With the highly anticipated Wicked movie set to come out later this month, Mattel toy manufacturer has released a line of dolls, featuring characters Elphaba and Glinda from the movie. However, these dolls have all been recalled due to a misprint on the back of their packaging. Instead of wickedmovie.com, the boxes display wicked.com, a URL owned by an adult- entertainment website. This means that these dolls, sold nationwide, in toy stores, Targets, Walmarts, and Amazon, have inadvertently directed significant traffic to the adult site, presumably coming from the young children whom the dolls are marketed towards. Google Trends data reveals that the adult site has seen its highest traffic since 2012, a trend which is almost certainly not coincidental.
Parents have since taken to social media to caution each other of the potential risk to their children’s emotional and moral well- beings. Some parents have voiced outrage at what they perceive to be an overt threat to their children’s innocence. Other parents have even suggested the misprint to not have been a mistake, but rather a cruel joke aimed at their children, resembling the likes of the infamous Barbie Liberation dolls, a similar scandal which happened in the 90s.
In 1993, the Barbie Liberation organization, an anonymous activist group, “performed surgery” on hundreds of G.I Joe and Barbie dolls, swapping their voice boxes. They gave Barbie a tough military voice and G.I. Joe a high-pitched feminine voice, both found to be highly offensive by many of the parents of the children these toys ended up in the hands of. Their aim was to highlight and disrupt gender norms reinforced by even children’s products.
While the Wicked doll incident may lack the intentionality of the Barbie liberation dolls project, and was likely just an unintentional manufacturing error, the moral panic its incited has been extremely resemblant. By connecting children to inappropriate content, whether through error or something more intentional, the misprint has put parents in a position in which they feel as though their children’s innocence is being put directly under attack. It echoes art crime tactics by undermining the trust that parents place in reputable brands, revealing how one small error can create waves of moral panic and public backlash. In both cases, toys became the medium through which trust in consumer culture could be tested.
Whether planned or accidental, these incidents make toys, one of the few commodities which are inherently symbolic of innocence and childhood, the same items which have incited a degree of distrust in major corporations. This is because, unlike many of the other things we consume, toys are unique in their emotional significance to consumers since they are so closely associated to our children. When a highly trusted corporation, like Mattel, breaches that trust, it forces consumers to be more hesitant when engaging in consumerism when it comes to their children.
These scandals highlight the high stakes of corporate responsibility in products aimed at children while serving as reminders of the potential impact of minor errors, such as a misprinted URL, or a full blown art activism, such as the Barbie liberation dolls, can have on public trust when it comes to the products we consume.
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I find it so surprising that such a detrimental mistake could be made on the product of a highly established toy company such as Mattel. Although I do not believe that this was intentional like the Barbie and GI Joe incident, I do find it shocking that there were not more people responsible for checking all of the information on the box. It is obviously extra important to be careful with children’s products because children are so impressionable. The fact that the site’s traffic was so high after the product was released is so upsetting. I can definitely understand why parents were so upset by this and how it could have effected their children. I hope that this terrible incident has taught Mattel to be more meticulous about quality control and checking their products more carefully.
It is hard to believe that this drastic typo was made, but I do not think there was ill intention on behalf of the manufacturer. Whether it is not so obvious, but obvious graphic symbols of explicit connotations with graphic design and phrases on toys or blatant oppressive stereotypes “misprints” are far too common in toys than they should be. When reading that Mattel made the mistake by leaving out one word this makes me wonder if the text was AI generated/printed. While I think that is concerning to think about, there are already so many mistakes that humans have made that maybe, software would help catch some of these explicit mistakes. Regardless of the intent (accident or on purpose) concerning the misprint or alteration of toys, the effect is concerning because toys are supposed to be a worry free and fun activity for kids. Mistakes like these do truly mess with the trust that parents and kids have with toys, and start that distrust at an earlier age.
The Wicked doll scandal is a real reminder of how important details are, especially in product design. The wrong URL on the back of the box that is linked to an adult-entertainment website is so ironic, for one thing, for being its on a kid’s toy. It’s also very damaging to the brand and the way that consumers view them. Matel has produced beloved products for decades, ones that are associated with childhood and fun, and it’s hard to see them in such controversy. The amount of people who support them and their products has probably declined since the incident. While it can be fun to think that there was intent behind the mess up of the URL, the main take away is that there is now breached trust between the brand and the consumer, and that brings potential consequences of failing to prioritize the consumer and double checking details.
The Wicked barbie doll scandal is hard to believe something that happened so recently considering the previous scandals Mattel had to face regarding the barbie dolls, like the barbie liberation dolls project. This website URL incident either being an accident or outcome of an individual wanting to pull a sick joke, both seem unlikely but one of those had to have happened. Most likely I would guess that this was a corporation slip up, a very big one considering out of all URLs, they somehow accidentally plugged one in connected to an adult films site. If this were a premeditated cruel joke, that would have been amazing how this made it through all the screenings and all the way onto the shelves. This definitely symbolizes that despite all the money in the barbies business, an insufficient system and bad screenings can lead to a disastrous outcome.
Hi Natalia, really interesting article! I have been seeing so many advertisements for the Wicked movie. I haven’t seen it yet, but I would like to. I was unaware of the Mattel scandal, which is quite alarming. I think a mistake like this should have been caught, considering how much goes into making these dolls. If I were a parent who bought this toy for my child, I would also be outraged. I don’t believe that this was a cruel joke because there is too much at stake for them to do something like that. The infamous Barbies of the ‘90s were controversial and pulled off the shelves, so I believe Mattel has learned its lesson. Especially considering all the press they got from making the Barbie movie. I don’t believe they would make such a foolish mistake again. I agree with your point about how this incident undermines parents’ trust in the company. As a parent, I would also be upset and would lose some trust in the brand. I think Mattel will need to seriously reconsider it’s practices to ensure something like this never happens again.
Really interesting article, Natalia! I agree with you on several of the points you made in this article. I do not think that Mattel would have intentionally misprinted the website in order to corrupt the innocence that is associated with toys and children. Not only did the recall probably cost them a lot of money, but I’m sure they lost a good amount of customers due to this mishap. However, I do think it is shocking that nobody caught the mistake before the dolls made it to the shelves. I really liked how you compared it with the GI Joe and Barbie dolls, where the Barbie Libertarian group swapped voice boxes to perpetuate gender norm stereotypes. Although the Barbie Libertarians was an intentional act and the Wicked misprint was most likely not, they both had the same effect: betraying parents’ trust in toy manufacturers that attacked their children’s innocence. I also really liked how you talked about the impact toy manufacturers have over what children see and play with. Even simple errors like this can have a large negative outcome on children’s lives. Overall, great job!
Hi Natalia,
I cannot believe that this mistake even happened with such a big company, therefore, I understand why parents believe it might be another type of intentional move such as the GI Joe figures and barbie dolls. I found your statement about art crime using tactics that undermine parents’ trust really interesting because it had me questioning which art crimes have done this. The GI Joe and Barbie incident most definitely undermined parents’ trust in the companies to make their children toys in addition to the destruction of confederate statues. Recently, a debate on whether confederate statues should remain up has arose and I believe that this relates to the Wicked crisis because similar to how parents trust a large company to not promote a R-rated website, regardless of if it was an accident, parents also trust the city to correctly inform their children of historical events. Your post has brought to light how children play a huge role in activism today and fuel a fight for a better world. I am so curious about whether this was simply a mistake because they were moving to fast trying to push out these promotional products, or if something else is at play here. I personally cannot see Mattel doing this as a joke or for activism because that would cause them to lose a lot of support.