Paul Dini explains why execs don't want girls watching their superhero shows | Hacker News Reader

Paul Dini explains why execs don't want girls watching their superhero shows

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73 pointsa_w72 comments

Not to defend any of this, but it's true that you can make more total advertising revenue from two shows if one gets all boys and the other gets all girls, rather than them being split 50-50. Each commands a higher ad revenue by being more targeted.

It's an unfortunate fact of human nature that many boys find toys less desirable if they see girls playing with them too. Toy marketers would prefer to advertise on a show with 10M boys and ~0 girls, than a show with 10M boys and 2M girls at the same price, because those 2M girls might buy their toys, the boys might see them and write off the toy as "for girls".

With a few exceptions, toy marketing is an exploitative business. Don't let your kids watch TV or buy them action figures.

Yup, while the misoginy is more than evident, I agree with you that the root of evil there is their desire to make their shows as profitable as possible.

Wouldn't it be more accurate to say "make their shows as profitable as possible in ways they already understand"?

The piece mentions Harry Potter and while the lead character may be a boy, the smartest character is a girl and as a franchise that did OK. Sure not everything is going to be Harry Potter but it, Hunger Games, Buffy and so on show it's more than possible to have a franchise that has a mixed audience and still works.

It feels more of a "we know how this works and we're comfortable with it" thing than an absolute profit maximisation.

How many little boys do you think are asking their parents for hunger games toys this Christmas?

I was like...why would they even produce such a thing...oh...wait. http://www.toysrus.com/family/index.jsp?categoryId=12656761 Made as a Barbie toy no less....

They're called 'action figures' because "boys don't want to play with dolls".

Some bits of the toy industry are deeply unpleasant.

Reminds me of that great flow chart for determining whether a toy is meant for boys or girls:

Q1: Is the toy operated using the child's genitals:

Yes - it is suitable for neither boys nor girls.

No - it is suitable for either boys or girls.

What about the Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 Broomstick?

And if you don't know what I'm talking about google it a bit.

I'm aware of it.

I'm not sure "operated" was the right word but still possibly not suitable for kids...

Only the $1 toys left over from the previous movie are action figures, the toys for the new movie are most definitely Barbie...

I don't know why I messed that!

Yes. It's very weird seeing action figures (realistic body shape) next to Barbie (FREAK OF NATURE).

Looking on Amazon I can see action figures (not just the Barbie ones), stationary sets, board games, card games, jewelry (including some leather stuff which boys might like), bookmarks and if someone isn't doing a bow and arrow then the merchandising people are idiots.

Plus there are books and DVDs. Sure, some of it is going to be bought by girls but if you look at the action figures, they don't look like they're being marketed at girls.

Anecdotally, the kids down the road from me love Hunger Games and chief among them is the 14 year old boy. (He and I talk a lot about books and films - he's my cover for going to see rubbish superhero movies).

Yeah I am just pointing out that the movie itself was clearly marketed for the female audience, and the toys available reflect that strategy.

That's not a fact of human nature. That is nurture/culture at its finest. Do you think young chimpansee boys and girls play with different 'toys'?

Capitalism didn't create this culture, but it certainly isn't going to make it go away. Blaming managers for capitalist comsiderations is like blaming the wind for uprooting a tree.

> Do you think young chimpansee boys and girls play with different 'toys'?

Yes, they do, and their preferences are largely similar to those of human children.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982210...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18452921

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513802...

One more proof of impact of the human male misogyny. The patriarchy is so deeply rooted, that even the chimpanzees are affected! We should start a fund that will fight for equal opportunity for female chimpanzees! /s

The difference between us and chimps is that we have a choice in the matter.

If there really are inborn sex differences in play behavior, isn't this like saying we have a really have a "choice" in handedness?

An idea that didn't work out too well for left-handed people when this was believed by society

As a southpaw I feel you, but correcting left-handedness has no real social impact on anybody, gender equality issues have much further reaching positive social implications.

Thanks for those links. I was convinced otherwise.

Thank you very much for providing actual evidence as opposed to speculation. However, there is room for interpretation here, and I am not sure the evidence is quite as conclusive as you seem to suggest. Its not strange at all for published articles on the bleeding edge of science to be shown later to be incorrect. And there are some things that hit me when looking at the abstracts.

For example, in that first study observing behavior from six females and two males seems enough to suggest that there is a "greater female interest in infant care, with stick-carrying being a form of play-mothering". Unfortunately, I don't think that is quite enough conclusive evidence to make any conclusions about chimpanzee behavior beyond those particular individuals, let alone that of the entire family of great apes.

In that third study, I seriously question the gendered objects. A toy pot might be a girl toy in human society, but I question whether the same is true in vervet monkey society. Do vervet monkeys hold a sterotype for female vervet monkeys cooking with a pot in the kitchen, before they invent cooking, pots or kitchens? And I don't understand how it is that a plush toy is female, but a stuffed dog is ungendered.

I'd be interested in reading the full papers if anyone can pass on links to the full papers. I'm sure I remember coming across these same studies previously.

I suspect that negative results are not actually published and there is a lot of existing pressure to confirm existing cultural beliefs in order to actually get published. Look at what happened to the Harvard President Lawrence Summers when he questioned whether women have less aptitude for science. There is a lot of emotion behind this (and I won't deny being very biased myself). Though I have to admit that the evidence does point towards a gendered difference in toy preference, I just felt the need to question its conclusiveness.

1. Yes, there are differences between sexes/genders.

2. No, they are not of stereotypical delineation/clarity/scale. If anything, we now know more than ever that while people vary, there is no reason to generalize against any social group ability in any matter.

3a. First study: female apes are more interested in tool-like sticks than male apes.

3b. Second study: female apes are equally interested in "feminine" and "masculine" toys.

3c. Third study: a doll attracts 20% of female vs 8% of male ape attention.

.pdfs of mentioned papers are easily findable on Google Scholar.

> First study: female apes are more interested in tool-like sticks than male apes.

The study reported that juvenile female chimps were much more likely to use sticks for doll-like behaviors. Using sticks for other things such as as tools or as weapons were not reported.

It has been reported elsewhere the female chimps have a greater propensity to use tools including sticks for food-gathering purposes: http://www.eva.mpg.de/primat/staff/boesch/pdf/fol_prim_tool_...

> 3b. Second study: female apes are equally interested in "feminine" and "masculine" toys.

Male monkeys showed a strong preference for wheeled toys over plush dolls, and the preference of female monkeys was smaller, and human children show roughly the same pattern for these toys.

Also note that chimps are apes, and vervets and rhesus monkeys are not.

> 3c. Third study: a doll attracts 20% of female vs 8% of male ape attention.

Six toy types were studied, not just dolls.

not making any claims about its conclusiveness, the poster to which I was replying made an argument to incredulity to which there is actually contradicting evidence.

Since chimpanzees are relatively sexually dimorphic perhaps they are not a good way to argue against human sex differences. Also since chimps and monkeys have less sophisticated use of objects it shouldn't be surprising that the evidence has some degree of muddling but we know that there are sex differences in play behavior, such as male juveniles monkeys preferring rough-and-tumble play, or females showing more interest in the infants in their group (which the studies I cited earlier reference).

If I were to make a more general case, however, this wouldn't be the only evidence that I would rely on.

You might look at studies of very young children, younger than it is believed they would be aware of their gender:

http://jbd.sagepub.com/content/25/1/7.abstract

If you're disinclined to belief update from that, you could still say they were still influenced by culture somehow.

Going further you could look at even eye-tracking studies of infants:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19016318

If you were still disinclined, you could say there's still social influence in there, maybe, it can't be ruled out...

But then look at evidence of prenatal hormone exposure, such as digit ratio (marker of androgen):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886909...

Or those with hormonal disorders:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12414881

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/3/3/203.short

http://people.uncw.edu/hungerforda/Infancy/PDF/Prenatal%20ho...

If toy preferences are socially constructed, why would an obscure endocrine disorder predict toy preference according to the hormones that boys or girls were more typically exposed to? The latter study suggests that those with atypical hormone exposure face increased socialization pressure to conform, yet which apparently shows the least influence on their preference.

I don't know whether what you're saying is true but is it backed by evidence or just an assumption?

I remember working for an online retailer several years ago. Their marketing department made it clear that targeting by demographic was outdated and they felt that grouping people by their behavior was a more modern and accurate way of keeping track of people and future habits. Maybe one day media companies will enter the 21st century of metrics when most major media transitions to the internet.

If you are blaming the execs for this, then you understand very little about culture and are simply satisfying your ego eith righteous inidignation. The execs are making the only right decision that allows them to keep their job: it's their job to make decisions that earn the most money for the company, irrespective of enlightened moral considerations.

If you want this to change, raise your children to believe differently and preach different moral standards. This kind of change depends on you, not on complaining about what others do while swept up in the cultural winds.

And don't take a job where you will be required to take these kinds of decisions.

That doesn't make any sense at all.

OK, by their logic they want boys to watch the show so they'll buy toys.

What do they care if girls also watch? It not like it hurts them - they just don't get the potential benefit.

This makes so little sense that I don't believe a word of this article. Either it's fake or someone edited it in a slanted way.

True... I'm guessing what they're getting at is that the execs want to focus on the boys at the expense of the girls - they'd rather have just 60 boys watching the show than 50 boys and 50 girls, because it's only boys who are going to be getting the toys under their Christmas tree, and 60 > 50.

I think the implication is that all the time girls spend watching "boys shows" is time they're not focusing on "girls shows", therefore they're losing those marketing minutes.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems as if they don't really mean they don't want girls to watch, so much as they don't want to target girls. I'm guessing that they think there's no way to write stories that will appeal to both sexes (which is completely stupid as many shows have appeal to both). Unfortunately, it seems like it's mostly due to the higher-ups in the networks that make these decisions (probably due to antiquated thinking).

By targeting one gender, rather than both, advertising execs can ask for more money than a "generic" multiple gender ad. It's stupid.

Why do you think that is stupid?

Stupid was the wrong word. I understand marketing, and segmenting of markets quite well, it just frustrates me sometimes that it's a better choice economically, then just ignoring stuff like that and making awesome content. /shrugs

That seems fair, we must also keep in mind that public companies are legally bound to maximize profits for their shareholders. Being altruistic is something only privately held companies can do at the expense of profits.

Not stupid, sociopathically greedy. There's a difference, although they can sometimes seem the same.

I'm going to guess they think if girls are watching it, boys aren't. Gaining 20% girls/parents might end up costing them 10% boys, which they presume might end up being a net loss for them.

He mentioned Cartoon Network specifically. On the other hand, Nick has fantastic shows for people of all ages and genders. I am a huge fan of Korra. A friend of mine started watching Avatar with her son a few years ago and told me to check it out. After Avatar ended, we continued to watch Korra and it is such a great show with strong backstories on almost all the primary characters. If I had a daughter, I'd buy her a Korra doll, video game, and craft supplies. I don't know why Cartoon Network thinks girls aren't profitable.

Since we're on the subject, Korra actually had a hard time to be greenlit for the same reason. Nick was scared that boys wouldn't watch the show even after the success of Avatar, the Last Air Bender. Well they still bet on the series and thankfully their fears were proven wrong.

While Korra is still ok, it's nowhere near as good as the Last Air Bender for reasons that have nothing to do with the gender of the protagonist.

That is ridiculous. The production values in Korra have been much better than in Last Air Bender, including the animation and the music (especially the music!). The story has been very fast paced with absolutely no filler episodes, with a lot of character development to boot. Going back and watching Last Air Bender, you can tell how much they've learned!

I disagree. The storyline and themes may be different from the first series, but like its predecessor it's a show that both parents and children (both boys and girls) can enjoy.

I forgot to mention Adventure Time since we're talking about Cartoon Network. Since both boys and girls enjoy it, I guess that's another exception to the rule. I guess this is why no one will take Bee and Puppycat. They mentioned the same obstacles in their kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/frederator/bee-and-puppy...

Good answer above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6919928

Not to defend the execs behavior at all, but as a parent I have seen it going through the toy aisle with my daughter.

  Me:  "Why don't you get <toy with Lightning McQueen on it>?"
  Her: "It's a boy toy."
  Me:  "I thought you liked Lightning McQueen"
  Her: "I do, but that's a boy's toy"

My 3 year old girl has a lot of boy friends because she wears her brother's old McQueen shirts. But then she wants princess Sophia shwag because she gets encouraged to. I would rather she aspire to be both mechanically inclined and pretty than have to choose.

Thinking about this, I know there is plenty of pretty geekwear for women online, but I've never seen any for girls. Maybe I've never noticed? But then there's always the option of buying unicoloured stuff and the print shop.. not fixing the systematic problem though.

There's a huge problem with gender neutral clothing; or even gendered clothing with positive messages.

I don't want to buy my son a t-shirt with "trouble maker" type slogans. http://www.cooldudeskids.com/products/here-comes-trouble-tsh...

I don't want to buy a girl a t-shirt with "Princess Brat" on. Spoiled Princess: http://www.printfection.com/princessparade/Spoiled-Princess-...

I would love to buy t-shirts in a variety of sizes and colours, and if they do have messages I'd like those slogans to be positive; or with gender neutral prints.

Not all think that way at least:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CU040Hqbas

Isnt that the point though even if 10% think differently when its purely profit driven that is still not enough.

Yeah in a way they are just doing A/B testing and getting a more profitable result.

Cartoon Network probably tries to target certain demographic rates so they can have different options for advertisers. If you've got a product you're marketing to girls, or families, or ages 3 - 5, Cartoon Network could conceivably charge more to "target" your ad to the demographic you're marketing to via the right show. Otherwise this doesn't make much economic sense to me.

In any case, the show brought on looks like absolute shit.

One thing that's confused me for sometime about how demographics are used in TV is that, well, "the sort of person who would watch X" seems like it would be a useful category that could be targeted. That is to say, you could optimize for "boys will watch this show, and boys will buy these things"; but what about the more straightforward "people who will watch this show will buy these things"? Instead of trying to go for this 2-step correlation sort of thing.

I can't help but think of the phenomenon of network decay -- say of the Sci-Fi network, for instance. Sure, you could notice that your science fiction channel is watched by 18-31 year old males, and try to more heavily target that group; or you could notice that it's watched by science fiction fans and target that. I would naïvely expect the latter to be a more sensible way of breaking things down in this context and thus more effective, but the former seems to be what occurred. Am I missing something?

This is also often given as the reason radio stations are so homogeneous inside of their genre- if you don't fit the mould, you can't sell advertising slots. It leads to weird and perverse outcomes, but it certainly seems like people who refuse to bend go out of business.

There are likely a lot more advertisers with money to spend marketing products to sell to 18-31 year old males than to very specifically sci-fi fans.

I can imagine beer, clothing, cars, dating and related (shaving, hair and body care products) would fit 18-31 male audience well. Some of those are likely more valuable markets than straight sci-fi demographic products, I'm imagining.

It may well be that a loose 18-31 male demographic fit is more valuable than a tight sci-fi fit.

They are not very smart. I do not know much about kids shows, but it seems like japanese shows always have a girl character with some tiny screeching bouncing talking pet animal which seems specifically designed to be purchased by girls as a toy.

To be fair, magical girl shows for kids in Japan are huge franchises with theatrical movies, boatload amounts of merchandises, live action theatrical shows, video games, and even food products.

In Japanese magical girl shows you get the same issue in reverse: they're very careful to make the show as girly as possible with very few male characters (often none at all), because once again advertisers want a segmented audience. E.g. after Heartcatch Pretty Cure took a more serious tone and acquired a periphery demographic the next two series were made deliberately more girly and lost the dramatic arcs.

I always thought the target demographic for magical girl shows were the so-called "grass eater" or herbivore men. There's a reason why Akihabara is very popular, and I'd imagine most of the toy sales come from adult men rather than girls.

This is amazingly short-sighted and dumb. A lot of the cash cows like Spongebob and Scooby Doo make an epic amount of money, and they aren't particularly tailored to one gender or the other.

In 2003 alone, Scooby-Doo generated more than $750 million in revenue from licensing and merchandising

http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/scoobymonstermexico.php

I'm pretty sure they know the exact gender distribution of Spongebob / Scooby Doo merchandise buyers.

I don't - but from observing friends of my kids I'm fairly sure that it's nowhere near 50/50, despite, as you say, "they aren't particularly tailored to one gender or the other".

Ponies. That is all.

Seriously, didn't Lauren Faust disprove this once and for all?

"Bronies" tend to be older males; think 13 to 40. They probably don't buy many toys.

I realize this is only anecdata but the ones I know buy EVERY ONE of the toys :)

With the disposable income males at those ages have, I'd wager they certainly do buy toys. Lots of them.

Bronies do buy toys - in fact, they complain that shop keepers don't take them seriously and/or assume it's for a younger female sibling.

co-worker of mine used to buy a lot of toys and other merchandise (pajamas?!). He fit into that age category.

So sad. I distinctly remember how my sis and I (female) got a pair of generic brand transformers as a present back when I was 8. Dad was inspired after we watched Voltron every Saturday! Of course, my sister (being slightly girlier than me at that age) promptly used nail polish to paint its ugly-grey "shoes" because we needed to distinguish "ours" but still, what fun! It turned into a fighter plane and back and we'd spend hours playing with it.

... I mean, no, girls don't buy toys. Maybe if they didn't explicitly make it boring and discouraging for girls then they would?

Presumably the reverse is also true. I guess boys don't want ponies and princesses either, and now that I think about it, boys are portrayed slightly negatively in e.g. Barbie movies. Just market segmentation I guess.

My daughter has bought a ton of Legos, Star Wars and Harry Potter paraphernalia over the years. Learning that she put money in the pockets of drooling marketing dweebs despite their own idiocy is infuriating.

Don't be. TV programs are sold into specific channels that have certain target demographic profiles. Be happy your daughter 'broke' the mould.

It wasn't infuriating enough that you paid double for character-licensed flavors of the toys?

I am not sure what is so surprising about this. Assuming that the execs understanding of female and male consumers is correct if there is a bias in their behavior, they should use that fact to increase their profits. We should stop forcing this gender equality down everyones throats.

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