there were dolls for all ages, and other products such as backpacks and dress up outfits. In the furthest back corner there was a big barbie house where all the barbie dolls were hidden, I mean literally hidden. You had to actually go in the house to see the collection of dolls. This surprised me most of all because there were all these sections for boys and yet the one part that is dedicated specifically for little girls is hidden off to the back depth of the store. The nickelodean section was the same size as the whole girls section. The boys have a whole floor dedicated to their imaginations yet the girls get a dark corner. The boys have hot wheels, action figures, sports and nerf guns, a whole floor dedicated to video games and electronics yet the little girls have a shelf of baby dolls. I don't know if this has something to do with the amount of creativity young boys lack or if it is that little girls don't have the same interest as they did when I was growing up. It is almost as if the manufacturers are focusing on what they can sell in package deals as opposed to sparking imagination. All these products based from movies are big bold and in your face. I even noticed the ninja turtles now have a play set that you can buy, when I was younger my brother and I made our own ninja turtles weapons and costume. The manufacturers are telling us parents what our kids will watch and play with now and I think it will only get worse as technology grows.