MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE: ACTION FIGURES, CUSTOMIZATION AND MASCULINITY

Eric Sobel

A Thesis

Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

December 2018

Committee:

Montana Miller, Advisor

Esther Clinton

Jeremy Wallach ii ABSTRACT

Montana Miller, Advisor

This thesis places action figures, as masculinely gendered playthings and rich intertexts,

into a larger context that accounts for increased nostalgia and hyperacceleration. Employing an

ethnographic approach, I turn my attention to the under-discussed adults who comprise the

fandom. I examine ways that individuals interact with action figures creatively, divorced from

children’s play, to produce subjective experiences, negotiate the inherently consumeristic nature

of their fandom, and process the gender codes and social stigma associated with classic toylines.

Toy customizers, for example, act as folk artists who value authenticity, but for many, mimicking

mass-produced objects is a sign of one’s skill, as seen by those working in a style inspired by

Masters of the Universe figures. However, while creativity is found in delicately manipulating

familiar forms, the inherent toxic masculinity of the original action figures is explored to a

degree that far exceeds that of the mass-produced toys of the 1980s. Collectors similarly complicate the use of action figures, as playfully created displays act as frames where fetishization is permissible. I argue that the fetishization of action figures is a stabilizing response to ever-changing trends, yet simultaneously operates within the complex web of intertexts of which action figures are invariably tied. To highlight the action figure’s evolving role in corporate hands, I examine retro-style Reaction figures as metacultural objects that evoke Star

Wars figures of the late 1970s but, unlike Star Wars toys, discourage creativity, communicating through the familiar signs of pop culture to push the figure into a mental realm where official stories are narrowly interpreted. I conclude by suggesting that in response to media

iii oversaturation and the rise of nerd culture, action figures, as objects rooted in the physical world that communicate with popular codes and speak to deeply-held emotions, represent unique sites of meaning, both personal and cultural.

iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to sincerely thank my thesis chair, Dr. Montana Miller, for her insight and encouragement at each stage of this process. If I’ve been able to channel her approach to folklore research in some way, this project has already been a success. I would especially like to thank my committee members, Dr. Esther Clinton and Dr. Jeremy Wallach, for challenging me intellectually, sharing my enthusiasm for action figures, and continually providing eye-opening feedback.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the toy collectors and customizers who took the time to offer their valuable insight: Brandon Barker, Paul Bolton, Lee

Burbridge, Christopher Cannon, Justin Lebowitz, and Kev Shaw. Their thoughtful responses not only brought an unforeseen depth to this thesis, but illuminated aspects of an overlooked corner of popular culture. No less essential was Beka Patterson, whose patience, promptness, and unwavering ability to guide me through paperwork and deadlines unscathed was nothing short of extraordinary.

Thank you to my brother, Alex, for being my proofreader and helping me to reconnect with my love of action figures when my objectives felt insurmountable. I am also grateful to

Matt, whose support and presence kept me sane and grounded.

Finally, to Katherine, who never left my side during the ups and downs of this Master’s

Thesis. An unparalleled source of inspiration and motivation, she has given me the strength to finish my degree, but more importantly, she has given me hope as I look past this stage of my academic career. v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER I. CUSTOM ACTION FIGURES, AUTHENTICITY IN CONSUMER CULTURE,

AND RE-MASCULATING HE-MAN ...... 12

Authenticity and Action Figures as Folk Art ...... 17

Masculinity in Warlords of Wor ...... 25

Narrative and Participation in Warlords of Wor ...... 28

Assembling Gender with Masters of the Universe Mash-Ups...... 31

Fixed Gender and Timelessness in Action Figure Immobilization ...... 34

Conclusion...... 35

CHAPTER II. (DIS)PLAY, SOCIAL COLLECTING, AND THE FETISH OBJECT AS

INTERTEXT...... 39

Play ...... 41

Festishism ...... 50

CHAPTER III. REACTION FIGURES, INTERTEXTUALITY, AND THE

METACULTURAL CENTERING OF OFFICIAL NARRATIVES ...... 57

Reaction ...... 59

Metacultural Objects ...... 61

Star Wars Figures ...... 62

Packaging ...... 66

Characters ...... 68

The Future ...... 70 vi

CONCLUSION ...... 74

WORKS CITED ...... 79

APPENDIX A. IRB APPROVAL ...... 83

APPENDIX B. CONSENT FORMS ...... 84

APPENDIX C. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ...... 92 1

INTRODUCTION

As physical representations of the vast intertextual narratives that dominate our media, objects involved in both the compulsive consumption of adults and unpredictable play of children, and pop culture artifacts that often carry immense emotional resonance, action figures and their enthusiasts remain among the most surprisingly under-analyzed aspects of fandom.

Complex sites where cultural symbols intersect with personal experience, action figures speak to mass-production, invite creativity, link us to the past, and inform our understanding of popular narratives. In the past decade, action figures have gained more shelf space in comic and specialty shops while the stigma of collecting them has begun to wane. As they represent an aspect of material culture long associated with children, a new dimension to the discussion of action figures is becoming increasingly unavoidable.

Perhaps as significant as the action figure’s place in the hearts and on the shelves of many adult collectors is how both creative consumers and multinational corporations react to the oversaturation of texts and feelings of nostalgia often experienced by those who attempt to keep up with an accelerated media landscape. While it can be easy to view the rows of Star Wars and

Marvel figures that line the racks of seemingly every Walmart and Target in support of the next blockbuster as indicative of a monolithic aspect of culture, subject to a singular capitalist objective, the reality of action figures in the age of the Internet is more complicated. Toy customizers with an uneasy relationship to the title of “artist” manipulate the iconic symbols of mass-production from their youth, creating highly personal objects both familiar and original that seem to highlight the failure of popular culture to fulfill us while simultaneously reaffirming its value. Keenly aware of the emotional impact of established forms, customizers use immense skill to produce material objects around which communities, status, and standards of quality are 2

formed, as if to create their own folk art that redefines authenticity within the soullessness of

mass-production.

At the same time, major corporations find new ways to evoke hip self-awareness such

that it becomes easy to forget their financial and ideological motivations. Companies such as

Funko and Super7 throw into question, if not completely dismantle, action figures as tangible

objects for children. With their Reaction line, which portrays countless characters from

properties as diverse as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Planet of the Apes in a style reminiscent of

Star Wars figures of the 1970s, Super7 selects texts from various eras to be framed as adult

collectibles when filtered through the sparsely-detailed aesthetics and poor likenesses of children’s figures long past. Released by Funko from 2013 to 2016, these objects are labeled as

“Not a Toy” directly on the package. Limited in its pose-ability and typically bearing a vague resemblance to the character portrayed, Reaction pushes the role of action figure as a symbolic representation. Priced beyond, and lacking the obvious play value of more child-friendly figures of a similar scale, such as the Star Wars figures concurrently released by Hasbro, Reaction taps into nostalgia and the novelty of mash-up culture, speaking to the frustrations of aging nerds while serving to remind us that corporations will occasionally embrace unusual ideas if they can be packaged and sold in major retailers.

While the lines between creative individuals and the powerful institutions with the

greatest control over cultural output often seem blurred, which Henry Jenkins asserts is

indicative of how fandom creates a “participatory culture which transforms the experience of

media consumption into the production of new texts” (46), action figures seem to attract the

ambiguities of convergence culture in their own way. Synonymous with mass-production, they

have become a medium that finds expression through the forms we recognize and cherish. 3

Surprising sites of competing meaning, action figures are objects in the physical world around which popular texts and symbols have been processed, personalized, validated, subverted, recontextualized, and commodified by both fans and corporations attempting to approximate a fan mentality. Certainly, as intertexts among comics, movies, and cartoons, action figures complicate official narratives, at best sparking creativity, but at least frustrating the hopes of a singular, often hegemonic portrayal across media. But in a cultural landscape in which intertexts are increasingly normalized, where high-end adult collectibles divorced from play become less taboo, fans find inspiration from the toys of their childhood to create works of art that respond to consumer culture, and nostalgia is commodified, I find it necessary to explore new ways of assessing action figures. To acknowledge only the redemptive qualities of destabilizing intertextual narratives and the consumer interaction they facilitate or their position as hegemonic tools of the Culture Industry is to not truly capture the state of action figures. From the mass- produced Marvel character at Walmart to the one-of-a-kind Masters of the Universe inspired customization appearing in only a few dozen Instagram feeds, action figures act as an unusual site to express and interpret personal and cultural symbols, a medium overlooked as cheap commodities where some of the most lasting and pervasive texts (or fragments of them) bring issues as diverse as gender, sexuality, and race, among others, to aggressively unpretentious objects with presence in the physical world that are so instantly emotionally resonant to so many.

Texts within grand narratives but also hypertexts indirectly evoking past texts, to borrow from

Gérard Genette, that are constructed from and made meaningful by our knowledge of other texts

(5), action figures, in their seemingly most iconoclastic and corporatized forms, reflect a surprising degree of self-awareness. Above all else, producers of action figures, perhaps better than anyone, recognize the currency of nostalgia and familiar forms, as if to communicate with 4 fans in a language that cuts through the clutter of contemporary existence and speaks to them in a way both visceral and immediate. As adult fans, whose formative years were shaped by the iconic intertexts of the 1980s like Transformers and Masters of the Universe, search for (or expect) validation amidst a social media culture that simultaneously keeps their past from drifting away and allows them to connect with others over common interests and experiences, what can we learn about the way dominant narratives are used and interpreted? How have these shifts redefined creative and subjective experiences for consumers, especially as children’s play gives way to the display and construction of materials so embedded with the signs of industrialization? And how does corporatized nostalgia change our relationship to action figures and the ideas they represent?

While academics have been slow to embrace action figures, and even slower to move beyond an understanding that situates them in relation to the rich cultural texts that concern adults as well as children, this area of fandom has not been completely ignored. Notably,

Jonathan Alexandratos’ valuable collection of essays entitled Articulating the Action Figure

(2017) has provided numerous perspectives on action figures’ role in our construction of gender, a necessary step for plastic representations of predominantly males offering an idealized, if not absurdly unobtainable, version of masculinity. Perhaps as significantly is the status he grants action figures as objects of legitimate academic inquiry: “They often speak for, or against, source texts that have taken the form of movies, books, TV shows, video games, and historical icons. In brief, action figures hold within their plastic shells a representation of past, present, and future that should be subjected to academic rigor” (Alexandratos 5).

Dan Fleming’s examination of the intersection between toys as commercial entities and objects with unpredictable use value in Power Play: Toys as Popular Culture (1996) provides an 5 early look at action figures’ role in narratives, while suggesting that figures, through play, can undermine the hegemonic, stereotypical attributes they seemingly embody. His interpretation of

Star Wars figures as subversive to the official story when placed in the hands of children further intrigued me as I considered retro-style figures that looked back to these objects for inspirations but targeted an adult audience. Jason Bainbridge places action figures even further into the discussion of the complex intertextual narratives that characterize major media properties with his work, “Fully Articulated: The Rise of the Action Figure and the Changing Face of

‘Children’s Entertainment” (2010). Using figures primarily from the 1980s such as Masters of the Universe and Transformers as examples, Bainbridge sees action figures as objects that challenge the boundaries between high and low art, consumption and creativity, and mark a

“point at which children’s entertainment and adult entertainment become virtually indistinguishable” (838). Building on Henry Jenkins’ assertion that action figures “provided this generation with some of their earliest avatars” (quoted in Bainbridge 835), Bainbridge finds empowerment in children telling their own stories, especially when considering that “children’s play will be made up of different toys from different lines” (835).

While this research has proven essential, especially in its treatment of action figures as meaningful texts, my own experiences as a lifelong toy enthusiast (not immune to the pangs of nostalgia, frustration, and sensory overload that characterize much of nerd culture) have raised different questions. Although those interested in action figures’ intertextual qualities often praise the consumer’s creativity, as they construct personalized, innovative stories out a complex web of media, fans themselves are given little voice to speak to the ways they respond to the objects of mass-production. Informed by an ethnographic approach, I look at the realm of action figures from a perspective that I hope brings the specificities of fan concerns into greater focus. As 6 highly fetishized commodities tied to complicated official and personal narratives that both spark creativity and support consumption, existing in a hyperaccelerated Internet culture, action figures represent a complex intersection of issues that would benefit from insider perspectives.

Deeply fascinated with and respectful of the consumer uses of action figures, I have approached the fandom through a lens heavily influenced by folklore. Using the way folk artists craft an anti-résumé—a term used by Gary Alan Fine to denote distance from official training to foster an authentic biography—as a starting point, I’ve attempted to examine how a community so steeped in mass-production assigns artistic value, determines originality, and assesses creator sincerity. Action figure customizers, like highly-regarded artists in folk communities, find success in being able to innovate within recognizable forms, while redefining authenticity in response to the hyper-nostalgia that surrounds them. Not limiting my analysis to customizers, I also extend the perspective of folklore to collectors, who use figures to facilitate social interactions and establish frames of play, as discussed by Gregory Bateson, to indicate spaces that validate their preoccupations.

Of course, within these spaces exist highly-desired objects of mass-production whose aura fuels further consumption. While fans and customizers are able to exercise agency to varying degrees, the action figure’s role as a fetishized commodity is inescapable. Building on

Marx, Emily S. Apter and William Pietz postulate fetishization as able to lock an object in time and space, yet it is produced from an intense personal response that is resistant to essentialism and the exact codes of the object, as they are intended. This approach captures the competing impulses of action figures and their users, while serving to remind us that the creativity found through such objects exists within the structure of an ideologically-driven Culture Industry. I find value in placing the fetishization of action figures within the discussion of intertextual narratives, 7

in which the fetishized object, perhaps a text of its own among a web of narratives, points to the

tensions and contradictions inherent to engaging with action figures in the midst of nostalgia and

media oversaturation.

Particularly helpful in understanding action figures as commodities is a metacultural

perspective. As so-called retro figures cleverly combine the aesthetics and symbolic power of

pop culture past and present, relying on familiar forms to carry new ideas forward into the future,

these toys embody what Greg Urban would consider a metaculture of newness. Displaying a

self-awareness and penchant for mash-ups more reflective of fan sensibilities, mass-market toys such as Reaction carefully draw on different eras and texts in a manner that not only capitalizes on the trends of nostalgia, but has further implications in the discussion of the intertextuality, which I suggest the retro toyline does not explore in a way that challenges and destabilizes dominant narratives like the classic Star Wars figures it supposedly mimics.

In order to get an insider’s perspective, I interviewed a variety of action figure customizers and collectors, mostly males in their 30s or 40s. Through the page suggestions of

Facebook and Instagram, coupled with recommendations of fans in the toy community with whom I was already familiar, I was able to quickly establish a pool of over three dozen customizers and collectors, of which less than one-third showed interest or responded. Focusing on the much less numerous fans who create custom figures than merely collect (though most do as well), I was able to procure insightful information from six informants, only two of whom exclusively identified as collectors, though all were given the option of responding to questions about collecting and customizing. Curious as to what unexpected thoughts may be held within the fandom, I provided questions to provoke discussion of mass-produced toys, nostalgia, display, and more general trends in the world of action figures. Participants did vary on the 8 degree to which they articulated their thoughts about action figures, but their responses did not strike me as reflective of the unpleasant stereotypes of nerdom, coming across as neither obsessive, nor sanctimonious, with only occasional, vague suggestions of the need for exclusivity in the action figure world (and not based on race or gender). While resulting in pleasant interactions on a personal level and offering some hope for the future of the fandom surrounding the disgustingly hypermasculine, soulless pieces of plastic I have always loved, I am nonetheless left to acknowledge that this is most likely a limitation of my ethnography. With beloved childhood properties like She-Ra and Thundercats being rebooted (or rather, “ruined”), women embracing cosplay without deferring to the self-identified experts, minorities reading comics like Ms. Marvel (2013) and the various Black Panther books, and kids forgoing cartoons of previous generations for more accessible ones that speak to their contemporary lives, the most insecure of white male fans feel there is much to justify their cynicism.

Although there are differences between casting one’s own pieces and assembling those from store bought figures, the end result is almost universally more significant than the process from the standpoint of both artists and collectors. Therefore, I have spoken to artists involved in both, electing to focus on the more pressing issues of how such fans align themselves with other artists, cultivate a narrative, establish subcultural boundaries, and tap into 1980s nostalgia while creatively formulating new characters. While toy customizing continues to grow, there are still very few who partake in a capacity that extends beyond creating one-off creations, often assembled from pre-existing figures, to showcase on social media. I find these artists fascinating in their own right, and in many ways the greatest sources of innovation in the community, but have primarily directed my attention to larger operations. Although I did not expect customizers 9 to meet each of these criteria, I looked for those who had official websites, produced figures in multiple quantities, and were involved professionally or semi-professionally.

As one might expect, action figure customization takes on many forms, with toys that reflect the styles of Star Wars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero, and countless other toylines that have both immense nostalgic value and a distinctive appearance.

For the purposes of my study, I chose to narrow the focus to artists whose creations evoke the aesthetics of Masters of the Universe, which is to say figures that are roughly 5” to 5.5” tall, possess six posable joints at most, an over-sized head, and exaggerated muscles. In addition to having a visible place at the forefront of the customizing world, figures modeled on the Masters of the Universe template are unmistakable and emotionally resonant to those who were familiar with the original toys as children. As I looked at sites where subjectivity and cultural associations intersect, playing on our constructed understanding of childhood and adulthood, I wanted customizations that worked with codes leaning heavily toward childhood. Unlike the ways the grand narratives of Star Wars continue to captivate adults through mainstream films, retroactive assessment of the moralistic, typically lighthearted Masters of the Universe cartoon of the 1980s, and the characters associated with it, has mostly revealed a franchise whose current value lies in its use in parody and memes. In short, how do we account for attachment to figures in the absence of any links to engaging stories that could convincingly speak to adults? As objects with immense nostalgic value and a strong stylistic presence among the world of custom figures that belies their minimal mainstream attention since the turn of the century, Masters of the Universe toys seriously question the importance of official narratives.

It is worth noting that since the 1990s, there has been a huge surge of unequivocally adult-oriented, mass-produced action figures that are less articulated, more detailed, more 10 violent/sexual, and more expensive, such as those produced by NECA and McFarland. While they are fascinating in their own right, for the purposes of this project I have focused primarily on those who collect toys that appeal to both children and adults, not only because of my greater familiarity with those toylines, but also due to the fact that mass-market figures found on

Walmart and Target racks have been so strongly coded as playthings. Whereas NECA and

McFarland collectors are able to create distance from, say, lowly Star Wars figures by noting how their prized possessions exhibit precise sculpting, expert painting, and would be too delicate for unruly children, collectors like me must confront the objects of our preoccupation head on— not as toys masquerading as miniature plastic sculptures, but as actual toys.

Chapter 1 will explore custom figures and their creators. In seeking to find parallels to folk artists in how such creators establish standards of quality, I am nonetheless confronted with the ways traditional modes of constructing folk authenticity are inverted when the artists are working with and attempting to mimic mass-produced forms. Suspicious of aligning with formal institutions while privileging creations deemed to be skillfully produced, customizers interestingly uphold works that approach the precision, uniformity, and style of the store-bought items they are simultaneously reacting against. Such creativity is not without its shortcomings, as artists express their subjectivity with the fragments of hegemonic texts strongly tied to the culture of young males. Using examples from ManOrMonster? Studios, I discuss how custom figures are invested with violent masculinity that far exceeds the original Masters of the Universe figures, even as their vaguely-defined narratives invite personalized, potentially subversive interpretations.

Chapter 2 shifts the focus to collectors, who playfully engage with action figures to surprisingly social ends. The collector, whose deep love of tangible objects of consumer culture 11 is expressed through impressive, carefully-maintained displays, establishes frames that validate his or her obsession while speaking to commodity fetishism in an age of inescapable intertextuality. Simultaneously a fixed object and a recursive “imaginary phallus” that resists essentialism, the fetishized action figure is both a stabilizing response to ever-changing trends in popular culture and an intertext in our fluid understanding of narratives.

Chapter 3 will turn to the corporate use of action figures to manipulate popular forms.

Using the example of Reaction figures, I employ a metacultural perspective to suggest that such retro figures uphold and essentialize dominant narratives despite the seemingly destabilizing effects of evoking the styles of different eras and presenting popular texts in unfamiliar ways. In denying their status as toys, limiting their obvious play value, carefully selecting properties and characters, Super7, in partnership with Funko, reduce their Reaction line to a rather fascinating example of capitalist adaptability in response to hyper-nostalgia. Like the collectors and customizers, the producers of Reaction find value in being able to communicate through the signs of pop culture that speak to our emotional core. However, in its reliance on licenses with minimal intertextual interference toward an iconic singular text, typically rooted in the past,

Reaction uses the familiar form of 1970s Star Wars figures not to challenge, but rather speak to the engrained associations of fans, pushing the action figure further into an intangible realm where corporate stories are narrowly interpreted.

12

CHAPTER I. CUSTOM ACTION FIGURES, AUTHENTICITY IN CONSUMER CULTURE,

AND RE-MASCULATING HE-MAN

No longer limited to face-to-face interactions, folk communities in the age of the Internet have explored new and fascinating avenues. Role-players, gamers, Furries, Bronies, and fan fiction authors create symbolically complex and challenging works while disseminating traditions and creatively responding to culture in ways perhaps inconceivable to folklorists of previous generations. While less provocative than, say, Furries, the rich world of action figure customizers is one such group that has slowly, but continually, grown since the turn of the 21st

century. A community of predominantly white males with a nostalgic eye toward their youth in

the 1980s, these artists and collectors have informally established their own set of beliefs and

artistic standards. Whether working with pre-existing, recycled pieces, or molding their own

based on classic toylines, they demonstrate a high level of skill while navigating the highly

contested space between high and low art.

Using custom figures inspired by Masters of the Universe, a fantasy toyline from the

1980s initially inspired by Conan the Barbarian, as a case study, I look to discuss the gender

politics of action figure customization, as facilitated by a keen awareness of folk art authenticity.

Of particular interest will be the Warlords of Wor series produced by the highly-regarded

ManOrMonster? Studio, which proudly reflects the influence of Masters of the Universe while

introducing new ideas about masculinity, artistry, fan participation, nostalgia, and the

relationship between material cultural, personal narratives, and official texts.

Much like more traditional forms of folk art, custom action figures benefit from a

narrative of authenticity, with creations made by hand and from the heart carrying far more

weight than the sterile, uniform objects found on store shelves. However, officially produced 13 figures, as objects that have been imbued with the associations of childhood and provide customizers with a way to find common experiences, maintain a strong presence in the community. Ironically, the value of custom action figures is often determined by their ability to echo aspects of their mass-produced counterparts, even within the belief that putting forth an inventive, artistically meritorious figure will elevate it beyond what is capable by an assembly line. It is within this seeming paradox that we see a tension between innovation and familiarity.

Like a majority of toylines geared toward boys, Masters of the Universe represents a hyper-masculine, hegemonic perspective. However, He-Man—as an almost caricatured, upstanding hero who is highly eroticized in his portrayal—is susceptible to some fairly obvious forms of subversion, as the intrinsically homoerotic appearance of the character can be easily emphasized. Despite the forms of resistance and subversion that can be exploited by repurposing mass-produced objects, I’ve discovered that in the case of many Masters of the Universe customizations, the homoerotic overtones are essentially undone. He-Man—as well as the original characters inspired by him—is ultimately rooted further into traditional gender norms in the hands of the most established customizers.

These plastic creations speak to their creators’ anxieties about the fluidity of gender and struggle to reconcile old and new masculinities. Male toy enthusiasts carefully navigate their creative preoccupations through the feminized realm of consumption, the fluidity and artifice of gender implied by toys’ plasticity, and of course the seemingly inherent childishness of working with action figures. By producing figures that allow for limited movement and manipulation, customizers and collectors look to sidestep gender as a complex, performative concept and preserve the most idealized aspects of masculinity through their figures in a manner that is not so easily achieved personally. These artists uphold traditional masculinity, albeit in a manner that is 14

creatively expressed through material objects that for many evoke strong personal and cultural

associations.

As problematic as action figures inspired by Masters of the Universe are in the way they

amplify hegemonic masculinity, they simultaneously represent a site of intense creativity and subjectivity. To look solely at the final product is to ignore the artistic process, in which creators assert their individuality, formulating objects of their choosing. As tenuous as it may seem, these acts of expression give action figure customization an undercurrent of subversion, as artists unsatisfied with the materials presented to them by the corporate power structure  create new items that they truly desire to make.

Warlords of Wor and other custom action figures inspired by Masters of the Universe, like many creative forms of expression with an eye toward iconic pop culture images, are symbolically complex and often in flux. Folklorist Simon J. Bronner, in “Links to Behavior: An

Analysis of Chain Carving,” reminds us that “symbols are not quite singular, uniform or static.

Rather, they operate in an open, dynamic system in which certain symbolic expressions can become predominant at a particular moment and place, or in which symbols, often seemingly conflicting, may coexist in the same object” (80). It is this intersection of hegemony and political resistance, co-existing within the same examples of material culture, which custom figures so starkly display.

The figures in question are almost universally 5” to 5.5” tall and made of plastic. While some more advanced operations mold their own plastic, others use pre-existing parts from actual

Masters of the Universe figures. Regardless, the end result is an instantly recognizable figure with exaggerated muscles, a slightly over-sized head, and six moveable joints, at most. Although the custom characters are new and not part of the official canon, they are stylistically inspired by 15

He-Man and made by fans of the original toyline. Although I have a deep admiration for those

smaller operations that create custom figures for personal use, I have decided to focus on artists

who have established themselves in the custom action figure community and sell their creations

professionally, or at least semi-professionally.

There are undoubtedly differences between casting one’s own pieces and assembling

those from store bought figure; however, the end result is invariably more significant than the

process from the standpoint of both artists and collectors. Therefore, I have spoken to artists

involved in both, electing to focus on the more pressing issues of how such fans align themselves

with other artists, cultivate a narrative, establish subcultural boundaries, and tap into 1980s

nostalgia while creatively formulating new characters.

While the custom figures are of primary concern to this project, they have a near symbiotic relationship to the original Masters of the Universe toys. Those who have grown up with Masters of the Universe figures are primed to interpret customizations and their personal childhood experiences inform their interactions with these unofficial texts in impactful ways. A

fantasy toyline produced in the United States from 1982 to 1988, Masters of the Universe is

characterized by its figures’ disproportionately large heads, bulging muscles, and short, stumpy

arms and legs. This aesthetic is instantly recognizable to those familiar with the toys, and for

many, contributes to their charm. Although the feud between the morally upstanding He-Man

and the evil sorcerer Skeletor is perhaps most fondly remembered, their world is populated by

countless warriors whose appearances and powers fuse elements of fantasy and science fiction.

For someone who has not had any lapses in collecting since childhood, this project takes

on a special importance. While I was certainly captivated by action figures at a young age, I

cannot remember any stage of my life without them. Although I was not unique in my ability to 16

find comfort and security among toys, especially in the absence of a reliable support system, I

showed my figures perhaps unusually high degree of care, specifically my Masters of the

Universe toys. As I was born a few years past Masters of the Universe’s prime, all of my figures from the series were received second-hand and none of my preschool peers were in possession of such artifacts. This was significant for several reasons. I was highly aware of my toys’ irreplaceability, which added to their aura. My mom would remind me that if they were to become broken, she could not go to the store to buy more, so I played with these magical items as delicately as any five-year-old could. Secondly, because the He-Man phase had passed, I had

little cultural context for what these toys represented. I would eventually procure a few

videotapes that helped flesh out some of the main characters, but my primary frame of reference

was the toys themselves. Zodak, for example, who was intended to be a morally neutral character

with cosmic powers, had never appeared in any of my videotapes, so under my guidance he

became an evil defector who rivaled Skeletor for control of the land of Eternia. Similarly,

Stinkor, a humanoid skunk, was, in my world, related to the evil Mer-Man due to the identical

molds used to make them, and was given significantly more prominence than in official texts due

to his highly amusing feature of being coated in a patchouli scent, which, as collectors will

confirm, lingers to this day. Lastly, when one is reliant on hand-me-downs and garage sale purchases for one’s collection, it goes without saying that said collection is typically incomplete.

In the case of Masters of the Universe, even a basic He-Man figure was difficult to obtain in the early 1990s. He continues to elude me.

These facts led to an experience with the action figures that transcended pieces of plastic with which to be played. In addition to the aura that had already been developed due to their rarity, my bizarre assortment of characters, whose backstories were unknown to me at the time, 17

prompted me to make up my own meanings and fill in the gaps with my own stories and

fabricated personality traits. As toys that were not purchased off the store racks, they also had a

strange history, almost as if the ghosts of the previous owners still lingered. What had these

figures been through? What had they seen? What did they mean to the last kid who played with

them? And perhaps most unsettlingly, why were these magically endowed plastic treasures

simply given up? These questions preoccupied my young mind and continue to do so each time I

sift through my treasured box of Masters of the Universe figures.

It is this foundation of viewing figures not only as physical objects, but as gateways into

the imagination that propels my current research. In childhood play, adult collecting, and custom

figure creation, pieces of mass-produced material culture become objects of great importance in

their ability to lead the user into thoughts of childhood, reflect on pre-existing texts, creatively

devise new narratives, and create a sense of order and comfort in the midst of a confusing,

overwhelming world that’s oversaturated with pop culture stimuli. As Jonathon Alexandratos

stated, in response to scholars who have dismissed action figures as mere playthings, “as

academics, it is our responsibility to encourage scholarship surrounding matters that cut most

deeply into our most emotional selves” (6). It is this sentiment that compels me to delve further

into the mysterious, multi-faceted world of action figures and attempt to better understand why

others like me cannot seem to let go of these strange pieces of plastic that represent aliens,

barbarians, robots, and Jedi.

Authenticity and Action Figures as Folk Art

While the use of customizations as a means of reframing the ideas of masculinity implied by the original texts is among the most pressing issues concerning these toys, the artists’ awareness of folk narratives and informal guidelines on artistry and authenticity are essential 18

aspects of elevating such figures beyond amusing hobbies. Particularly fascinating is the manner

in which adherence to a style constitutes a form of subcultural capital. In the case of custom

action figures, the resulting style consists of appearing new and inventive while retaining

familiar features and aesthetics. As Christopher Cannon of Kaboom Toys (a one-man toy

customizing operation founded in 2013 near Chicago, Illinois) notes, “what separates the good from the bad is one’s ability to paint and sculpt the figure and its customized parts or additions and still make them appear seamless as if they were meant to always exist in that configuration.”

This emphasis on customized parts and additions suggests that the customizer is concerned with innovation while, perhaps contradictorily, also producing something that could be found on a store shelf. Those who find this balance, straying neither too far to the extreme of too store- bought nor to the too unrecognizable, gain the greatest favor among members of the community.

As with other subcultures, language is frequently used to articulate who qualifies as an insider and who qualifies as an outsider. Those who meet the standards established by the tradition-bearers gain the greatest insider status. This includes not only demonstrating one’s proficiency as an artist, but also making enough additions and improvements to elevate the figure. Toy customizer Christopher Cannon notes, “Some customizers only paint the figures and often won’t do any sculpting or modifications; this is when the word ‘hobbyist’ comes to mind.”

Lee Burbridge of Big Man Toys, in characterizing himself as an artist, states, “If it's a case of getting to the finished version with as little original work as possible, I'd call that a hobbyist.” As we can see, those entrenched in the subculture identify an artist/hobbyist dichotomy, with

“hobbyist” clearly being a derogatory term. Those who make the greatest improvements and demonstrate artistic skill, as culturally determined as that might be, gain the most capital in the community. Folklorist Robert Teske reminds us that folk art is based on “communal aesthetics” 19

(quoted in Fine 29), so those in the customization community collectively determine what passes as artistic and, of course, authentic.

Custom action figures, like other forms of folk art, benefit from a narrative of authenticity, as customizers are as preoccupied by the real and sincere as artists working in other media. In the case of action figures, this authenticity is measured by the figures’ distance from mass-market toys—by their ability to defiantly be unlike the thousands of identical figures that line Walmart racks in promotion of the newest Marvel superhero movie, for example. True skill is shown by being able to push the figure beyond its original form. Justin Lebowitz, a frustrated action figure customizer, laments that “soulless recreations [store-bought toys] will always sell,” but such figures merely rehash characters and stories that have been seen or heard countless times before. Separating his tastes from those who consume mass-market toys, Lebowitz continues, “I prefer to create my own stories and characters.” His characters, instead of living in the fantasy worlds created by major corporations, exist in a “new universe that parallels ours…a more realistic and darker atmosphere.” This universe, perceived as being more realistic, carries with it a sense of authenticity. In the case of both store-bought and custom figures, the consumer creates an inner fantasy world, but the influence of the corporate narrative detracts from the experience for some customizers.

Brandon Barker of ManOrMonster? Studios (a small action figure customization company out of West LaFayette, Indiana) looks for “passion reflected in [one’s] art” and emphasizes the importance of having a connection to the toy. He continues: “I like to think that when I make a toy and someone buys it, there's a more personal, emotional exchange between creator and consumer that isn't necessarily present between the buyer and a factory- production toy. I hope it's that connection that keeps people interested in my work.” Christopher 20

Cannon echoes this sentiment, stating that, “When you make a unique toy, if done well, it will always prevail over a mass-produced store-bought item because it’s an original handmade one- of-a-kind creation.” Gary Alan Fine, in Everyday Genius: Self-Taught Art and the Culture of

Authenticity, notes how artists need to be “creating from the heart” (59), which contributes to the work’s overall authenticity. Of course, this sense of sincerity is less significant than the perception of sincerity by the consumer. Although a few minor stars have emerged in the action figure customization realm, the artists typically live in relative obscurity and have rather humble operations, which helps in terms of presenting themselves as unaffected by fame, an essential component of passing oneself off as a genuine, legitimate folk artist (Fine 60).

While customizers insist on such sincere, authentic and heartfelt creations, part of the major appeal of such figures is, paradoxically, their ability to pass as mass-produced, “soulless recreations.” As Christopher Cannon of Kaboom Toys, in discussing the customizer’s attempts to seamlessly mesh their creations with the originals, notes, “bad customizers don’t know how to or don’t own an airbrush; they have very sloppy visible paint stokes on their figures and the sculpting is rough in texture or appears uneven and disjointed from the original form of the figure’s design.” The insiders, or good customizers, are able to closely mimic that which is upheld as the ideal. Lee Burbridge of Big Man Toys enjoys seeing the line blurred between his custom figures and the ones officially produced: “I love seeing my Masters of the Universe style figures in people's collections alongside the real deal. I feel like it gives my pieces a place in the world and an extra value that they wouldn't have if they looked completely different to all else.”

To masquerade as the “real thing” carries weight. Although customizers look to elevate their toys beyond mass-market figures, store-bought objects still represent a standard to which the most skilled aspire. 21

In drawing so heavily from established forms, the creativity or skill involved in the creation of the art is in no way diminished. Gerald L. Pocius, in his article titled “Art,” informs us that “the stereotype of art is often a bohemianism, free from any formal restraint, yet art is not always innovation” (424). Artists, like everyone, exist within culture and absorb its influences. It is in fact these familiar elements that make a work of art more easily intelligible to an audience.

John Michael Vlach, in Folk Art and Art Worlds, comments that “certainly folk artists may work alone, even in seclusion, but they will work within a socially sanctioned set of rules for artistic production which they expect will ensure the acceptability of their completed pieces” (quoted in

Brunvand 551). In tapping into the well-loved and well-recognized style of Masters of the

Universe, action figure customizers are essentially “repeating forms that have specific aesthetic impacts” (Pocius 418), as form and experience work in tandem to produce a meaningful artistic encounter.

Fine discusses how folk art involves a tension between biography and artwork (67). Both quality of the work and sincerity, authenticity and reality of an artist’s story contribute to the perceived importance of a work. He even identifies the significance of an “anti-résumé” (Fine

61) or one’s distance from traditional modes of training and education. As is suggested by the toy customizers’ comments, this desire for a compelling and authentic biography mostly holds true in the case of custom action figures. However, it is also important to note how much of the value of such figures is derived from the various associations, many from childhood, which the consumer brings to the work. A polished, mass-market-inspired figure that looks like it came off of an assembly line might appear to be about the furthest one could get from presenting a heartfelt work lovingly fashioned by an outsider. However, this ability to approximate assembly line creations grants credibility to the artist and contributes to the artist’s subcultural capital. Just 22

as important as the biography, if not more so, is the artist’s ability to draw on familiar texts and

conjure associations, many of them nostalgic, and tap into the symbols that already carry

meaning to the fan or consumer. As commodities with a host of meaningful associations to the

consumer, the social labor process is essentially obscured. It is the aura created by these toys’

symbolic power that makes them most desirable, but for those who seek a biography, an anti-

résumé and authenticity can still elevate the work.

It is interesting to note how, despite the artists’ efforts to distance themselves from

children’s play, they persist in referring to their creations as toys instead of, say, works of art.

This certainly limits artistic pretension and seems to indicate a hesitance on the part of the

creators to consider their work to be art. Historically, it is art’s lack of function that moves it into

the realm of art, or as Bascom notes, it was those things “with elaboration beyond the point of

utility” (quoted in Pocius 420). Thus, customizers often continue to hold onto the notion that

their creations are useful. The entertainment of children is of course a pragmatic reason to make

a toy, so the artists are creating a link back to childhood. As will be discussed later, this idea of

playfulness and entertainment reflects changes in masculinity in the 20th century, as males

embraced more whimsical activities as a way of capturing masculinity, especially as owning land

and becoming self-made grew increasingly difficult. Art is typically considered frivolous, so

even as these artists linguistically couch their work within childhood, they are still able to spare

themselves from doing something impractical.

Like other forms of folk art, custom figures are judged for their authenticity, but such authenticity comes not exclusively from the legitimacy of the artist’s biography nor the sincerity of the process, but also from the barrage of feelings, perceived to be genuine, that the action figures induce due to their associations with childhood. As Kev Shaw of the website That 23

Figures comments, “I think we like losing ourselves to memory and the fuzzy feelings of our

childhood, if only for an hour.” Pocius describes how “a work of art, then, through form and

through association of that form to particular aspects of daily life, succeeds by eliciting some

type of emotional response in the observer” (420). The cultural associations with the object work

in conjunction with one’s feelings toward the object’s aesthetic quality and expression of skill or

talent to impact the viewer.

Michael Dylan Foster, in the collection The Folkloresque (2015), extensively discusses

the ways in which popular texts adopt elements of folk culture in attempts at, among other

things, authenticity, familiarity, and the durability that comes from aligning a text with tradition.

Masters of the Universe seems squarely rooted in the commercial, in that the cartoons and toys,

at least initially, were not transmitted through “informal, person-to-person modes” (Foster 2), but

rather shown on television and purchased at major retailers. However, the franchise exhibits a

degree of the folkloresque in its use of “tried-and-true motifs” (Foster 19). Such as with Lord of the Rings, which Sharon R. Sherman reminds us is “closely based on myth, folktale, and epic, and populated with ogres, witches and elves” (quoted in Foster 22), Masters of the Universe has a familiar medieval, fairytale quality in its castles (Castle Grayskull), barbarians (He-Man), sea creatures (Mer-Man) and magicians (Orko, The Sorceress, Skeletor). Indeed, these settings, characters and motifs have been part of folk and oral tradition, perhaps most obviously represented in Arthurian legend.

Instead of drawing on folklore for use in a popular, commercial text, as is suggested by the concept of the folkloresque, custom figure artists are involved in what I would consider to be their own kind of reverse-folkloresque. As individual artists who are directly involved in their own creations, while fostering a narrative of authenticity in small, informal groups on the 24

Internet, customizers make a strong case for the distinction of folk artists. However, most customizers nonetheless look to mimic the original, mass-produced figures, hoping to instill a sense of credibility and durability by infusing aspects of familiar (and exceedingly non-folk) texts.

Perhaps in an era of hyper-nostalgia, along with the always-present forces of rampant consumerism, folk artists have become sensitive to how material objects speak to our emotional core in ways previously seen as shallow or contrived. These artists have manipulated, sold, and become preoccupied by the symbols of mass-production that induce deeply personal, authentic encounters for those who share the experience of having grown up with, in this case, Masters of the Universe. It is difficult to imagine that traditionally authentic narratives, anti-résumé, and the artist’s personal touch would fall out of favor with those seeking handmade creations, even creations as steeped in commercial influence such as custom figures. Even so, we are left to wonder if such hallmarks of folk art can compete with the way a piece of masculinely-gendered plastic can so effortlessly pinpoint an innocent, rose-colored moment in the past spent with He-

Man. Pop culture and folklore are always intertwined and feelings of authenticity are important, but in the pop-culture-imitates-folklore-imitates-pop-culture scenario of Masters of the Universe customizers, as significant as it is to embrace the folk aspects, it is equally essential to acknowledge the sources of the strongest personal emotions. Fans admire the skill of customizers and appreciate an authentic biography, though it is difficult to compete with the immediate emotional response to objects tied to childhood encounters, even if such objects came off of an assembly line.

25

Masculinity in Warlords of Wor

Among the most prominent fan-made toylines, Warlords of Wor is a fantasy series that, while a rich example of folk practices, simultaneously provides a useful site for examining gender in custom figures inspired by Masters of the Universe. Warlords of Wor, according to the official website, “is a line of DIY designer action toys produced exclusively by ManOrMonster?

Studios featuring a host of original characters and stories set within an exciting world of magic, science and wonder” (Barker, Warlords). Like Masters of the Universe, or “retro barbarian action toys,” each figure is 5 ½ inches tall, although Warlords of Wor contain at least eleven interchangeable parts to allow for “unlimited customization.”

Before even broaching the characters themselves, the title of the series, Warlords of Wor, seems rather telling of the overall objectives of the toyline. Gone is the somewhat masculine, though still fairly ambiguous title “Masters of the Universe,” only to be replaced with something that very clearly conjures images of violence and aggression, as the word “war” appears not once, but twice (at least phonetically). “Warlord” clearly connotes a patriarchal, domineering quality that indicates masculine authority, a theme that the figures themselves exhibit. Even on a linguistic level, the toy customizer looks to reinvest the action figure with patriarchal violence.

Although each character possesses his own unique attributes, the most fascinating character in terms of the erasure of Masters of the Universe’s homoerotic overtones is the highly popular Bog-Nar. The evil Bog-Nar, who, in effect, appears as if DC Comics’ Swamp Thing were made to fit in with one’s Masters of the Universe collection, “uses his superior intellect and super human [sic] might to act out his diabolical plans” (the website even shows a side-by-side comparison between Bog-Nar and a Swamp Thing figure produced by Kenner from 1990). Like

Swamp Thing, Bog-Nar is “able to control all plant life.” However, as much as Bog-Nar draws 26

on the philosophical and morally complex Swamp Thing for inspiration, the former’s masculine

qualities are much more pronounced. Swamp Thing, like traditional female characters, inhabits

ethereal, otherworldly spaces, draws his power from nature and is largely prohibited from

entering public spaces. Bog-Nar, in contrast, is much more rooted in the physical world, forgoing

Swamp Thing’s mossy, textured exterior for smooth, polished, human-like skin with highly-

defined musculature.

Like He-Man, and He-Man’s inspiration, Conan the Barbarian, Bog-Nar is barely

clothed, with the slightest indication of boots and briefs. Despite this, he avoids being sexualized

by having a green, unnatural skin color, a threatening expression on his face and the classic

Masters of the Universe stance, with the elbows and knees slightly bent, as if ready to spring into

action. Unlike traditional female heroes, whose sexualization is objectifying and presents the

character as something to be looked upon, Bog-Nar, in his relative state of undress, is

nonetheless aggressive and asserts his subjectivity. As depicted on the cover of the Warlords of

Wor mini-comic, The Mutant Muck Menace, Bog-Nar also wields a giant, phallic spear, an unusual choice of weapon for someone who can already control all plant life. Like the Image

Comics superhero Spawn, who carries massive machine guns despite possessing magic and draws his power from Satan himself, Bog-Nar’s choice of weapon is significantly less about function, instead symbolically acting as a phallus, thus further investing the character with masculine power.

Bog-Nar, like nearly every other male figure in the line, has extremely exaggerated muscles, rooting the character further into the realm of masculine power. Susan Bordo writes,

“…muscles have chiefly symbolized and continue to symbolize masculine power as physical

strength, frequently operating as a means of coding the ‘naturalness’ of sexual difference…” 27

(193). Clearly, the defined, muscled body, as perpetuated through popular culture, becomes naturalized. She continues: “…the firm, developed body has become a symbol of correct attitude; it means that one ‘cares’ about oneself and how one appears to others, suggesting willpower, energy, control over infantile impulse, the ability to ‘shape your life.’” Even in the niche corners of fandom, the virtues of masculinity and the mastery of one’s physical form reflect one’s overall character.

Indeed, we are led to wonder why custom figures so strongly embody the violent, idealized masculinities that fill the imaginations of young boys. Perhaps, at its core, is a reconciliation of old and new white, hegemonic masculinities. Woody Register, in “Everyday

Peter Pans,” recalls how in the 20th century, the ideals of manhood shifted away from control of one’s labor and property ownership. As women and ethnic communities gained more prominence and the workplace became industrialized, a new form of masculinity emerged that embraced leisure and consumption (Register 202). Fantasy and theatricality, linked to out of control femininity in Victorian culture, are co-opted in response to the deterioration of self-made manhood (Register 204). Register refers to this new man as the “eternal boy,” who, while eschewing typical adult attitudes, insists that work be pleasurable and yield gratification.

Producing and consuming hyper-masculine custom action figures, then, becomes a means of incorporating traditional masculinity within this new consumption-minded approach. One cannot necessarily become the powerful, self-made Conan, He-Man or one of their descendants, but he can certainly purchase and display them. As consuming becomes more masculine, the violence and physicality we associate with masculinity is transferred to and represented in the things we buy. In addition, the custom figures literalize and accentuate the violent, ultra- masculine qualities that are already implied in children’s toys and television shows. He-Man may 28 only be allowed to express a limited amount of violent behavior in official media, custom creations, such as Bog-Nar, can achieve their true masculine potential. Whereas He-Man may throw Skeletor’s incompetent, unthreatening minion Mer-Man safely into a moat every other episode, characters such as Bog-Nar are able to explore their violent, masculine side, free of the restrictions of censors.

As voices within culture look to draw the fragility of traditional masculinity into the daylight, such an outdated concept takes on further allure as many entrench themselves in the notion that it continues to hold relevance. Barna William Donovan notes in Blood, Guns, and

Testosterone: Action Films, Audiences, and a Thirst for Violence (2009) that “…the louder society and intellectuals and feminists will condemn macho men who like to brawl, drive their cars fast, drink beer, leer at pornography and strip shows, the more of a rebel appeal it will have”

(171). This degree of freedom and self-determination, while not so easily obtainable in one’s everyday life, can be preserved in material objects that wear the bodily signifiers of masculinity indefinitely.

Narrative and Participation in Warlords of Wor

Like most action figure lines, Warlords of Wor coincides with a narrative, albeit a rather convoluted one. After the Timepocalypse, “…all of time and space collapsed in on itself,” resulting in a world “…full of nomads, monsters and great beasts.” The “bravest and fiercest warlords fight to ensure [the] borders aren’t breached by evils from the other side” (Barker,

Story). Fans of 1980s action films will recognize the bleak, post-apocalyptic landscape, reminiscent of The Road Warrior (1981) and Escape from New York (1981), a threatening world that is paranoid of the other, a landscape where the rugged, muscle-bound heroes of the Reagan era can truly thrive. 29

Although the Warlords of Wor website does provide a brief story, rooting the toyline in the tradition of narrative-based 1980s toys, this story is quite evidently secondary to the toys themselves. As a confusing narrative that is only minimally described, the official story is further undermined as the reader is prompted to formulate their own story. It is within this personal narrative that the reader is allowed to participate and be creative. Like the postmodern artist who invites the viewers’ feelings and responses into the artistic process, sparsely-narrativized action figures blur the line between producer and consumer. As this line blurs, fandom “…becomes a participatory culture which transforms the experience of media consumption into the production of new texts, ideas of a new culture and a new community” (Jenkins 46). No longer passive consumers, those who collect and create custom action figures are actively producing new, often innovative, texts, especially when compared to those who only purchase the products found on toy store shelves.

Such artists, in downplaying the specific details of a narrative and not overwhelming the reader with information, allow for easier construction of a personal narrative. Kev Shaw of That

Figures, in recounting some meaningful experiences with his toys, highlights the importance of a personal narrative over a corporate one: “My Dungeons & Dragons mini-figures – despite being some of the most financially valuable toys in my collection – won't ever be parted with, as the memories of sitting in the car with my wife and opening the packs we'd just bought and then comparing what we each found inside is worth more than any amount of cash.” Fans will construct their own personal narratives regardless of whether the toy is store-bought or custom- made, but certainly the less-defined customizations provide more narrative gaps to fill.

Dan Fleming discusses how action figures’ open-endedness and refusal of narrative closure work well for toys and merchandise because consumers can create their own stories 30

(102). Even a property as popular and narratively dense as Star Wars contains hundreds of figures that children are encouraged to project onto and create their own stories with, despite the fact that the film has a definite narrative that resolves itself. Certainly, children give life to lesser- explored characters such as Prune Face or Hammerhead, much like I did with Zodak and Stinkor.

In addressing G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero from 1982 to 1994, Fleming argues that it’s the child’s pursuit of his or her own story within the established story that keeps the toys and the series relevant (107). Custom action figures, with even less of an established narrative than Star

Wars or G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero, heighten the need or ability of the consumers to personalize their experience, providing an almost blank slate onto which associations or any number of creative, personal ideas can be projected. In this sense, the custom figures look back to the original 12-inch G. I. Joe figures of the 1960s, which, unlike the A Real American Hero line of the 1980s, had no official narrative and encouraged boys to project themselves onto the figures.

Stretching the ideas of Roland Barthes beyond written narratives and into material culture, action figures essentially act as what he would consider a text. Whereas a work is merely a “fragment,” a text, such as custom figures, “can traverse the work, several works” (Barthes 58).

Action figures, which derive much intertextual meaning from comics and cartoons, as well as other toys, cease to be merely objects of consumption, as Barthes sees most works, and instead act as part of a network that invites readers to be a collaborator. The text “decants the work (the work permitting) from its consumption and gathers it up as play, activity, production, practice”

(Barthes 62). The custom figure minimizes the distance between reader or collaborator and the text itself, and creates a participatory experience, to the point in which these fans, with their nostalgia, subjectivity and associations of other media, can essentially “re-write” the text in a 31

playful manner. A single custom figure, such as Bog-Nar, is certainly a work in that it can be

held in one’s hand and has its own limits. The “radically symbolic” text aspect, though, moves

the figure beyond the physical realm, a process that is intensified by Bog-Nar’s minimal official

backstory. As we become more attuned to intertextual narratives and find ourselves bombarded

with images and information, I suspect action figures will remain an intriguing site through

which stories and ideas are communicated and interpreted.

Assembling Gender with Masters of the Universe Mash-Ups

In addition to the Warlords of Wor line, ManOrMonster? Studios also has a line of

familiar characters reinterpreted in the Masters of the Universe style. Known as Masters of the

Universe Mash-Ups (MOTUMUs), these figures are “made of bootlegged parts from various toy

lines, Pez dispensers and other random crap.” Consisting of characters such as Darth Vader, Dr.

Doom and the evil Destro from G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero, this line combines “mixed pieces to create new interpretations of familiar vintage toys in the 5.5” style.” Presented with another opportunity to explore the intrinsically subversive qualities of He-Man, the MOTUMUs fall back on familiar properties from the 1980s geared toward boys. We have exaggerated muscles and fully clothed male bodies. As popular villains recreated in the Masters of the

Universe style, these figures represent malevolent, masculine authority. Along with other customizations by ManOrMonster? Studios, such as Ashley of Darkness, Hero of Housewares, a play on Ash from the Evil Dead series, it is clear that such figures shy away from challenging gender norms.

When given the chance to shape the figures into images of their choosing, customizers most often play out their internalized idealized views of heterosexuality and patriarchal masculinity in ways that, in many cases, are even more exaggerated than in the original, mass- 32

produced pieces. Perhaps in the era of nerd culture, in which intelligence and trivia knowledge

carry a certain amount of prestige, we still defer to traditional masculinity and those who have historically defined acceptability. Although the guys who are a little too obsessed with action figures may still feel the pressure to hit the gym and shape themselves into acceptable masculine forms, for a few, exploring powerful, heterosexual masculinity through custom figures is a more creative, and indeed less exhausting, concession to the forces that help spur insecurities over such obsessions with childhood playthings in the first place. Instead of representing a refusal to play the game of toxic masculinity and dismissing it as no longer useful, the MOTUMUs, along with many custom action figures, become sites in which objects with a strong juvenile connotation are elevated to art objects and invested with the features of traditional masculinity.

Rather than being challenged or transcended, violence and aggression are brought into a nostalgic, artistic space and tied into creations deeply rooted in the experiences of childhood.

While it is difficult to escape discussion of the ways Masters of the Universe Mash-Ups

embrace and even exaggerate problematic gender signifiers, one would still be remiss in ignoring

how the artist uses this toyline to frame custom figures as a byproduct of recycling. Whereas

ManOrMonster? Studios positions Warlords of Wor as a new “classic” toyline (albeit with a

weak narrative), the MOTUMUs are presented as subject to spontaneity and emblematic of a do-

it-yourself aesthetic. Like the works of Louise Nevelson, the American sculptor who assembled

found and donated objects into highbrow masterpieces, Masters of the Universe Mash-Ups

complicate the very definition of “artist.” Making a point to address how the figures are

constructed from various toy parts and other random objects, this line of toys represents a

complex amalgam of symbols that exist within singular objects in a rather postmodern way. As

Correll and Polk note in The Cast-Off Recast: Recycling and the Creative Transformation of 33

Mass-Produced Objects (1999), recyclia contain fragments of different sign systems that have been reconfigured and co-opted (Correll and Polk 20). Within one figure, we may have the symbolic power of both Star Wars and Masters of the Universe, as well as the cumulative effect of their enmeshing. Many view recyclia as “… as evidence of a material, if not moral, triumph over the cultural hegemony exerted by the industrial societies that spew mass-produced objects into the world” and “resistance to globalization and its homogenizing effects” (Correll and Polk

20).

While it is easy to be cynical toward a line of action figures so unwilling to depart from the hegemonic, hyper-masculine associations of 1980s boys’ toys, it would also be unfairly dismissive of the artistic process. David Gauntlett suggests that this process, along with the feelings that accompany it, are at the heart of the creativity and are far more significant than the final product (221). He further observes how “…people often spend time creating things because they want to feel alive in the world, as participants rather than viewers, and to be active and recognized within a community of interesting people” (Gauntlett 222). For the custom action figure artist, the very act of repurposing mass-produced objects into a form of their choosing becomes an act of liberation, a means of asserting oneself and one’s subjectivity in a manner not sanctioned by corporations or power structures.

In the cases of both custom and mass-produced action figures, the labor process is mostly hidden from consumers and the final product takes on the greatest importance. However, the acts of designing, selecting parts, assembling, painting, and packaging exhibit a thread of playfulness that begins with the artist’s ideas and is carried throughout the process. When the object is passed on to the consumer, new and creative ways to think about, display, and interact with the figure are introduced. 34

Fixed Gender and Timelessness in Action Figure Immobilization

Perhaps it is worth noting that Masters of the Universe figures are comparably static toys.

With only six points of articulation (or rather, six moveable joints—two arms, two legs, waist,

and neck), this toyline does not lend itself to much movement. In comparison, Spider-Man from

2014’s Marvel Legends Infinite line has 34 points of articulation. With only a few moving parts,

Masters of the Universe toys simply cannot be manipulated or changed very much. As such, they

become an ideal metaphor for masculinity as a fixed, unalterable concept. A minute amount of

leeway is given for manipulation, but the overall form fundamentally remains intact. Reinforced

is the idea that masculinity is fixed, constant and, despite attempts at change, basically stays the

same.

This notion is even further reinforced as customizers emphasize the figures’ use as static

objects. Christopher Cannon says, “I also consider my creations art objects and not toys to be

played with; they are often delicate and only for display. Even with proper sealants and industrial

glues things can easily be broken.” Like many mass-market toylines targeted at adults, such as

McFarlane Toys or Super7/Funko’s ReAction line customized figures often encourage minimal

movement. They are objects to be observed and invite little participation in the physical sense.

As objects made of plastic, a material often associated with fluidity and malleability,

custom figures are unusually immobile. Kim Toffoletti, in her book Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls

(2007), states that “…plasticity implies instability and process, and like its definition, the many

forms plastic may take are ambiguous and contradictory. The generative potential of plastic

resides in its ability to become any shape” (Toffoletti 68). Because of this, Toffoletti sees

Barbie’s plasticity as combative of strict definitions in a manner that destabilizes many of our 35 preconceived notions about gender. The specificity of the category of “woman” essentially becomes void, as Barbie operates as “…an endlessly proliferating sign of the body that explodes any possibility of articulating the ‘truth’ about female identity” (Toffoletti 67).

Of course, even toys for boys move and draw attention to their own plasticity and the fact that He-Man’s macho physique is not actually real. I would suggest, then, that this tendency toward immobilization coincides with males’ anxiety over the fluidity of gender. Whereas

“Barbie’s hyperfeminine qualities imply that gender itself is a simulation” (Toffoletti 74), so too do He-Man’s idealized, hypermasculine qualities. He-Man, as a barely clothed, tan, muscled warrior is already verging on being homoerotic, but then his plasticity and mobility threaten to expose the artifice that is masculinity itself. By not moving, the figures draw attention away from their plasticity and look to impersonate far less mobile objects, such as, say, fixed statues. In this sense, men are able to consume, as is characteristic of Register’s “eternal boy,” but can do it in such a way that reinforces gender norms and makes their feelings of masculinity seem inherent and fixed. Jonathan Alexandratos notes that “…action figures can preserve the performance of gender—a five o’clock shadow, breasts, a broad chest, long hair (to use traditional gender signifiers)—without an underlying biology, much the way an artifact can preserve the essence of a god without necessarily containing an underlying, scientific component” (5). Masculine characteristics, when represented through immobilized plastic, will never fade, age, or fail to meet the ideal.

Conclusion

Although it may be difficult to see the forms of resistance present in customizing action figures, especially as new creations amplify the inherent super-masculinity of the originals, we are still left with consumers who are dissatisfied with the material objects presented to them. 36

Obviously, there is a long way to go before custom action figures inspired by classic toylines become a truly subversive medium. But as Justin Lebowitz says, “I prefer creating my own stories and characters,” the first step in breaking free of the corporate grip on these characters and narratives. Lee Burbridge, commenting on how he has to destroy old toys to create new ones, perfectly captures this delicate balance of tradition and innovation present in action figure customization: “It does actually make me sad if something has survived 40 years on Earth and I need to crack it open for parts, but—as geeky as it sounds—I am perpetuating that piece by re- inventing it.” The somewhat melodramatic image of tearing down something old in order to build something new and useful out of its remains, while simplistic and tinging on naïve, is increasingly profound as institutions that have long lost their relevance continue to negatively impact normal people in very real, tangible ways.

The artist, in creating new figures that heavily reflect often problematic, sexist creations of the past, are no doubt carrying such baggage forward to some degree, however, when all is told, it is the individual artist who is given final say, whose creativity and subjectivity are allowed to shine through. As David Gauntlett says:

Making and sharing activities, online and offline, can be seen as disorganized (or rather,

lightly self-organized) cloud of creative links which can bind people together. These ties

may not necessarily forge links between individuals and formal institutions, but they

certainly connect people with others in unexpected, unplanned and perhaps rather

anarchic ways. This creative cloud carries no single coherent message, but its existence,

representing people doing what they want to do, because they want to do it, raises a

challenge to the lifestyles of individual consumers, and to the ambitions of organized

businesses and governments” (224). 37

As a fan who easily relates to the emotional connection, my own impulse is to see the

liberating, subversive potential of these toys, especially when such dedication and skill go into

their very creation. However, I must also pair this affection with a critical eye toward the

creators’ handling of toxic masculinity. By modifying the He-Man template in an attempt to undercut any feminine, homoerotic attributes, customizers are reintroducing traditional masculine qualities of violence, physicality and self-made-ness into the perceived feminine realm

of consumption and playfulness. Masculinity, then, is explored in men’s terms, as a playful,

leisurely, seemingly childish space invested with blatant signifiers of traditional masculinity.

These little, plastic, hypermasculine symbols then become immobilized, undermining their

inherently plastic nature and the sense of fluidity it represents. Created by artists sensitive,

whether consciously or unconsciously, to nostalgia, folk narratives, and popular culture, custom

figures, in their representation of masculinity, are granted further legitimacy when viewed

through the lens of contemporary folk art preoccupied with authenticity.

The creativity of customizers is apparent and the bizarre landscape of the so-called

barbarian-style action figures is as valid of a space in which to critique and deconstruct

masculinity as any. I would suggest that in the way these toys cut to the emotional core of so

many who grew up in the 1980s, it’s among the best. It is this genuine fondness for He-Man

within the fandom that gives me the most hope. While the subculture of customizers, as it stands

today, continues to explore a fairly limited range of issues, the sources from which it draws will

nonetheless stand as complex, polysemic texts just waiting to be further analyzed, subverted, and

unpacked. After all, He-Man himself has faith in us, which he reminds us in episode 28, “The

Defection:” “It's easy to say 'I can't change,' but the truth is you can change almost any behavior 38 if you really want to,” remarks the warrior Teela, to which the muscle-bound hero responds,

“And the first step is saying to yourself, ‘I can.’”

39

CHAPTER II. (DIS)PLAY, SOCIAL COLLECTING, AND THE FETISH OBJECT AS

INTERTEXT

Action figures, whether one is to consider their implications as playthings, folk art, art objects, refuse of consumer culture, expressions of fandom, or revered materials of nostalgia, evoke a sense of conflict and contradiction that provide a common thread among their various forms. While figure customizers attempt to simultaneously create something original and familiar as they work through the anxieties of traditional gender norms in a creative way that asserts their subjectivity, perhaps even subtly challenging the shortcomings of capitalism in the process, figure collectors and their collections have much to say on how we relate to material culture in the midst of an oversaturation of media. Subject to both our highly personal associations and experiences as well as the fragments of images and narratives that fans apply, to varying degrees, to construct their understanding of figures, these objects continually remind us of the complex way material objects help us facilitate abstract ideas that often cut to our core beings.

Like most things we consciously choose to collect, play with, and display, action figures reflect the self. According to Jean Baudrillard, “The image of self is extended to the very limits of the collection…for it is invariably oneself that one collects” (quoted in Hastie 28). He further notes how, while the physical object is pertinent to collecting, there is simultaneously a mental realm over which the collector holds sway (Baudrillard 8). As fandom and nostalgia expand and adapt to an ever-accelerating world of multimedia franchises, this mental realm that invariably accompanies prized material objects similarly takes on new characteristics, especially when inhabited and cultivated by adult collectors of action figures. 40

As children transition into adults, so too shifts the role of action figures. Action figures

unquestionably carry symbolic potential during each stage of a collector’s life, but the toys’ use

as objects of physical play is, for most, overtaken by the ideas they represent and emotions they

conjure. While this shift comes with greater commodification and fetishization of the toys, it also

leads to greater emphasis on the social interactions that result from collecting and the various

intertexts represented by the figures. Although it is impossible to ignore the ways collecting and

displaying action figures are entrenched in the capitalistic agenda of consumption, I hope to

nonetheless explore the ways in which toys are playfully utilized to create meaningful personal

as well as surprisingly social experiences. In framing action figure collecting as play, not only is

a space provided that minimizes stigma and provides validation, but provides for a context that

plays into the already-present fetishistic qualities of action figures. Using the notions discussed by Emily Apter and William Pietz, I will explore how the action figure, as an “other phallus,” is both fixed and destabilized, with an eye to the implication of this in terms of action figures’ place in the inescapable world of intertextual narratives.

When discussing toys, it seems fairly obvious that their use as objects of play will need to be addressed. I employ a rather broad definition of play that views even something as seemingly passive as displaying action figures on a shelf as a playful activity. Roger D. Abrahams views play as different from seemingly normal experiences, noting that “play activities ask us to leave the “real” world behind and help construct alternative domains which define themselves by the ways in which they depart from the everyday” (96). Predictably, collectors typically note how their toy room is unlike the rest of the home and is governed by different rules, creating for a fascinating frame in which the magic, aura, and certainly fetishistic qualities are brought to light. 41

As Brian Sutton-Smith writes in Ambiguity of Play, “kids and adults work at fantasizing metaphysical paracosms all day” (156). We play regardless of whether toys are involved and this play involves the creation of detailed fantasy worlds in our minds. Toys such as action figures are simply concrete objects with which to facilitate this very human tendency. As I hope my analysis will demonstrate, the manner in which adults characterize their interaction with action figures as existing outside normal life and as part of a social space presents action figure collecting as a playful activity that captures the way commodity fetishism has found expression in nerd culture. This expression reminds us of the near inescapable corporate influences on the individual when constructing a sense of identity and how action figures remain, above all else, carriers of symbolic meaning that speak to us in very real ways.

Play

While the act of contemporary adults playing with action figures is a concept that speaks to shifts in merchandising, communication, nostalgia, and views on nerd culture, it is simultaneously part of a larger narrative of toys in Western culture. Kline argues that the bond children form with toys is a sharp departure from the Victorian era, and that “the television child…is always pretending that the toys change them in some way or transport them into a more exciting world” (144). This attachment corresponds to the cultural prevalence of toys and their role in family. Brian Sutton-Smith notes how toys, while potentially a means of bringing children and parents together, are fundamentally about isolation (23). Children, after all, receive toys on

Christmas with the implication that parents are freed from the burden of providing entertainment.

This contrasts greatly with the historical concept of play as predominantly play with others, not play with toys. If action figures, in the context of children, represent solitary play, I would suggest (based on my research) that despite popular stereotypes, when utilized by adults, action 42 figures help to facilitate play in a more social space. As toys are relegated to shelves and displays and the physical interaction with them is downplayed, the intangible aspects of the action figures, the meanings they signify and the interactions they facilitate, take on a primary role.

Huizinga extensively discusses the manner in which play “promotes the formation of social groupings” (13) and allows for people to be “apart together,” (12) as in mutually reject social norms. Play surrounds itself in an air of secrecy (Huizinga 12) that exists outside of “real life” (8). Collectors of action figures often discuss having a special room for their collections where only a select few are allowed to enter. Kev Shaw, owner of the blog That Figures, which reviews and provides news on a wide array of action figures, details how he keeps his figures in a special location, separate from the normal living area: “I have a walk-in closet in which I display my figures. Most are on open bookcases/shelves but I have a couple of IKEA glass cases in which I've placed my fragile/expensive/vintage toys. As I'm the only person who goes in there, it's actually a relatively dust-free environment and the door is kept closed at all times.” For the adult collector, stepping into his or her designated toy space, be it bedroom, closet or some other separate room, represents a playful vacating of normal life where rows of static figures take on deeply personal meanings. Of course, the time spent with the figures is meaningful because it is so rare. As Huizinga reminds us, play is limited and represents a deviation from the everyday (9).

The notion that children’s play with toys takes place in relative isolation contrasts greatly with the more prominent communal aspect that characterizes the lives of many adult collectors.

Although a few collectors whom I interviewed characterized their hobby as something personal and mostly solitary, a vast majority noted how their involvement with toys was a social activity.

Perhaps most important, it is an emphasis on community that perpetuates the subculture. As

Christopher Cannon, an artist who runs the Kaboom Toys Facebook page and makes his own 43 custom figures states, “I have tons of friends who collect odd and vintage toys who I can call on to help me find a specific item I might be looking for to complete a set.” In some instances, the shortcomings of the toy companies help to create a need for a greater sense of community. Kev

Shaw comments, “The toy companies aren't always that great about the specifics of their release schedules so it's great to have others out there looking and sharing info on what they've found in their local stores or passing on comments on figures and toys I'm interested in buying for myself.” Like action figure customizers, collectors similarly notice the shortcomings of the institutions that produce these objects, and while it would be a stretch to say that most seek out rich, meaningful communities, collectors independently find unofficial avenues to engage with their interests and those who share desire to do the same.

As George Herbert Mead points out, play is a social activity that involves an active negotiation with an other who understands the meaning exchanged in play. Action figures, however, pose a more complicated issue in that they are often interacted with in a solitary manner. In such cases, the object takes on a special role. Tim Dant, using the example of windsurfers, argues that the object (the windsurfer) acts as an intermediary between the user and the creator. Dant won’t go so far as to say that the object has agency, so he settles on its ability to exist as an intermediary. Thus, for the action figure collector, there is a dialogue between themselves and the creator, a connection that is made even stronger in the case of custom figures with the knowledge that the toy has been crafted by an actual human.

Dant also notes how interaction with other people contributes to the material discourse of windsurfing. Windsurfers facilitate an experience, and the more experiences had, the more likely that the user is to have stories, which become something to bond over with other windsurfers.

This is not too dissimilar to the action figure collectors who form relationships based on 44 exchanging information and experiences regarding toys. Shaw notes, “I think we [action figure collectors] all share that bond of understanding the frustration of not being able to find a specific toy and the joy that comes when we do and it's nice when you can pass that onto somebody else.” Bruno Latour describes what he refers to as the “actor network” in which it is the material that passes between actors that defines the relationship between them (quoted in Dant 124). It’s true that human beings make all of the decisions when it comes to collecting figures and interacting with other members of the community, but the decisions cannot be reduced to individual actors considering they occur in the context of this actor network (Dant 127). In this sense, the object is active—it is difficult to assess the degree to which the toys or the collector contribute to the experience of collecting. Play is achieved in multiple ways, both in the interaction with objects themselves but also because of other collectors who share the specialized knowledge of collecting.

Of course, just because collecting and displaying represents a highly playful activity, this does not guarantee adults acknowledge that aspect of their hobby. Indeed, adult collectors, according to those I interviewed, tend to de-emphasize the child-coded term of play, focusing instead on detail, engineering and even purity of intention on the part of the collector. They take great pains to articulate the ways in which their personal collecting habits take on a more sophisticated slant. Kev Shaw discusses how he is drawn to the “engineering” of an action figure, using the example of Micronauts, a Japanese toy line distributed in the United States from

1976 to 1980 that consisted of 3 ¾” action figures, robots and accompanying vehicles and playsets:

There's a certain level of I guess you'd call ''engineering'' I find engaging. I like

Microman toys because I had Micronauts as a kid, yes. But I also love the way they're 45

designed and sculpted. We're talking 4'' tall figures with jointed wrists and feet that bend.

It's the exact opposite of the retro-style 5 points of articulation and I find it fascinating

how detailed and precise their construction is. It's also one of the things I dig about GI

Joe toys. LEGO also produces some incredibly complex pieces of engineering and it's

great to see the pieces you've assembled become more than they were just minutes ago

and to understand how this particular cool feature works – because you built it.

He further notes the importance of a toy’s aesthetic qualities and sees figures as “pose- able statues” that are no different than when someone displays “porcelain figures or hang[s] a

Monet on their wall.” We can detect an air of sophistication in the way he describes his collecting habits and a clear desire to see what he does as an unquestionably adult activity.

Christopher Cannon corroborates much of Shaw’s sentiment:

Nostalgia is one aspect of collecting for me but my primary interest in collecting toys

comes from being an artist; the design and colors are always a major reason why I buy a

certain item. I’m also a snob of design and that makes me look heavily at the overall

sculpting and level of detail of any one given toy before I buy it. As an adult I look for

items that have flexible joints and limbs versus a statue and other unique configurations

such as the weapon designs and simply the figures scale.

As we can see, the relationship between adult collectors and their figures is characterized as having less to do with play and is much more similar to that of an art connoisseur and his impressive collection. Even though the act of displaying figures is playful, that aspect is heavily downplayed in the minds of the collectors, presumably because of play’s association with children. Much like those preoccupied by custom figures (as discussed in the previous chapter), 46 collectors struggle to characterize their interest in a way that seems mature, meaningful, and authentic.

While the crux of my analysis is that collecting figures as an adult is different, more social, and more preoccupied by authenticity than it is with children, in many cases, adults actually look for ways to link their activities with those of children. One of the most surprising aspects of my findings was the degree to which adults were willing to admit that their collecting habits mirrored children’s. Despite the fact that adults make a point of differentiating themselves from their younger counterparts, there is still something favorable about how a child approaches toys, notably the way children’s decisions are made totally separately from any market value the toy may have. When asked what separates adults from kids who browse the toy aisle, Lee

Burbridge of Big Man Toys, a company that specializes in the production of custom action figures, responded, “Nothing as far as I’m aware. People can try and intellectualize it as much as they like, but it’s the pure joy of fantasy.” Kev Shaw, though taking a slightly more negotiated stance, echoes Burbridge’s sentiments and sees a real link between kids and adult collectors:

A child will act out scenarios and stories with his toys, whereas an adult won't be so

blatant about it. But every time we display a couple of figures interacting or place one

LEGO building next to another, we're creating scenarios and telling stories. These

vignettes on our toy shelves are a way of telling the exact same stories our younger

counterparts do through bashing Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader together in a fight.

Indeed, play creates continuity between past and present, and for the adult collector, even display helps establish a link to the simpler times of their childhood. As the immaterial aspect of the toys becomes more important, memories of the time when the collectors physically interacted with them become included among the various meanings in the rich, polysemic text of action figures. 47

Although I would not go so far as to say that shelf displays tell the exact same stories as those that take place when kids “bash together” their Star Wars toys, Burbridge brings up a rather perceptive point about how organizing a collection can convey meaning. I think we have to be suspicious of the notion that adult and children’s play are the same, but in each case, there is what Huizinga referred to as a non-materialistic quality of play (1), where there is meaning that goes beyond the physical object itself.

Jason Bainbridge reminds us that “as the child matures, action figures become tools of prosumption, building blocks to construct new narratives and fantasies” (838). He says that the

“action” of “action figures” then becomes the movement of the toy from intertextual commodity to collectible to object of desire. Although Bainbridge argues that at some point, “children’s entertainment and adult entertainment becomes virtually indistinguishable,” there is nonetheless a different set of thought processes that develop as child collectors and consumers transition into adults.

In my research, I found it rather surprising how much cynicism was directed toward adult collectors. Paul Bolton of the website Toy Scavenger characterized adult collectors as those who buy to augment their collection, but are also concerned with “buying as an investment.” In a hobby that is steeped in the capitalistic agenda of amassing things, it is fascinating to note how collectors look to separate themselves from the aspect of collecting concerned with monetary value. Even though the net result is still the acquisition of hegemonic figures in exchange for currency that goes to major corporations, the perceived reasons for making such purchases take on great importance in the eyes of collectors. Christopher Cannon is much more scathing in his assessment: 48

Adults are often looking to make money from buying toys while kids simply want to play

with the toys as that is how their younger minds work. Adults often have more money

and will buy all the toys from the aisle to then sell on eBay or other secondary markets,

this often creates artificial inflation which collectors hate, and not all toy sellers are

necessarily toy collectors.

This was an unexpected find and should be looked at in conjunction with the adults’ tendency to view their own collecting habits as sophisticated and pure. Beneath the confidence they exude in regard to their toy-amassing, there seems to be a degree of insecurity toward the notion of adults collecting action figures. They will afford themselves the benefit of the doubt when it comes to purity of intention that they will not grant others. Even amidst the sense of acceptance of such a hobby among adults, children are still seen as “in it for the right reasons,” at least more so than adult collectors. The general consensus, then, in regard to this sense of inauthenticity on the part of adults is, “people like me have bad intentions, but I do not.” This provides us with one instance in which it seems appropriate for adults to emulate children with respect to collecting.

As collectors slip in and out of self-awareness, both taken by the impulse to buy more while seeing its shallowness, fostering a sense of community while also showing disdain for fellow collectors, it is worth considering how figure collecting creates for atypical interactions by being framed as play. Exemplified by Kev Shaw’s previously mentioned action figure closet, which is closed “at all times” and only visited by him, physical boundaries are often established where rules and behavior are different. If we are to use Gregory Bateson’s concept of the play frame, in which play contexts are established for “metacommunicative messages” (315) that those involved understand as having meanings different than usual, then the toy, convention hall, 49 and even Facebook group are cast in a new light. One need not be an expert on action figure fandom or play theory to feel the restructuring of acceptable speech and behavior upon stepping into a toy convention. Roger D. Abrahams notes that “Invoking license ‘in play’ often leads to the extension of that license to depict and explore motives that we are not permitted to examine through enactment outside that specially distanced, styling, and intensified environment of the play stage” (quoted in Miller 109). Certainly, the frame of the toy room provides license to engage in objects coded as childish and creates a sense of validation. Collector Kev Shaw suggests that outsiders “may have an idea that there's something creepy about toy collectors” who wander toy aisles just “to find lone, unsupervised kids to prey on,” which is to say that the collector perceives himself as beholden to different rules outside of the play frame.

While I do think it is important to view action figure collecting as a playful activity in the way such play facilitates social interaction, links us to the past, and grants access to a rich symbolic realm, it is worth considering the implications of action figures, as highly valued objects of mass-production, as framed within a validating space that departs from the rules of everyday life, as one of the “alternative domains” (Abrahams 96) that we construct. Pairing their commodity status with their roles as physical manifestations of overwhelming intertextual and transmedia narratives that hold deeply personal significance, the true significance of action figures lies well beyond their use value as plastic toys. While collectors will freely admit to the nostalgic qualities of their toys and the way worth is subjective, play, as a departure from the normal, highlights and provides a rather appropriate context for the lesser-acknowledged role of action figures as fetish objects.

50

Fetishism

Even as we think of action figures as playful objects that facilitate interactions with other

people, we are nonetheless left with commodities produced under the mystified processes of

capitalism. Perhaps unavoidable in a discussion of the collection of action figures is the issue of

fetishism. While collectors often have designated figures that are seen as less valuable and may

be handled with less care, many describe their most prized objects with such reverence it seems

as though the aura has drifted from the art object to the mass produced. Collectors who refuse to

touch or open their toys and keep them in special, safe cases and shelves indicate that toys,

among other mass-produced objects, are not simply things on which we project and invest our

beliefs, but also take on a magic, animistic quality. Kev Shaw notes how “a toy has to create a

connection,” suggesting our need to view objects as more than mere objects, as if the toys could

actually reciprocate the feelings we invest in them.

As objects with often high collector’s and monetary value, action figures are fetishized in some obvious ways. Paul Bolton, who collects late 1980s, early 1990s figures such as M.A.S.K. and Masters of the Universe, typifies the kind of collector who strives to keep his collection in

perfect condition: “No, I don’t open [my figures],” he says, “I tend to buy them because of their

value and if I open them that value will decrease.” He also keeps his Teenage Mutant Ninja

Turtle figures, a toyline of 5” tall reptiles who wield weapons and study martial arts, in “graded

cases” that “will help keep the value for the future.” Justin Lebowitz states that he will only open

his figures if he has doubles, noting, “if not, I have some deep fear I’ll never be able to get one in

the same condition again.” Clearly, there’s a desire to retain a sense of perfection, a sense of

purity that can only be achieved when the toys are prevented from being used. If play is secluded

and involves stepping out of “real life” (Huizinga 8), then displaying toys seems to be a perfect 51 example in that the toys have their special locations, usually on a shelf and in the package, that is typically visited by only a select few who truly understand and “get it.”

Nearly everyone interviewed expressed the importance of their toys looking impressive on a shelf. Lee Burbridge likes “to see [figures] standing on a shelf]” while Kev Shaw expresses the significance of order and consistency when he comments, “I want to place them on my shelf beside their line-mates [toys of the same series] and look at them together.” In each case, the spectacle, the image of the action figure takes on greater importance than any practical use value it may possess. Guy Debord warns that this emphasis on spectacle in modern society aids in dividing workers from the results of their labor. As spectators passively observe products, they become further entrenched in consumer capitalism and the importance of commodities becomes further perpetuated. He notes how as “the real world changes into simple images, the simple images become real beings and effective motivations of hypnotic behavior” (Debord 120), which is reinforced as vision becomes the privileged human sense. Although the shift away from the physicality of the action figure during adulthood creates a greater emphasis on the intangible aspects, such as social interaction and a preoccupation with intertexts, it is difficult to deny that this occurs concurrently with a rather problematic emphasis on the images that represent and are controlled by what Debord refers to as “the ruling production.”

Just as telling as what they say in the interviews, the action figure collectors’ lack of commentary on the production of and labor involved with their prized acquisitions highlights the ways in which capitalism hides and therefore mystifies the labor process. Action figures, as Marx would say, are mysterious “because the relation of the producers to the sum total of their own labour is presented to them as a social relation, existing not between themselves, but between the products of their labour” (83). Collectors talk about stumbling upon figures on store shelves, as 52 if they appear to them by magic. Kev Shaw, in commenting on the thrill of hunting for figures, notes, “I love walking into my local Target and heading to the toy department to see what's there, hoping all the while to find that elusive figure I've been trying to track down for an age.”

Interestingly, this is seen as a less impersonal and more meaningful activity than purchasing figures online, since “there’s an element of gratification that’s missing when it’s that easy.”

Of course, any discussion of fetishism would be incomplete without addressing the object’s relation to the phallus, especially in the context of objects as traditionally masculinely coded as action figures. Emily Apter argues that fetishism, in its ability to turn anything into a phallus, ultimately undermines the power of the actual phallus as it “springs gender codes loose from the moorings of biological essentialism” (5). Action figures would then, in effect, become an “other phallus,” in spite of being outwardly coded as hegemonically masculine. Pietz notes that even as fetishization unifies the object as the object is being fixated upon, it is also so personal to the viewer that it can never truly be in line with the typical values or associations of the object: “This intense relation to the individual’s experience of his or her own living self through an impassioned response to the fetish object is always incommensurable with (whether in a way that reinforces or undercuts) the social value codes within which the fetish holds the status of a material signifier” (quoted in Apter 3).

In the context of action figures, which are both fragmented in their associations with other time periods and media, but are also unified in that they can be singular items on display to be intensely fixated upon, the concurrently stabilizing and de-essentializing effects of fetishization are likely unsurprising. While the transmedia qualities of action figures, as they relate to countless texts over countless media, provide the most obvious explanation for action figures as fragmented and destabilized objects, the unifying and personalizing effects of 53 fetishization provides an appealing counterbalance, especially as collectors attempt to navigate the sea of popular culture.

While Apter, invoking classical psychoanalysis, suggests that anything, from “fur, velvet, chair legs, shoelaces, apron strings, hatbands, feather boas, etc.” (4) can be an object of fetishization, I would like to think that in the midst of our hyper-accelerated culture, in which nostalgia and media saturation are in full force, there is something uniquely fascinating about hypermasculine, plastic warriors that are upheld as if they were works of art, or at least personal heirlooms. As objects that are both deeply personal and in constant flux, steeped in nostalgia yet tangible in the present, and draped in traditional masculine codes while simultaneously subverting the power of the real phallus, action figures speak to the paradoxes of contemporary existence in their own way. Fetishism, in its emphasis on fixating upon and personalizing the object, becomes a useful lens for understanding action figure collectors and perhaps aids in reacting against the sense of chaos and disorder that collecting aims to combat. If we are to accept collecting and displaying as a playful activity, then Johan Huizinga’s remark that play

“creates order, is order” (10) is more than applicable to action figures. While no collector interviewed explicitly indicated that he was crumbling beneath the weight of an increasingly overwhelming, Post-Postmodern, hyper-accelerated, media-intoxicated hellscape, it was hard to ignore the strong currents of nostalgia and the ways action figures facilitated this in order to provide structure, especially as new trends passed them by. Simon Reynolds, in response to the works of author Nick Hornby, notes how masculinity often retreats “from the mess and risk of adulthood into the more orderly world of obsessive fandom” (100). At the very least, “we're always drawn to the familiar” and seek out a “connection” with our objects as collector Kev

Shaw reminds us. As both fetishistic, destabilized, “other phalluses” and mass-produced 54

transmedia texts that provoke intense nostalgia, action figures remain relevant due to their

involvement in deeply personal human experiences.

Furthermore, as certain media properties, such as Masters of the Universe, for example,

struggle to retain significant mainstream relevance and their quality is reassessed by adult minds,

it becomes increasingly necessary to pair our understanding of action figure collecting with ideas

outside the context of narratives and transmedia storytelling, as well as children’s play. It is not

difficult to imagine how adult collectors would be swept up in the grandeur of Star Wars,

especially as later films like Rogue One (2016) and The Last Jedi (2017) continue to provide the

familiar spectacle while addressing unexplored themes both nuanced and complex, but males in

their 30s or 40s would be hard pressed to convincingly argue that He-Man’s mostly one-

dimensional exploits were anything but inane. And yet an intense love of He-Man, and his

manifestation as a plastic figure, remains. Despite the occasional comic runs, properties like

Masters of the Universe produce little new story content for those outside the most devoted

followers, while fans of the custom figures inspired by Masters of the Universe are provided with

even less narrative, so this lends license to explore the ways toys are more tenuously tied to

story: as nostalgia objects, as fetish objects. As the well of official narratives remains mostly in

the past and often fails to live up to current scrutiny, one’s personal relationship to the object

gains space to develop and takes on new importance.

This is not to say that the fetishistic qualities of collecting conflict with the intertextuality

of action figures, but rather that they highlight a new dimension. Amelia Hastie notes in

Cupboards of Curiosity (2007) that all collecting is an intertextual endeavor, an “affective investment [that] signifies a love for oneself, a love for one’s past (her family, her memories, her work), and a fear of loss” (24). To obtain a collection is to simultaneously embrace multiple, 55 fragmented, and competing stories that may be represented by the collection, regardless of any, in this case, popular comic or movie tie-ins. Indeed, that fetishistic sense of magic, or at least intrigue, that points to the non-physical, the world beyond the object is certainly already present with collecting.

While the official story of He-Man has waned in terms of resonance, Masters of the

Universe figures nonetheless remain, as Jason Bainbridge states, a toyline that was built as a

“transmedia narrative out of a web of intertexts” (836). In addition to the figures themselves, a mini comic that accompanied them fleshed out the characters’ back stories and personalities. A popular cartoon series, live-action movie, comic books, and children’s books provided further external sources for constructing one’s understanding of the franchise during its commercial peak in the 1980s. If action figures are material objects tied up in media intertexts and sites for the projection of self, then perhaps our fetishized, highly personalized experience is but another text in the web of intertextual narratives. While it would be nearly impossible for anyone familiar with He-Man to separate the character from his silly cartoon portrayal, and even probably unquestionable to think about He-Man toys as fetish objects, the frame of the collector’s room or shelf and the aura associated with prized figures create contexts in which action figures are allowed to be both fixed and destablized fetish objects in such a way that highlights their fluid intertextual qualities while capturing the tensions and contradictions of those processing contemporary culture through highly nostalgic material objects.

Although action figures and their collectors beg to be the subject of further analysis, I have raised several points of inquiry in what will be a greater discussion. Indeed, action figures represent a significant, overlooked text that takes on new meanings and roles as collectors– or consumers if one opts to be more cynical—transition into adulthood. Simultaneously a catalyst 56 for social activity while also invested with deeply personal meaning, such toys enter the realm of fetishization and this fetishized version of the toy becomes a text in a web of intertexts. With action figures, something as passive as display becomes a surprisingly playful activity, distinguishing itself from children’s play in the degree that it is a catalyst for social activity. A highly complex aspect of material culture, action figures speak to both the collectors’ subjectivities and the toys’ external narratives. Few objects in popular culture form a more compelling intersection between objects as text and subjective actors.

57

CHAPTER III. REACTION FIGURES, INTERTEXTUALITY, AND THE

METACULTURAL CENTERING OF OFFICIAL NARRATIVES

For an action figure enthusiast, there is obvious appeal to viewing how adults utilize figures by examining the seemingly mundane ways toys impact collectors in their daily lives. In spite of the occasional snag in the forms of reinvesting custom figures with dangerous masculine signifiers, hiding behind a wall of snobbery that’s framed as expertise, and the compulsion to buy commodities, we are able to see a human side of collecting that is in constant negotiation of conflicting ideas, both personal and cultural. The thought of creatively expressing oneself through artistic creations or displays, using material culture to explore ideas in opposition to corporate agendas, or simply sifting through the sea of media both past and present to construct an identity at least complicates the issue. Michel de Certeau notes how consumers use the forms available to create their own paths that “trace out the ruses of other interests and desires that are neither determined nor captured by the systems in which they develop” (xviii). And yet these sources of creativity and reprieve remain commodities produced under the ideologies of an ever- present capitalist system.

While action figure customizers skillfully produce objects both symbolically complex and subjectively meaningful as collectors playfully construct spaces and experience around their prized objects, major toy manufacturers are not oblivious to the contemporary air of nostalgia.

From NECA’s Robocop and Alien figures to Mezco’s Breaking Bad series, toy aisles reflect no shortage of action figures created for an adult audience. However, whereas most of these toylines strive for detail and realism, one extremely popular series stands in stark contrast: Super7’s

Reaction figures. Released by Funko from 2013 to 2016, Reaction represent a postmodern mixture of 1970s aesthetics applied to post-1970s (and occasionally pre-1970s) properties. 58

Among the most successful retro figures, they have found space on the pegs within major retail

chains such as Target, Walmart, and Barnes & Noble. With few moveable joints and a

simplified, typically unrealistic design, Reaction figures are throwbacks to the original 3 ¾” Star

Wars figures of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Although the series depicts characters as old as

Count Orlok from Nosferatu (1922) as well as those more recent such as Walter White and Jesse

Pinkman from Breaking Bad, it does so with packaging, scale, and the poor attention to detail,

likeness, and articulation that would be recognizable to those familiar with the initial Star Wars

toys.

Produced with an awareness of previous eras and the toys that corresponded to them,

Reaction figures speak to popular culture in a remarkably meta way. As “misquotations,” to

borrow from Greg Urban, of the original Star Wars figures, Reaction maintains the aesthetics

and packaging of classic toylines, but, by its very nature of being marketed toward adults and not

intended for play, creativity is diminished and official narratives are upheld. Using Urban’s

framework of metaculture as a starting point, I explore how Reaction works within familiar

forms to bring a collecting experience into the present that lacks rich intertextual, and potentially

subversive and destabilizing, encounters with dominant narratives.

Although the original Star Wars figures supported corporate interests, Dan Fleming

suggests that there was potential to destabilize the hegemonic white male and encourage

deviation from the original text as white male figures intermingle with characters of various

genders and species. Through children’s play, Luke Skywalker is but another toy among others,

which may include women like Princess Leia, African Americans like Lando Calrissian, or

bizarre non-human beings such as the descriptively named Snaggle Tooth and Prune Face.

Reaction, in contrast, while hoping to capitalize on the emotional response of evoking the 59

appearance of figures long past, mimics well-established texts, and is marketed to adult collectors. While I find action figures of all varieties to be fetishistic and symbolic, Reaction embraces these aspects in a way that minimizes creativity or the challenging of official narratives by explicitly encouraging play or manipulation on the packaging, failing to highlight difference

among the casts of the movies and shows depicted, and relying on an aesthetic that both helps to

essentialize the text and bring it a privileged mental realm. No longer toys (although this point is

not disputed by Super7), Reaction figures are ultimately a series of codes decipherable to the

collector that invite investment into the text while simultaneously undermining its subversion.

Under the playful guise of retro, which Simon Reynolds notes “uses the past as an archive of

materials from which to extract subcultural capital (hipness, in other words) through recycling

and recombining” (xxxi), Super7 makes careful selections that uphold dominant narratives.

Reaction

Reaction figures first appeared in 2013 with a line of Alien figures that included the

iconic characters of Ellen Ripley and the monstrous xenomorph. This line was heavily

characterized by its simplicity of design and lack of detail, a sharp contrast to other notable

adult-oriented toy manufacturers working with so-called retro licenses. McFarlane Toys, for example, which has produced characters from properties as diverse as The Texas Chainsaw

Massacre (1974), Robocop (1987), and Labyrinth (1986) boasts of action figures that are

“sculpted and painted to feature the exact likeness of each character” (“Action Figure Archives”) and more akin to a plastic statue. Reaction figures also typically have five points of articulation or moveable joints (both arms, both legs and the head), along with sculpt and paint jobs that leans toward the minimal. The intricate amalgam of mechanical and organic forms that make up the xenomorph’s design in the movie are represented as simplified, monochromatic shapes. The 60

heroic, expressive Ellen Ripley is portrayed as stiff, with an almost expressionless face, which,

short of being a Caucasian female with medium-length black hair, barely resembles the actual actress, Sigourney Weaver. Of course, this misrepresentation of characters comes with a certain charm to collectors, who make an immediate connection to the original Star Wars line from

1977. Following the line of Alien figures, Reaction would expand to include such properties as

Predator, Pulp Fiction, Jaws, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Terminator, Back to the Future,

Breaking Bad, Gremlins, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fight Club, Taxi Driver, The Karate Kid, and Firefly, among others.

Although these retro figures for adults may seem to appeal to a narrow specialty market, their wide availability in toy, comic, and book stores suggests a cultural pervasiveness worthy of further consideration. I find Reaction, while a seeming outlier in the action figure world, especially when compared to the Masters of the Universe inspired customs of the first chapter, to heighten many of the overarching concerns of action figures, while complicating matters in that there is such a strong commercial element paired with the nostalgic whimsy. While the customizers use the established forms of He-Man to work through ideas unexplored by the official text, Reaction similarly employs the aesthetics of a specific era to represent characters from a wide span of time and ideas and associations that come with them, except in a much more commercial way.

I find the consideration of Reaction as commodities to provide perspective to my analysis of customizers and collectors because Super7 seems largely concerned with the same issues as the individuals who comprise the fandom, although Super7 explores such concerns as a multinational corporation releasing carefully-selected corporate texts. By invoking the appearance of Star Wars figures from childhood but offering little in the way of articulation and 61

action features, while clearly denying that it is a toy on the package, Reaction not only pushes

the tension between texts old and new, but also figures as tangible play objects and carriers of

symbolic meaning. By depicting characters in a manner so simplified that they verge on (or in

some cases are) unfamiliar, Super7 embraces the perspective that the immaterial qualities and

associations of action figures exceed their tangible forms.

Metacultural Objects

As oftentimes new characters portrayed through retro aesthetics, Reaction brings

metacultural awareness beyond the fan communities and into the realm of mass-production.

Despite their depiction of characters created after Star Wars, Reaction figures have much to say

about toys long past, while simultaneously looking toward the future. Greg Urban’s concept of

the metaculture of newness provides a useful lens through which to consider this breed of retro

action figures that encompass both traditional and new ideas. Urban is concerned with the

movement of culture through the world, as ideas pass from object to object. As Urban states,

“Newness itself depends on microcyclicity, as the old durable object loses its value. That value—

if culture is to move through the world—must be carried over into a new object, one that does

not look exactly like the old one” (231). As one responds to an old object by making a new one

that is not quite exact, the culture of the old object is carried forward in time (Urban 240).

Objects are often “misquoted,” or replicated in a manner that is not quite exact, but in spite of

this, meaning is carried over in some capacity (Urban 239). The myth embodied by the object, the underlying cultural element, is passed from one object to another. In the case of retro action figures, Reaction, as new objects, carry forward the ideas of its predecessors while putting forth innovative concepts of its own. Despite being a “misquotation,” if you will, of Star Wars, 62

Reaction works as the ideal vehicle for transporting the immaterial qualities of the simple figures of the late 1970s.

According to Urban, in a metaculture of newness, the object, while carrying with it new ideas, must also have some surface resemblance to a familiar form. Indeed, “That continuity of response—that carrying over of something from prior objects—insures that the production of newness will not result in fragmentation, disconnection from the past, and complete rupture.

Rather, the past appears—thanks to response—as forward-looking, as a past that is prelude to the future” (Urban 242). In the case of Reaction figures, part of the appeal is their ostensible similarity to Star Wars figures of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and they certainly carry forward many of the meanings reflected by such figures, but perhaps more fascinating are the ways these ideas are inflected and changed by nature of being marketed toward adults and based on long-established movies and television shows.

Star Wars Figures

To understand the ways in which contemporary retro figures such as the Reaction line metaculturally act as a new object, it is perhaps necessary to examine the objects they are mimicking. Although Star Wars merchandise has always been firmly situated within the sphere of commercial interests, there are several major changes that occur as the sparsely-detailed figures with little articulation are carried forward by Super7’s Reaction figures. From packaging to character selection to marketing, Star Wars figures offered the potential to destabilize dominant narratives and challenge assumptions of identity that Reaction would subsequently undercut. Consisting of ninety-two 3 ¾” figures, the original Star Wars toyline placed the child in the position of storyteller who hovered over the sea of characters and vehicles, manipulating the action. This contrasted greatly with the highly popular 12” G.I.Joe figures of the mid-to-late 63

1960s, which acted as a fixed metaphor for the self-sufficient individual (Fleming 100). A far cry from the bizarre sci-fi cast of Star Wars, G.I.Joe was typically a white male—a rigid ideal, heroic self onto which the child projected him or herself. Dan Fleming suggests that the narrative of Star Wars problematizes the white male’s role by placing him among a diverse cast of aliens, robots and even a few women, however, this notion is pushed even further in the context of toys, as it is easy for a single Luke Skywalker figure to be lost among the dozens of other small figures (100). If a child has not seen the movies, or only has a vague understanding of them,

Luke’s role is even more diminished as the re-enactment of official narratives gives way to new, imaginative stories.

Another feature of Star Wars, along with other 3 ¾” figures in which collecting many small characters is encouraged, is their refusal of narrative closure. While the movie, the official text, resolves itself, with the white male protagonist saving the universe, the toys create a much more open-ended experience. Despite the established story structure, children are actually encouraged to expand upon the narrative, making their own creative scenarios (Fleming 104). As

Fleming says, while “the films settle with the white male farm boy who saves the universe, reducing otherness to difference-from-him, the toys sustain this ‘opening out’ as part of the very condition of being toys rather than a narrative looking for how to end” (102). By their very nature, toys offer a much looser narrative than the texts from which they are derived. The implications of this refusal of narrative closure are quite significant, as it allows for children to produce their own stories, which, at best, are subversive and, at worst, creative.

Although Star Wars has become an inescapable intertextual experience with toys that support narratives that captivate children and adults alike, such as The Force Awakens (2015) and Rogue One (2016), Star Wars figures of the 1970s and 1980s, despite offering familiar 64

characters, vehicles and settings, create spaces for innovative new scenarios through play that

diverge from that with which the consumer is presented. While sharing surface similarities to

these toys, the Reaction line marks a seamless shift not only from creativity, but reasserting

dominant texts. From the packaging itself, which clearly states, “This is not a toy,” it becomes

clear that play is the manufacturer’s intention.

While I find action figures to be employed playfully in a broad range of their uses,

extending this even to practices as seemingly passive as display in the previous chapter, the

blatant dismissal of children’s play by Super7 seems particular noteworthy. Jason Bainbridge

comments how children, often due to economic limitations, cannot often afford entire toylines

and thus combine narratives from multiple lines when they play, which produces stories and

ideas that are wholly new. Indeed, “the ‘action’ of action figures moves from the action of

consumption towards a (nascent) action of prosumption (where consumption fuels production),

wherein children use the figures and their narratives as resources for their own creativity and

exploration,” in which issues as varied as storytelling, autonomy, and sexuality can be explored

(Bainbridge 835). While we can never completely create outside the structures that reinforce

hegemonic ideologies, I find Henry Jenkins’ application of “moments of resistance” to play in

children’s culture (31) to be useful for capturing its fluid and unpredictable yet empowering

capabilities. A self-described non-toy, Reaction ultimately discourages the consumer from using the figures in a challenging, resistant and innovative manner.

As we consider the potential for toys to challenge the dominant messages of official texts,

we must also place the action figures in the context of the intertexts that contribute to our

understanding of characters and franchises. Of course, as objects that reference film and

television properties, Reaction benefits from a near-inseparable link to popular media, but lacks 65

any overt connect to vast intertextual worlds that have characterized some of the most iconic

toylines of past decades. In the 1980s, for example, the Transformers property included a

cartoon, theatrically-released movie, an American comic, a British comic (which, in most cases,

differed from its American counterpart) and a toyline that included original art and character

biographies on the packaging that often conflicted with other texts. The toys, which predated all

other media, also included unique characters not found in any other media. The Star Wars films,

and the figures from which Reaction draw their greatest inspiration, were supplemented by a

Marvel comic book, the now-mythic Star Wars Holiday Special (1978), two cartoon series in

1985 (Ewoks and Droids), and the made-for-television spin-off films, Caravan of Courage: An

Ewok Adventure (1984) and Ewoks: Battle for Endor (1985). In contrast, most Reaction figures are based on cancelled television shows or movies whose days of merchandise are long past.

With the exception of The Flash and Arrow figures, Reaction primarily licenses “dead

properties.”

In most cases, Reaction figures have a primary referent: a singular text with which to

draw our attention, usually a movie or television show. The Pulp Fiction figures, for example,

contain images of the actors on the packaging, so a link is made between the figures and the most

obvious text. Presumably, buyers’ knowledge of this singular text informs the purchase of such

figures and gives worth to a figure with little obvious play value for children and priced beyond

kid-friendly toys of an equivalent scale, which, at the time of writing, continue to be Star Wars.

This can be compared to the similarly sized and packaged G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero

figures, which offer a painted image of the character on the box (which often differs in

appearance from the figure, cartoon and comic versions), coupled with a file card on the back

(which, again, often differs from other sources), presenting consumers with yet another text to 66

draw from as they construct their own personal, if not destabilized, understanding of the

character.

The sense of multiplicity exemplified by Star Wars, Masters of the Universe,

Transformers, and G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero is undercut in two major areas by Reaction:

packaging and character selection. In carefully narrowing the scope of characters represented,

especially in contrast to the vast cast of Star Wars, and pairing them with common images tied to media with very few notable, official intertexts, Reaction belies the quaintness of, say, holding the gruesome xenomorph of Alien to the standards of children’s toys from the 1970s. Ever cognizant of cultural symbols on multiple levels, Super7 invokes the retro sensibility in ways that recenter alternative narratives.

Packaging

Considering the toys are not intended to be opened or played with in an official capacity, the packaging in which the figures come takes on even greater importance. The card and blister

packaging, with the figure positioned in the lower left-hand corner like we have seen with Star

Wars figures, is quite telling of how such toys relate to other texts. Unlike Transformers or

G.I.Joe packaging from the 1980s, which had original art that could almost act as its own text,

Reaction, like the original Star Wars figures, provides us with a single referent: a photo from the

movie or television show on which the figure is based.

The Terminator series, for example, has a single photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger while

the Escape from New York cards depict Kurt Russell. Perhaps equally important is what is not

present. Customarily, action figures packages contain some brief description of the character or

overview of the story, famously demonstrated by G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero’s detailed file

cards and the bio and character stats included with Transformers figures. The back of the 67

Terminator Reaction card, in addition to reminding buyers to “Collect All Five” in the series, merely states, “Relive the exciting action of THE TERMINATOR with authentically detailed

Reaction Figures!” The Predator and The Nightmare Before Christmas series offer even less, only listing the names of the characters. By minimizing descriptive text, Reaction figures are marketed toward those familiar with the associated narratives, as sparsely detailed, slightly distorted character features provide codes that render the figures intelligible to insiders.

Supplemental information that may complicate our construction of the text is omitted.

While one may see this as a blank slate on which to project new, innovative and/or subversive ideas, I would argue that this sparseness of text defers to the official narrative, as it offers little to conflict with the primary text of the movie or television show. This lack of information would only be comprehensible to those familiar with the official narrative. Of course, consumers bring with them a gamut of associations and have constructed highly personalized versions of the text, so there is still the potential for the individual to recontextualize an otherwise hegemonic text. But this notion of offering multiple narratives is not supported by the action figures themselves. We don’t have alternative texts, such as unusual box art, bios and overviews that occasionally conflict with the story and ill-defined characters that require creativity on the part of the consumer to achieve meaning. By limiting supplemental information, Reaction eases us closer to essentialized narratives by recontextualizing familiar forms.

Although I find Reaction’s application of retro aesthetics to characters of limited intertextuality to support official, singular, dominant narratives, I do not want to suggest that the vast intertextual worlds of Masters of the Universe, Transformers, and of course Star Wars represent the diametrically opposed ideal to Reaction. While challenging white male hegemony 68 is certainly not encouraged by toy producers, creativity and difference have been embraced by the adaptable forces of capitalism. Anne Allison, in examining the ways Pokémon seemingly offers limitless possibilities in a way that challenges our culture of materialism while simultaneously supporting it, notes that, “we live in an era in which the imagination plays an increasingly important role in the (global) economy and is ever more embedded with, and a stimulus for, commodification” (23). Greater intertextuality, and more significantly the unstable, fragmented construction of popular narratives that it suggests, is not inherently redemptive, often providing new items to sell and different ways to personalize and internalize the value of a corporate property. While competing texts invite us to creatively and subjectively explore franchises, there is a difference between developing a personal use-value and using texts, as we understand them, to work through ideas not explicitly addressed in official narratives. For example, although the wild inconsistencies between the Masters of the Universe cartoon, action figures, mini-comics, and film may seem like a bizarre biproduct of a time that had yet to reach current levels of efficiency and oversight, I can’t help but view the avenues offered as, if not challenging and destabilizing to the hegemonic forces of popular culture, presenting existence as subjective to multiple perspectives.

Characters

While the presentation of the figures plays on our feelings of nostalgia, the scope of characters portrayed by Super7 should not be overlooked. It is probably worth noting that

Reaction, unlike Star Wars and G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero, does not deviate from major characters and certainly does not add characters unique to the toyline. Alien, by including the android Ash and Captain Dallas probably veers the furthest into character obscurity, especially for those unfamiliar with the film. In addition, the Predator series only includes Predators, not 69

even iconic actor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character from the first movie, and the Taxi Driver

series includes a single character, Robert DeNiro’s Travis Bickle. Star Wars, in extreme contrast,

is famous for its representation of characters that either barely appeared in the films or were

never seen in the movies at all. Even blink-and-you-miss-them characters such as Hammerhead,

Amanaman, Walrus Man and Prune Face would receive plastic representations. When someone as bizarre as Droopy McCool or Yak Face can stand on equal footing with Luke Skywalker, the consumer’s understanding of the franchise is informed in unexpected ways.

Of course, there are no shortage of Reaction figures (There were nearly 150 figures at the time of this project, not even including convention, store and online exclusives), but they lack the depth of characters we have come to expect from Star Wars, and even Transformers and G.I.Joe:

A Real American Hero. Because there are so many series within the Reaction line, each one can

focus on major characters, so we ultimately have store shelves filled with mostly top-tier

characters, which require the least amount of creative interpretation on the part of the consumer.

This harkens back to the notion that Star Wars, with its unusual selection and often ill-defined

characters, has the potential to destabilize the hegemonic, white male main characters. In a world

where it seems like the only way to express fandom is to buy more of the same and keep it all

preserved and untouched for eternity, perhaps we need the Prune Faces, or at least female

characters such as Mon Mothma, to be taken out of their packages and thrown into new contexts

to spark innovative ideas and construct subversive narratives.

As figures these are not meant to be played with, nor do they look particularly similar to

the characters and actors they represent, it is easy to see how the users’ intellect takes on a

heightened role in the creation of meaning. Like Scott McCloud’s notion of closure, as explained

in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art as the “phenomenon of observing the parts but 70 perceiving the whole” (63), it is up to the consumer to mentally fill in the gaps so that the figure is comprehensible. Just as the comic reader takes images and symbols and processes them in such a way that a seamless narrative is produced, the action figure similarly uses fragments to create a unified whole. The blue jumpsuit of Ellen Ripley, coupled with the medium-length black hair and flamethrower weapon accessory, while not a photorealistic analogue to Sigourney

Weaver’s character in Alien, provide us with enough information to mentally fabricate a meaningful experience from looking at the figure. An inverse of, say, Masters of the Universe and G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero, in which the toys pre-dated all other texts and were more instrumental in shaping our perception of the properties, Reaction achieves its greatest meaning from consumers’ pre-existing knowledge of established texts. And it is in this symbolic, mental realm that Reaction achieves its greatest value. As Urban states, “…the continuity of culture, in the case of the metaculture of newness, is based on recognizability not to the senses but, instead, to the intellect” (262). An (most would say) over-priced mash-up to be decoded by collectors encouraged to revel in its lousiness long before placing it in a political economic system, few toylines embrace the belief that action figures are more than just pieces of plastic quite to the degree of Reaction.

The Future

Reaction figures, as toys that draw on the classic Kenner Star Wars figures for inspiration but are marketed toward adults who are discouraged from opening them, mark a fascinating development not only in toys, but in all of popular culture. From a fan standpoint, Reaction’s elegiac, reverential look back on classic figures is certainly cause for excitement and, to a certain degree, Super7 delivers. On a surface level, Reaction has all the trappings of action figures from the 1970s. The aesthetic, which includes a lack of detail, few points of articulation, little in the 71

way of color and only a vague likeness to the character referent, points to a simpler time when

one’s social status was dependent on one’s collection of Star Wars figures and toys were just

starting to enter into the massive web of intertextual, transmedia storytelling. The streamlined

packaging, with a simple cardboard backing and figure encased in a plastic blister, along with the

sheer number of figures seems to indicate an action figure line that is looking backward,

attempting to capture the wonder of 1977’s Star Wars figures.

Certainly, looking at Reaction figures aligned on store shelves has a tendency to diminish

the hegemonic white male characters, as they are lost in a sea of aliens, gremlins, monsters and

even females. However, real subversion occurs when toys are opened up, recontextualized and

different characters are given agency. The most interesting, challenging characters are, of course,

the secondary and tertiary characters that deviate from the hegemonic white male type, which

dominate the various Reaction lines. Star Wars, as toys with a variety of non-white-male characters who were intended to be played with, encourages far more creativity and, although perhaps unintentionally, prompts the consumer to challenge the status quo.

However, Reaction represents a minute portion of the action figure world. While

Reaction de-emphasizes play in favor of display, other toylines strike a greater balance. NECA, for example, similarly produces retro toys based on movies and television shows from the 1970s and 1980s, including many properties already utilized by Super7’s Reaction line, including

Alien(s), Terminator, Predator, Robocop, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Texas Chainsaw

Massacre. Although geared toward adults with its many R-rated-movie licenses, NECA toys are far more poseable and reward the consumer with features to be explored if he or she takes the figure out of the packaging. Private Jenette Vasquez and the Albino Alien from the ninth series of NECA’s Aliens line, released in April of 2016, each boast 30 points of articulation, with 72

Vasquez including a “fully articulated harness, plus a blast effect that attaches to the muzzle [of her smartgun]” while the Albino Alien “features a bendable mouth probe.” While such figures are still sought after for their displayability, they also invite interaction and manipulation, pushing them one step closer to the realm of play.

In addition to the encouraging trends represented by NECA and other retro toy manufacturers that promote play, perhaps even more significant are the countless artists and customizers who have emerged in the age of the Internet. Such consumers refuse to settle for the corporate portrayals of their favorite characters and create new, innovative and often challenging interpretations. Using action figures as their medium of expression, these artists remind us that the major corporations responsible for mass-produced goods do not have to have the final word on iconic pop culture characters.

That being said, Reaction figures still act as metacultural objects, carrying forward past ideas so to appear unfragmented and as if the objects are not disconnected from the past. One of the major forces at play with Star Wars toys, in spite of all the creativity and subversion they inspire, is the need to continually buy. Although caving to the capitalistic pressures of major toy companies does not have to discount or undermine the amazing things being done on an individual level, it certainly raises the question of whether amassing large collections of action figures is the most effective way to assert one’s subjectivity and combat the homogenizing, hegemonic ideas that are hanging on store racks. Regardless of whether participating in the capitalistic cycle undermines the accomplishments of consumers, action figures nonetheless remain a site of fascination, where pockets of creativity and subversion appear in varied and unlikely places. As long as children continue to be allowed to use their imaginations and adults 73 find dissatisfaction in the mass-produced objects that enter their lives, action figures will remain an aspect of popular culture that deserves a closer critical look.

74

CONCLUSION

While attempting to make some coherence out of the strange, often contradictory world of action figures, I delved into my personal collection of material representations from my favorite film series, Alien. As I looked into the diligently-packed, dust-free Rubbermaid box where my precious figures had been stored in my parents’ basement, Ripley’s resigned utterance to the xenomorph creature in Alien³ (1992) seemed fitting, if not slightly overdramatic: "You've been in my life so long, I can't remember anything else" (Fincher). And in a sense, this is true.

Like those who talk of Star Wars as if they have always existed, the Alien films have felt less like popcorn movies to me and more like a profoundly human experience. But as I began to pull figures out of the box, I realized that my certainty toward all aspects of the franchise was being further thrown into question with each new xenomorph or space marine.

There was a collectible Reaction xenomorph released in 2013 based on a film from 1979 that looked like an old Star Wars toy. Next was a Gorilla Alien figure based on the 1986 film

Aliens, but released in 1992, the same year as the third movie, the relentlessly bleak, Alien3. At

5,” this figure was in scale with Marvel figures of the time, has not been featured in a film, and shoots water out of his mouth (or according to the package, “Grabs and Squirts Victims!”). This creature would later be re-sculpted as a meticulously-detailed collectible for adults. Almost as bizarre, the 13” Sewer Mutation Alien from NECA, heavily implied to be a reference to the pizza monsters from a 1988 episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The attempt at kid-friendly comics that came with the figures from the early ‘90s that totally contradict the films they supposedly promote lead to further bewilderment. The real prestige of my collection, though, was highlighted by the rarest piece, a series of cryochambers created with paper towel rolls in the third grade, modeled after those memorably represented in the second movie. 75

Idealized childhood memories faded as I realized just how many eras of my life these figures spoke to, although any weirdness at the thought of amassing plastic xenomorphs since the age of five was tempered by how weird those plastic xenomorphs themselves were. Within the

Rubbermaid box were treasured personal texts with almost no ties to official narratives, adult collectibles exploring a spectrum of visual accuracy, allusions to other texts, well-loved toys subjected to hours of play and others barely glanced at before being cast aside. I was reminded of how much I love the films, but simultaneously of my experiences surrounding the toys that could never be quantified or commodified. I was inspired to explore creative avenues that huge corporations would not support, but in the process gave a lot of money (or my parents’ money) back to those corporations in exchange for more things. While not every figure said the exact same thing, or had as much to say, it was as if each one knew that even after all these years, taking the form of a miniature plastic creature or space marine was an efficient way to get through to me.

In trying to force order on this jumble of objects, texts, and experiences that were my

Alien figures, I was missing the point, it soon became clear. But it wasn’t the kind of incoherence that descends into the unhelpful “postmodern flattening of the terrain of power relations” (261), as Susan Bordo describes, which prevents us from seeing that our subjective, resistant experiences do not equal the dominant forces imposed by the inescapable corporate power structure. But rather, this seemed to highlight the surprising diversity of action figures, employed by producers and consumers to create a concrete focal point around which meaning is created around fragments of popular culture.

Simon Reynolds characterizes record collectors as “renegades against the irreversibility of pop-time’s flow, taking a stand against the way that styles go out of fashion, or run out of 76 steam” (93). While one may lose track or stop caring about the release schedule and viewing order of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there is something strangely defiant about placing figures as they have always been known on one’s own shelf, knowing that they will not be altered. Customizations, as fragile art pieces, and Reaction figures, as collectibles for display, are defined by their sense of stasis. Like the rigid statues reflecting Ancient Egypt’s cyclical, non- linear construction of time, these mostly immobilized expressions of nerdom resist forward temporal movement, making a poor case for the “action” of “action figure.” Rather than get caught up in the ever-changing trends of our consumer culture, which, ironically, they are still very much a part, the toys stubbornly sit on the shelf, attempting to assert their uniqueness and, perhaps more important, show that they, and those who care about them, are meant to last.

As these action figures push back against the constant bombardment of new merchandise and trends, they fall back on the symbols they know, to communicate with the people who know.

Whether deciphering simplified features on Reaction figure to reaffirm dominant texts or reading the exaggerated muscles and stumpy legs of a custom Masters of the Universe toy in a subversive way, our natural understanding of the codes of commodity culture not only contributes to our experience with action figures, but positions action figures among the richest amalgams of personal and corporate meanings. I can’t help but think that, for adult collectors, there is something gratifying about being able to make sense of small, obscured details when referents are defamiliarized and iconic forms fragmented, as if a dialogue is exchanged between insiders. With so many images competing for our attention, perhaps those that require just a little more specialized, exclusive knowledge stand among the most enticing.

Much has changed since the intertextuality of Masters of the Universe toys of the 1980s.

While media offer different interpretations of characters, perhaps most noticeable in a comic 77 book industry caught between an aging superhero readership and a newer fanbase engrossed by on-screen versions, the extreme contrasts between the barbarian mini-comic/toy He-Man, the lighthearted cartoon He-Man, and the surfer-dude-meets-Ivan-Drago He-Man of the 1987 film seem like a bizarre reminder of the Reagan era. Indeed, “the tie between toys and entertainment and total marketing has grown ever more solid” (Clark 220), but things are never as monolithic as they appear. Consumption takes the form of cleverly co-opted nostalgia objects, as masculinity negotiates between the aggressive, self-made, muscle-bound heroes of youth and a model rooted in collecting, where buying, controlling, and knowing about stuff grants access to a privileged club of “true” fans. In spite of this, the unsanctioned uses of action figures, fueled by the Internet, have been put on display like never before, complicating our understanding of art, toys, originality, dominant narratives, and high and low culture in the process.

Certainly, corporate awareness and flexibility indicate cause for concern. In September

2018, Super7 announced that it had teamed up with Killer Bootlegs (the pseudonym for Illinois- based customizer Peter Goral) to officially mass-produce an original fan-devised character,

Phantom Starkiller, as a Reaction figure. With hints of Darth Vader (and other Star Wars characters) and Skeletor from Masters of the Universe, the bold lines and bright neon colors of the packaging douse the skeletal space warrior in pop kitschiness. A hypnotizing mess of meaning, Phantom Starkiller represents a blurred system where consumption leads to individuals who manipulate the signs of consumer culture in unexpected ways, only to have their work recontextualized through mass-production, retaining the hip, iconoclastic connotations of bootlegging. And to think my 8-year old brain was suspicious that my Optimus Prime figure looked different from the Transformers cartoon and comics. 78

Fortunately, we are continually reminded of fandom’s ability to influence pop culture.

Custom figures often explore the traditional white, masculine signifiers of Masters of the

Universe that enhance the more problematic elements of the original text, but like many properties from the 1980s, He-Man and his cohort are not read with the same sincerity through adult eyes. The website Heal Yourself, Skeletor, which juxtaposes cartoon screenshots of He-

Man’s evil nemesis with positive affirmations, and the “He-Man Sings” meme, a video comically depicting the hero performing “What’s Up” (1992) by 4 Non Blondes, are just two examples of fan-produced texts that revel in the absurdity of the source material that has been repurposed. Artists working in action figures have yet to reach the audience of millions seen by such Internet sensations, but I suspect their preoccupation with material culture, positioned against the fleeting, insubstantial digital age, will make them a compelling corner of nerdom not to be overlooked. After all, these figures speak to such extremes. Coded as consumeristic trash, fetishized objects of nerd obsession, goofy childhood amusements, and regressive representations of identity, action figures are on a ceaseless need to elicit a response. And against the clutter of information that consume our lives, we should not discount the currency of those recognizable forms that communicate to our most deeply-help emotions.

79

WORKS CITED

Abrahams, Roger D. Everyday Life: A Poetics of Vernacular Practices. Philadelphia: U of

Pennsylvania, 2005. Print.

“Action Figure Archives.” McFarlane Toys. Kitchen Sink Studios, 2018. Web. 1 Oct. 2018.

.

Alexandratos, Jonathan. Articulating the Action Figure: Essays on the Toys and Their Messages.

Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2017. Print.

Alien³. Dir. David Fincher. Perf. Sigourney Weaver. 20th Century Fox, 1992. Film.

Allison, Anne. Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination. Berkeley: U of

California, 2006. Print.

Apter, Emily S., and William Pietz. Fetishism as Cultural Discourse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP,

1993. Print.

Bainbridge, Jason. "Fully Articulated: The Rise of the Action Figure and the Changing Face of

'Children's' Entertainment." Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 24.6

(2010): 829-42. Print.

Barker, Brandon. "The Story." Warlords of Wor! Blogger, 2012. Web. 16 July 2017.

.

---. "Warlords of Wor." Man Or Monster? Studios. Weebly, 2012. Web. 16 July 2017.

.

Barthes, Roland. The Rustle of Language. Trans. Richard Howard. 2nd ed. New York: Hill and

Wang, 1986. Print. 80

Bateson, Gregory. "A Theory of Play and Fantasy." The Game Designer Reader: A Rules of Play

Anthology. Ed. Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman. Cambridge and London: MIT, 2005.

314-28. Print.

Baudrillard, Jean. The System of Objects. London: Verso, 1996. Print.

Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body. 10 Anniversary

ed. Berkeley: U of California, 2003. Print.

Brode, Douglas. Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2012. Print.

Bronner, Simon. "Links to Behavior: An Analysis of Chain Carving." Kentucky Folk Record

29.3-4 (1983): 72-82. Print.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Study of American Folklore: An Introduction. 4th ed. New York:

Norton, 1998. Print.

Clark, Eric. The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for Britain's Youngest Consumers.

London: Random House, 2007. Print.

Correll, Timothy Corrigan., and Patrick Arthur. Polk, eds. The Cast-off Recast: Recycling and

the Creative Transformation of Mass-produced Objects. Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler

Museum of Cultural History, 1999. Print.

De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. 3rd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of

California, 2011. Print.

Debord, Guy. "The Commodity as Spectacle." Media and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks. Ed.

Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner. Revised ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell,

2006. 117-21. Print.

“The Defection.” He-Man and the Masters of the Universe – Season One, Vol. 1. Writ. Ron

Schultz and Sam Schultz. Dir. Marsh Lamore. BCI/Eclipse, 2005. DVD. 81

Donovan, Barna William. Blood, Guns, and Testosterone: Action Films, Audiences, and a Thirst

for Violence. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010. Print.

Fine, Gary Alan. Everyday Genius: Self-taught Art and the Culture of Authenticity. Chicago: U

of Chicago, 2004. Print.

Fleming, Dan. Powerplay: Toys as Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996. Print.

Foster, Michael Dylan, and Jeffrey A. Tolbert, eds. The Folkloresque: Reframing Folklore in a

Popular Culture World. Logan: Utah State UP, 2016. Print.

Gauntlett, David. Making Is Connecting: The Social Meaning of Creativity, from DIY and

Knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Cambridge: Polity, 2011. Print.

Genette, Gérard. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree. Trans. Channa Newman and

Claude Doubinsky. Lincoln and Lincoln: U of Nebraska, 1997. Print.

Gray, Jonathan. Show Sold Separately: Promos, Spoilers, and Other Media Paratexts. New

York: New York UP, 2010. Print.

Hastie, Amelie. Cupboards of Curiosity: Women, Recollection, and Film History. Durham: Duke

UP, 2007. Print.

Huizinga, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-element in Culture. New York: Roy, 1950.

Print.

Jenkins, Henry. "Childhood Innocence and Other Modern Myths." The Children's Culture

Reader. New York and London: New York UP, 1998. 1-37. Print.

Kline, Stephen. Out of the Garden: Toys, TV, and Children's Culture in the Age of Marketing.

London: Verso, 1993. Print.

Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. Ed. Friedrich Engels. New York: Cosimo

Classics, 2007. Print. 82

McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Perennial, 1994.

Print.

Miller, G. Wayne. Toy Wars: The Epic Struggle between G.I. Joe, Barbie, and the Companies

That Make Them. New York: Times, 1998. Print.

Pocius, Gerald L. "Art." The Journal of American Folklore Autumn 108.430 (1995): 413-31.

Print.

Register, Woody. "Everyday Peter Pans: Work, Manhood, and Consumption in Urban America,

1900-1930." Boys and Their Toys Masculinity, Class and Technology in America. Ed.

Roger Horowitz. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2012. 199-228. Print.

Reynolds, Simon. Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past. London: Faber and

Faber, 2012. Print.

Seiter, Ellen. Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture. New Brunswick, NJ:

Rutgers UP, 1993. Print.

Sutton-Smith, Brian. The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1997. Print.

Thomas, Jeannie B. Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, and Other Forms of Visible Gender. Urbana:

University of Illinois, 2003. Print.

Toffoletti, Kim. Cyborgs and Barbie Dolls: Feminism, Popular Culture and the Posthuman

Body. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. Print.

Urban, Greg. Metaculture: How Culture Moves through the World. Minneapolis, MN: U of

Minnesota, 2001. Print.

83 APPENDIX A. IRB APPROVAL

DATE: April 6, 2018

TO: Eric Sobel FROM: Bowling Green State University Institutional Review Board

PROJECT TITLE: [689257-1] Adult Play and Folk Practices in the Action Figure Collector Community SUBMISSION TYPE: New Project

ACTION: APPROVED APPROVAL DATE: April 5, 2018 EXPIRATION DATE: April 4, 2019 REVIEW TYPE: Expedited Review

REVIEW CATEGORY: Expedited review category # 5

Thank you for your submission of New Project materials for this project. The Bowling Green State University Institutional Review Board has APPROVED your submission. This approval is based on an appropriate risk/benefit ratio and a project design wherein the risks have been minimized. All research must be conducted in accordance with this approved submission.

Please note that you are responsible to conduct the study as approved by the IRB. If you seek to make any changes in your project activities or procedures, those modifications must be approved by this committee prior to initiation. Please use the modification request form for this procedure.

All UNANTICIPATED PROBLEMS involving risks to subjects or others and SERIOUS and UNEXPECTED adverse events must be reported promptly to this office. All NON-COMPLIANCE issues or COMPLAINTS regarding this project must also be reported promptly to this office.

This approval expires on April 4, 2019. You will receive a continuing review notice before your project expires. If you wish to continue your work after the expiration date, your documentation for continuing review must be received with sufficient time for review and continued approval before the expiration date.

Good luck with your work. If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Research Compliance at 419-372-7716 or [email protected]. Please include your project title and reference number in all correspondence regarding this project.

This letter has been electronically signed in accordance with all applicable regulations, and a copy is retained within Bowling Green State University Institutional Review Board's records.

- 1 - Generated on IRBNet 84 APPENDIX B. CONSENT FORMS

Dear Potential Research Participant,

My name is Eric Sobel and I am currently working on a research project on adults who collect and customize action figures. This research project will contribute to the completion of my Master’s Degree in Popular Culture at Bowling Green State University.

I am specifically looking at creative ways in which adults use action figures, including collecting, displaying and customization. The overall project will attempt to explore why there is such a vast community of adult collectors and how such fans display, determine the value of, and make selections for their collections. This study seeks to understand fan practices in order to show how action figures, despite being highly commodified items, often provide for a creative, even subversive, outlet for adults.

Participating in this study involves no risks to you other beyond the normal risks of everyday life. I am seeking your personal knowledge about the practices of collecting, the effects you have experienced, and other details that can help provide a better understanding of the community as a whole. There are no direct benefits to you from participating in this study, but you may find it enjoyable to reflect on your own creative practices and those of your fan community.

In many cases, geographical distance eliminates the possibility for in-person interviews, however there are the options, including a Skype interview, phone interview or simply responding to a list of questions via e-mail. The method and time in which the interview is conducted will be up to you. I will attempt to accommodate any method of communication that is convenient.

The interview or e-mail questionnaire has the potential to be in-depth and may last approximately 1 to 2 hours. Whether our interview is conducted in-person or through Skype, I would like to video record our conversations for later review in order to accurately transcribe and quote you. If you wish, your identity will remain confidential and you will simply be identified by a pseudonym (of your choosing). In any quotes I use in writing the analysis of my research, you will be referred to by this pseudonym. Also, any identifying details about you will be removed from any quote that I use in any publication or presentation. If at any time you wish to refrain from answering certain questions or to end the interview, you have the right to do so without explanation. If you choose not to participate or decide to withdraw once the interview has begun, it will have no impact on any relationship you may have with BGSU. For security purposes and to ensure the confidentiality of your identity all recordings and transcriptions will be kept in a locked file safely stored in my office on campus and all digital content will be stored on a secure BGSU server. Upon completion of this project, you will also have a right to a copy of any final published academic work. My personal contact information is provided along with the information of my advisor. Once a signed consent form has been returned to me, I will contact you in order to set up the interview. By signing this consent form, you are giving your permission for me to interview, tape record and video, and potentially use your responses in my academic publications and presentations. You must be at least 18 years old to participate in this study. You may keep a copy of this consent form for your records. 85

Thank you for your time, Eric Sobel

Contact Information: If you have any questions or comments about this study, you can contact me at the following:

Eric Sobel Department of Popular Culture Bowling Green State University [email protected] (419) 283-5278

You may also contact my project advisor, Dr. Montana Miller (Associate Professor in the Department of Popular Culture) at 419-372-0184 or [email protected]. If any questions or concerns arise during the course of the study, you may also contact the Chair of the Human Subjects Review Board at Bowling Green State University at 419-372-7716 or at [email protected].

By signing your name below you are voluntarily agreeing to participate in this research study, and to have your interview recorded.

Name (print and sign) Date

______

If you prefer to be quoted by your real name, please check here : ____

If you prefer to be quoted using a pseudonym, please check here: ____

Do you prefer a particular pseudonym? If so, please write it here.

______86 87 88

Thank you for your time, Eric Sobel

Contact Information: If you have any questions or comments about this study, you can contact me at the following:

Eric Sobel Department of Popular Culture Bowling Green State University [email protected] (41e)283-sn8

You may also contact my project advisor, Dr. Montana Miller (Associate Professor in the Department of Popular Culture) at 419-37 2-0184 or montanm @ bgsu.edu. If any questions or concerns arise during the course of the study, you may also contact the Chair of the Human Subjects Review Board at Bowling Green State University at 4L9-372-7716 or at hsrb@bssuedu.

By signing your name below you are voluntarily agreeing to participate in this research study, and to have your interview recorded.

Name (print and sign) Date

Lee Burbridge 04tL9t2015

If you prefer to be quoted by your rrcal name, please check here : -y- If you prefer to be quoted using a pseudonym, please check here:

Do you prefer a particular pseudonSnn? If so, please write it hene.

90 91

Thank you for your time, Eric Sobel

Contact Information: If you have any questions or comments about this study, you can contact me at the following:

Eric Sobel Department of Popular Culture Bowling Green State University [email protected] (419) 283-5278

You may also contact my project advisor, Dr. Montana Miller (Associate Professor in the Department of Popular Culture) at 419-372-0184 or [email protected]. If any questions or concerns arise during the course of the study, you may also contact the Chair of the Human Subjects Review Board at Bowling Green State University at 419-372-7716 or at [email protected].

By signing your name below you are voluntarily agreeing to participate in this research study, and to have your interview recorded.

Name (print and sign) Date 04/16/2015

KEV SHAW

If you prefer to be quoted by your real name, please check here : __X__

If you prefer to be quoted using a pseudonym, please check here: ____

Do you prefer a particular pseudonym? If so, please write it here.

______92 APPENDIX C. INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Collecting 1. What made you decide to start collecting figures? Have you been doing it since you a kid?

2. Why do you think collecting is so popular with adults? Is it just nostalgia?

3. Do you open your figures? Why or why not?

4. How do you store and/or display them?

5. Do you see yourself as part of a toy collecting community or is this more of a personal hobby?

6. Which figures are the most important for you to acquire? What makes those ones more special? How do you determine which ones are the most valuable?

7. What types of people collect/display action figures?

8. What do other people think of your collection?

9. It’s not uncommon to see adults browsing toy aisles these days. What separates them from kids who may take an interest in similar things?

10. Do you feel that there’s a stigma associated with collecting (or making) action figures? Customizing/making figures 1. What made you decide to modify or create new action figures?

2. Is there a certain style or aesthetic that you’re trying to achieve? How should the figures look when you’re done?

3. Do you recycle/modify old figures or work from scratch?

4. Do you see yourself as being an artist? Why or why not? What term or label would you use to describe what you do?

5. How important is it that your figures look like the action figures that have been widely- available in stores? If it is important for the figures to resemble ones that collectors are already familiar with, why is that?

6. When you look at other people’s custom figures, what are some of the characteristics of the good ones? What about the bad ones? 93

7. Has working on your own figures changed how you view action figures or collecting? Has your relationship to more typical, mass-produced figures changed?

8. If you re-purpose old toys to make new ones, how do you feel about destroying the original?

9. What do you provide with your figures that mass-produced toys you find in stores don’t?