Saturday 13 December 2014

COP3: SMYTHS visit (Primary)

I took a trip to SMYTHS to have a look at the selection of toys and pick up a magazine to see the range and extent of what I was saying in my critical writing. It turned out to be pretty far, I haven't really looked into children's toys all to much in recent years, and I was really shocked to see the amount of pointless toys that were simply selling products on the brand they had been plastered with.



The very first prime examples is Frozen, a cheap plastic bed and toy box which wouldn't sell if it wasn't slapped with the Frozen brand. This is continued through a lot of the other brands.



All the disney princesses represented as dolls, and below later as Barbies - These would be great examples for within my writing. However I don't think show everything would really get across what I'm trying to say. Maybe something that showed everything all in one place would be better with more on show. You can only fit so many toy boxes in one picture.




The above is all exclusive within the magazine and was hard to find within the store, which its self was dominated by Barbie products more than anything else. - All of which promoted the better life, there isn't a average life Barbie or anything like that. Every set is pushing these ideas.



Should children really be encouraged to use mobile phones from such a young age? These are just toys, but I can't help but feel conflicted by these. Children's toys are now just miniatures of adult objects, especially Barbie.






I find it rather odd how Lego creates sets for girls which are just small modular Barbie sets while for boys it's all what you would expect to find for boys, firemen, police and what not. I am aware of Lego's new sets which attempt to reverse this, however they aren't as easily available as the Friends sets. Which push the very same values found within Barbie.









This doctor doll really surprised me, it was hidden away from the rest of the most purchased brands and it's an actually progressive toy in comparison to Barbie. It's a shame there wasn't more variants on display. 




I found the different types of cookery sets rather comical, as they get increasingly more extravagant so you could get one to fit your child's class. 






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