Female Lead Gamora Missing From ‘Guardians Of The Galaxy’ Team Merchandise
By Empress Eve
| @
|
Thursday, August 7th, 2014 at 3:15 pm
In this installment of “Please Take My Money, Disney,” we take a look at Disney/Marvel’s newest film, Guardians Of The Galaxy, which is currently soaring at the box office and has jumped to the top of everyone’s list of favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.
When people dig an action-packed, scifi superhero movie like this — one that has a cool, funny hero (Star-Lord); a badass, gorgeous leading lady (Gamora); a wise-cracking, gun-toting raccoon (Rocket); a sensitive muscle man (Drax the Destroyer); and a lovable tree creature (Groot) — as Star Wars creator George Lucas has always banked on, they’re gonna want some merchandise. So, bring out all the merch you got, and people will buy it (if Star Wars isn’t example enough, just ask Gene Simmons from KISS).
But, for some reason, once again, Disney is slighting its non-Princess female characters, as Friend of Doom Amy Radcliffe pointed out this week in her article “A Sad Lack of Gamora,” which notes that while Guardians merch and toys are easily found, one of its characters, Gamora, the female team member of the Guardians of the Galaxy, is not, prompting the creation of the hashtag #wheresgamora.
You might recall back in June, the #wewantleia hashtag emerged when fans petitioned the Disney Store to add Princess Leia-themed toys into their vast array of Star Wars Jedi-themed offerings now that Disney owns Lucasfilm/Star Wars. (Strike 1, Disney)
Now, Disney has dominion over the Marvel franchise, which means they can market the hell out of these Guardians toys and seeing as people of all ages love the film, you’d think they’d maybe want to appeal to women and young girls with a slew of Gamora-themed items. No, not so much? Ok, fine, maybe the company didn’t want to take the risk, especially considering that they seem to have put all their efforts into their Princess line over the past decade. But, why – why why why??? – would the company chose to NOT INCLUDE Gamora on items that featured the ENTIRE TEAM???
In her piece, Radcliffe points out that in items like this Guardians of the Galaxy Party Pack, which features the entire team, Gamora is missing on nearly everything. She actually made it onto the napkins, because I guess that’s considered “clean up,” which is fine for women. But you wouldn’t want an icky girl to be on your boy’s party decorations, taking up room on the plates and tablecover, would you??? No, no, no, we’ll have known of that.
[Guardians of the Galaxy Party Pack – Gamora is ready for clean-up.]
As you can see from the image above of the Party Pack, Star-Lord’s ship, the Milano (named after a women, by the way), makes it into the table cover, yet an equal member of the Guardians team does not.
And let’s get something straight here, Gamora is not an honorary member of the Guardians of the Galaxy; she’s not a Guardians groupie; she’s not a tagalong like Amy from the A-Team; she’s not in any way a minor character in the film, yet she’s relegated to the napkins or is left off completely on merchandise featuring ALL the other team members (a team, mind you, that includes a raccoon and a tree!). She’s a founding member of the team, she’s an adopted daughter of big Marvel baddie Thanos, AND she’s an assassin!!!! Star-Lord can’t say that, the tree can’t say that! (Don’t get me wrong, I love the tree – Groot – he’s probably my favorite team member, but he’s definitely more sidekick ala Chewbacca than anything else).
It’s times like these I just have to say what the fucking fucks? (Strike 2, Disney.)
What’s even more infuriating to me is that I’m sitting here complaining about not being able to THROW MY MONEY at Disney the way I want to. But this goes to show that there are people at Disney who know how to market and know how to get people to want to buy their products. So, if people demand it, why not supply it?
While Gamora has been dissed on some team-member merch, she does have a few of her own items:
Head over to Amy’s site Geeks With Curves to read more about how Gamora was so rudely left out some of the Guardians merch (article includes some pictures Amy took of said merch).
UPDATE – yet another item was discovered that omitted Gamora from the group line-up, this Marvel Guardians of the Galaxy 16″ Large Backpack. GoD’s Dave3 was inspired to update the packaging to more accurately reflect the product:
Gamora and Drax are the only two characters whol show their face. Drax is played by a wrestler who has part of his image rights owned by the WWE. If Disney got a good contract, they could have him for cheap. However, Zoe Saldona has to sign off personally on every bit of merchandise with her image on it and get paid. Now, is it sexism or greed?
Comment by Sam Lovejoy — August 8, 2014 @ 11:12 am
Thank you for writing this, hope this gets some views, I googled Gamora Toys because to me and MY LITTLE GIRLS Surprise, there was nothing with Gamora or Nebula. We seen the Movie and of Course my Daughter up until the Movie was excited to see there was a Girl who was gonna kick Butt! This is ridiculous my Daughter and Wife Love Marvel and the Superheroes. Its sad, I didnt even know what to tell her when she asked why they didn’t m
ake any Gamora stuff.
Comment by Sean Patrick Morgan — August 9, 2014 @ 6:58 pm
You may have noticed that we're now AD FREE! Please support Geeks of Doom by using the Amazon Affiliate link above. All of our proceeds from the program go toward maintaining this site.
Students of the Unusual™ comic cover used with permission of 3BoysProductions
The Mercuri Bros.™ comic cover used with permission of Prodigal Son Press
This does imply we won’t get a Captain Marvel movie, either… considering they wouldn’t be able to ignore the female character in that merchandise.
Incredibly stupid on Disney’s marketing part. I mean, why would they cut her out of team merchandise? O-o
Comment by RockSauron — August 7, 2014 @ 4:07 pm
This likely has everything to do with the women problem existing throughout Hollywood.
Comment by Micah Thomas — August 7, 2014 @ 7:30 pm
her figure by “Hot Toys” is absolutely incredible and like 250$ chill out psycho femme
Comment by jimmy — August 7, 2014 @ 10:22 pm
Gamora and Drax are the only two characters whol show their face. Drax is played by a wrestler who has part of his image rights owned by the WWE. If Disney got a good contract, they could have him for cheap. However, Zoe Saldona has to sign off personally on every bit of merchandise with her image on it and get paid. Now, is it sexism or greed?
Comment by Sam Lovejoy — August 8, 2014 @ 11:12 am
Thank you for writing this, hope this gets some views, I googled Gamora Toys because to me and MY LITTLE GIRLS Surprise, there was nothing with Gamora or Nebula. We seen the Movie and of Course my Daughter up until the Movie was excited to see there was a Girl who was gonna kick Butt! This is ridiculous my Daughter and Wife Love Marvel and the Superheroes. Its sad, I didnt even know what to tell her when she asked why they didn’t m
ake any Gamora stuff.
Comment by Sean Patrick Morgan — August 9, 2014 @ 6:58 pm