Not in the usual: “WHERE ARE THE BOOKS I ORDERED THREE WEEKS AGO AND ASKED TO BE SENT STANDARD SHIPPING?” way.
Today my concern is in regards to the way Amazon.com helpfully enables parents to search for toys by age on their site. And then lists toys, CLEARLY LABELED BY THE MANUFACTURER as, “age 4 and up”, in the “appropriate for ages 2-4” category.
It’s already a problem that manufacturers market toys based on PG-13 movies to preschoolers (as I raved about here) – Now Amazon compounds the issue by dropping the age even further.
On Amazon, I found a Pirates of The Caribbean 3 Ultimate Jack Sparrow action figure manufactured by Hasbro with a recommended age of 4+. (This is, of course, rather ridiculous in and of itself since Pirates is a PG-13 movie.) But, on Amazon, when you choose to display toys by age range 2-4 years…guess what shows up?
A Jack Sparrow action figure.
Also on display in the, “ages 2-4” category a nice selection of other toys from PG-13 movies:
Hasbro Transformer’s Cyber Stompin Bumblebee
No wonder parents think Transformers is a kids’ movie…the toys are appropriate for 2-year-olds apparently.
The empty rhetoric is, of course, “Parents should evaluate whether the movie and/or toy is appropriate for their child”. If that’s the case then why bother with ratings at all?
We, as a society have some minimum cultural mores. Movie ratings should reflect those mores. I don’t think they now reflect the way most parents think. And I think parents should be made aware of the fact that…the movie rating they grew up with doesn’t exist anymore.
So, shame on you Amazon for making a bad situation worse. And incidentally opening yourself up for lawsuits – that age appropriate rating includes the small parts safety issue too. Your Little blurb, " Our recommended age: 4 - 10 Years" doesn't negate the fact that you display these toys in the ages 2-4 Category.
Share this post:
Did you enjoy this post…or at least found it interesting?
Technorati Tags amazon PG-13 movies Toys age appropriate
4 comments:
I recently wrote to PBS about this type of thing. PBS!! I allow my son to watch some "On Demand" PBS Sprout programming from time to time. prior to the show beginning we can look forward to a short commercial, usually aimed at adults, for diapers or whatnot. It never bothered me much.
The new advert is for "SHREK" and the 30 second promo shows a cowering donkey realistically cowering for his life with a pleading begging look on his face. The shot pans out to spear toting guards who then shout "KILL HIM". and then it cuts to a little gingerbread boy that is threatened with the spears. So it is violent, not to mention confusing.
PBS SPROUT? KILL HIM?
I am still in disbelief.
doreen
Did you get a response? I actually just sent a note to the PR department at Amazon about this. we'll see what their response is...
Oh, I totally totally agree with you on this! It's terrible.
Violence is everywhere in kids' toys these days. It's so hard to keep it away from the littlest ones ... and the toy manufacturers and distributors are no help!
Great post, MC!
I have this same problem with Amazon too, but from a different perspective.
I sell on Amazon. The way it works is the original company to create a listing "owns" the listing. In other words, other retailers just "tag along" on their listing, copy and imagery.
I take great pains to rate ages appropriately for toys. I'm a freak about choking hazards, for one, and have discouraged customers from buying my play food because a younger sibling could choke on it. But then to find out that other retailers are expanding the age range for a toy (and basically there is nothing I can do about it except complain and hope it gets addressed) is not only frustrating, but worrisome.
I'm not sure if Amazon corporate has a ton of oversite when it comes to listings. They claim too, but there are millions of listings. I certainly complain when copy or imagery is inaccurate, but it feels like a drop in the bucket. Its nice to see that I'm not the only one who has noticed this.
Post a Comment