The classic toy firm Hasbro recently announced that they will be rebranding Mr. Potato Head to “Potato Head” as part of a gender-inclusive push to “better reflect the full line” and be more inclusive so that all feel “welcome in the Potato Head world.”
Hasbro announced they would be dropping the terms “Mr.” and “Mrs.” from the brand name to “better reflect the line” and claimed it needed a modern makeover. The bigger question is why Hasbro felt the need to rebrand a plastic toy in its portrayal of gender roles to ages 5 and up.
“Culture has evolved. Kids want to be able to represent their own experiences. The way the brand currently exists — with the ‘Mr.’ and ‘Mrs.’ — is limiting when it comes to both gender identity and family structure,” said Kimberly Boyd, Hasbro’s senior vice president of global brands.
By fall, Hasbro will be selling Potato Head family kits that come with two non-gendered adult’ potatoes, one ‘baby’ potato, and 42 accessories. The gender-neutral name “Potato Head” will appear on the boxes later this year to let kids “create all types of families.” They clarified they would not rename either of the individual Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head toys or remove an iconic Toy Story character from the line.
“While we’re renaming the Mr. Potato Head brand to Potato Head to better reflect the full line, the iconic Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head characters aren’t going anywhere and will remain Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head,” the brand wrote in a statement.
Former CNN host and journalist Piers Morgan even tweeted about the drastic changes corporations are making to suit a minority of people. “Imagine thinking in the middle of a global pandemic: ‘What’s really important is dropping the ‘Mr’ from Mr Potato Head & making him gender-neutral in case we upset a few wokies,’” he wrote.
Journalist Megyn Kelly also pointed out Hasbro’s latest brand move. “Wait – so having a gender at all now is offensive? No one gets to have one? The “Mr.” is what made him interesting,” she wrote.
Others just rolled their eyes at the move, pointing out that potato toys didn’t have a gender in the first place and this was just another move to please the radical left. They captioned tweets such as “gonna be a rough year” and posted pictures of Mr. Clean cleaning erasers, Mr. Goodbar candy bars, Mrs. Fields Cookies, and Mr. T’s cereal.
Instead of Hasbro focusing on the poor treatment of their workers, they’ve decided to play around with pronouns on a toy. Just another attempt to create an unnecessary culture war and hide the deep faults in corporations nationwide.
Next, they’ll change “Hasbro” to “Hasperson.”
