The name “Rebelle” is a feminized version of “rebel.” But why is that needed? Why does a female rebel have to be special or different? This goes into the direct comparison of Katniss and Merida. Even the normal ammo is bright pink and teal, further segregating GI Jane from a play game of war with the GI Joes. This can lead to a girl abstaining from the trigger to prevent loss of her “collectible” and therefore valuable ammo. By making it collectible, you’re making it have more value. Yet Hasbro feels that for girls to play, they need to have everything be pretty, including the ammo. That’s why you can buy a bag of 100 for cheap, because they’re disposable, just like any other round of ammunition. They’re going to be trampled and ruined, they’re going to be lost in the woods. If you’ve ever played with NERF guns, you know that “collectible darts” is complete bullshit. So, why does the HeartBreaker have to be pink, white and black? Because that’s what “girls want.” And girls want toys that scream “HEY IM A GIRL” and separate them from “boy toys,” Hasbro is saying. The orange cap on the tip of the barrel is a somewhat-universal sign of “toy gun.” The reason why NERF guns are bright yellow and orange is to make it painfully obvious that these are toy guns. Sometimes they release glow-in-the-dark or clear ones. They’re mostly yellow and orange, colors that don’t have a specific gender connotation to them. Hasbro said that they could have removed the heavy-handed gendered advertising with existing NERF products, but they didn’t. To me, it feels that Hasbro found a way to capitalize on two female archer characters, Merida from Disney/Pixar’s Brave and Katniss from The Hunger Games. “I think the girls we tested it with just thought it was a cool name.” The Heartbreaker bow comes with collectable darts bearing different colors and designs there’s a Rebelle app that allows girls to play collaboratively and encourages teamwork the bow’s size and ergonomics have been tweaked so that girls as young as 6 can activate it easily.īut what about that name, “Heartbreaker” - which seems to inject an element of romance that wouldn’t be there if the bow were designed for boys, or even made to be gender neutral? “I think sometimes maybe adults are more concerned with these things than girls are,” Frascotti said.
Trying to encourage girls to buy existing Nerf toys or easing up the gendered overtones of those products was never really on the table: “This is an entirely ground-up effort.” The article mentions that they did a lot of research to made this. Aspiring Princess Meridas and Katniss Everdeens can own the first Rebelle product - called the Heartbreaker bow - this fall.
The line, called Nerf Rebelle, will feature projectiles that have the same power as the top items in the brand’s Nerf Elite line - but come wrapped in a prettier package and designed to encourage the collaborative play Hasbro has found girls prefer. Hasbro is hoping to hit a bullseye with its next high-profile launch - a new brand of Nerf toys aimed specifically at girls. Now, Hasbro is going to release a subline of the NERF guns known as NERF Rebelle. With the brony fandom, the lines have really blurred.
The lines have blurred as time goes on, of course. MLP, Monster High and Easy Bake is for girls NERF, action figures and Star Wars is for boys. So Hasbro is guilty of selling gendered toys like any other toy company.
#NERF REBELLE GAME UPDATE#
So I’m writing it “then” and not “now.” I’ll update this if new stuff comes out from the Toy Fair.
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