Oh, I remember "Get in Shape, Girl"--appalling, disgusting stuff (and thanks to my mom's feminist commentary, I knew it even then, ew, ew, ew). But...baton-twirling is part of getting shape?

My mom sent me to karate class.

You know, one thing I didn't notice when I was young is that creepy bending over move the model does at the end that's photgraphed onto the box. Is it just me, or is that creepily suggestive, ala my first stripper pole?

Which part of this is "fucked up"?

Encouraging girls to exercise, or the choice of exercises being offered?

I had the ribbons one. : (

RM, if you don't know why telling little girls that they need to work out (with batons and poms poms no less) is fucked up then I really can't help you.

I was a chubby kid (who grew into a chubby adult with body issues) and my mom was so excited to buy "Get In Shape Girl" for me, had I wanted it. I don't think she looked at it as "fucked up toys for girls" because a) she was really into 80s-style aerobics herself b) I *was* unhealthily overweight.

The thing is many kids today are overweight and some kind of toy that makes exercise seem "fun" would be awesome but it needs to appeal to boys as well as girls. "Get in Shape Girl" has its drawbacks in packaging (pink) and design (80s vaguely sexual) but it's heart is probably in the right place.

I had a Hulk Hogan aerobics set ("Get in Shape, Girl" for boys) when I was a kid. The wristbands, headband, and 1.5-pound weights were kind of cute; the cassette tape was a total waste of time.

Cheers,

TH

I think what's fucked up about it is that it's about mimicking the 80s aerobicized diet-happy moms that many of us had... not at all about promoting a healthy lifestyle including physical fitness. I definitely believe this toy's intent was more sinister than a simple way to encourage girls to exercise.

quoth the video "From Hasbro".

While I know that toy companies have changed hands a lot since then, I should note that Hasbro currently divides their catalog by gender...seriously, it has a girls section and a boys section and they are clearly marked on the bottom of every page.

I had the ribbon one, too -- I took dance lessons and loved to make up routines with the ribbon. (I don't think I ever listened to the tape.) My third grade teacher taught us how to make our own "dancing ribbons" (using spools of thread, string, and crepe paper) so I let the cat have my GISG ribbon after that. Even as a kid, I can remember thinking there was something "off" about this toy.

It reminds me of the "fitness" portion of Junior Miss "scholarship programs."

I had the Get in Shape Girl book. I don't know why I remember this so clearly, but there was a page on which they listed what your weight "should" be based on height. After the chart (which allowed for three different builds, I think), there was a statment to the effect: if you're okay with your weight, this chart should make you reconsider.

You can't make this stuff up. It's a little disturbing that I remember it so clearly.

RM, BK, et al: the issue isn't exercise. Exercise is good. To me, the issues are:
a) making managing your weight the reason for exercise (especially for children)
b)The pink thing (pom poms etc.)
c)Exercise should be done while looking cute. ALWAYS

"RM, if you don't know why telling little girls that they need to work out (with batons and poms poms no less) is fucked up then I really can't help you."

Then apparently Canada is fucked up. Our government is in the process fighting the epidemic of obesity (especially obese children). Canadian medical studies have shown that among children, girls have a higher rate of obesity than boys. Therefore, the government is trying to get children, but girls in particular, to be more physically active. I guess you think we're beyond help (but will hopefully be getting thinner - with or without pink pon poms).

"I definitely believe this toy's intent was more sinister than a simple way to encourage girls to exercise."

What do you believe the sinister intent was? And what is the sinister intent behind the Canadian government's (and scientist's and doctor's) actions?

I just don't think it's that bad. Campy and dripping with pink, of course, but not the end all of little girls being lead to poor self identity.

My youngest step-daughter is 10 years old and wears a women's size 14 - she's very overweight! her dad and I have tried karate, soccer lasts only 5 weeks in the fall and 5 weeks in the summer and her mother encourages eating pasta in front of the TV every night she's not with us! If a product similar to this one made dancing around the house fun, for even fifteen minutes a night, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

Living a healthy, active life is not subcoming to media misogyny - even if it is doused in pink puff balls and glittery battons.

i remember when one of my cousins got this set for her birthday. it was a funny gift, since her mom let her eat packets of bologna and cheetos for dinner.

I'm new here and I just left a comment in another post about the stripper pole, which obviously was already posted about somewhere in here - I'll find it.

I think the problem with this commercial is that the girls are all in pink and purple and look peppy like little barbies - it's a little creepy, but campy. I think as an adult we can look at it and say "whatever" - but these messages seep into our brains that we have to be this way or that way to be acceptable - that message is in this commercial somewhere.

I think the problem is that it's encouraging body-consciousness at a bizarrely early age. Children should not be doing aerobics; children should be running around playing (well, I make these generalizations, but as a child, you couldn't have gotten me to run around much if you paid me. I wanted to sit in a corner and read, thanks very much). Telling children to move around because they need to "get in shape" (for what, one wonders, at least I did when I was part of this product's target audience), and associating getting shape with wearing pink leotards and doing robotic aerobics rather than, oh, weight-lifting or something powerful, let alone fun, is just early indoctrination into body-hatred.

That ad was so absurdly bad it made me laugh. But, yeah, 'tis effed up, and not only because it has a higher percentage of blonde children than the Hitler Youth (though it also included the obligatory black and dark-haired girls, to get what they could out of that demographic--that demographic being non-blonde girls who don't hate themselves enough to identify themselves with teh blondes]).

I don't get that this is about helping young girls be more healthy. True, it exhorts them to "get in shape, girl" (not demeaning at all), but that's just to instill/play on their insecurities about their bodies to sell them pink crap. But it's not just that women--sorry, girls--need to spend mucho dinero on accessories to get their fat asses in shape, they also need to do it in some sterile and thorougly commercialized environment. No competitive sports for the girls--that might teach them confidence, and that exercise should be fun. Nope, they need to learn that the point of getting in shape is to hate their bodies, and channel that hate into buying pink crap.

Am I being too sour? Hell, no. Anyone see Twisty's hilarious tragic strip about porn and rape? Brutal.

Wow... seeing that pomponed baton took me back twenty years. That stuff had a very distinct smell.. anyone else remember it? I think that I liked it so much because of the smell.

Looking back, it really was Jane Fonda, Jr.... wasn't it ? wow...

"No competitive sports for the girls--that might teach them confidence, and that exercise should be fun."

Sorry, but competitive sports for me was hell on earth. I was terrible at them and if anything shook my confidence it was how bad I was at sports.

So sports isn't for everyone. I think by demonizing this and saying more power type exercises are better, doesn't that sort of reinforce the idea that things that are traditionally thought of as feminine are inferior? Not that we have to define femininity as "All things pink and froo froo".

I don't know, just throwing out ideas.

And yeah, I agree that there were WAY too many blondes in that ad. :)

I just don't like it for the stereotype...we all have to be teeny blondes. I mean, look at them! They don't need to "get in shape" anyway, they're in shape already!

I've battled with my weight all my life. Especially when I was a kid, and my mom put me on all these fad diets. I got fed up for a long time and wouldn't diet at all I was so sick of it. Personally, I like Middle Eastern Dance classes. It helps you love your body while you're helping it, instead of making you hate it for not doing what you want. But if you had handed me a baton and told me to use that...I'd probably have put a locust shell in your coffee, knowing the kid I was.

thisisendless, you're right--few people experience getting drilled in the head by a dodgeball as especially fun or empowering. I didn't so much mean to glorify competition as to contrast the kind of sports I played as a boy, which we played for their own sakes, with the thoroughly sterile and commercialized image presented in the commercial, where there was no apparent reason for exercising except to "get in shape, girl." But you're right, traditionally masculine attitudes or behaviors shouldn't be pushed on girls, any more than traditionally feminine ones should.