Hasbro skins its Potato Head

I had a “Mister Potato Head” as a kid. Two things were true.

It did not have much “play value,” meaning time spent playing with the thing. And I wasn’t thinking about gender norms when I stuck ears on it.

I often chose to stick the ears in the front of the head, where the eyes belonged. Mom said I was “creative.” Dad said I needed psychiatric help.

You may have heard or read that manufacturer Hasbro had a brainstorm and decided to, sort of, well, abandon “gender norms” for Mr. Potato Head because in the 21st century we are told there are no norms. And if you say there are norms, you are a bigot, a “hater.” (“Hater” is the second-most overused word by the Left. “Racist” is No. 1.)

Snopes had a pretty good report on what happened.

Hasbro is trying to have it both ways, like some in the LGBTQ+ community. I said “some,” so don’t be tweeting to the Human Rights Campaign.

What do I mean by having it both ways? I’ll let Woody Allen explain, in words he used in an innocent time many decades ago: “Bisexuality immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.”

That was way back when we recognized only three or four selections on the gender menu, and before Woody was accused of pedophilia, which violates the “norm” that we don’t sexually abuse children. Assuming we believe in norms, which are under broad attack, along with our culture and traditions.

Facebook gives you 56 gender choices.

One less than Heinz.

Wait! That’s out of date. We’re up to 71.

The number goes up almost every year and that is proof that it is based on something other than science. FB is just pulling it out of its butt, maybe playing a huge practical joke on normal people.

Except you can’t say “normal.”

Can’t say “usual.” Can’t say “typical.” Can’t say “average.” Those are all phobic, cisgender terms, we are told.

Who are you to judge, you in the overwhelming majority, you who have no confusion about your gender, no panic about which personal pronoun to use (I am he/him/his but I am not putting that on my social media profile because that’s trying just a bit too hard).

I remember getting a press release from a city agency that announced a newly hired person preferred the pronoun “they.”

I have no idea why saying that was necessary — do press releases announce the proclivity of straight hires? — but the funny thing is whoever wrote the press release slipped and accidentally called the person “him,” in the fourth paragraph because that’s what he looked like. “He” did not look like “they.” If you are not a twin, how do you look like a “they”?

How far do we have to go to accommodate someone’s imagined, perhaps psychotic, view of themselves? Would you comply if I requested to be called “majesty”? There is tolerance, and then there is stupidity.

The Hasbro gender-bending brainstorm, which was tweaked when an uproar ensued, seems to have come out of an HR department filled with Ivy League grad students. It proves my adage that not all change is progress.

Dropping the “Mister” would be done, the company explained, to “break away from from traditional gender norms.”

Because so many toy buyers were clamoring for that?

They were not. This is just part of the craziness of 21st Century America where identity politics, and exalting minorities, have reached absurd heights. We are pulling apart. It is an assault on e pluribus unum.

Look — everyone should be respected, but they don’t need to be idolized and protected from even a sideways glance.

When I was a kid, there were boys and girls.

At some point, we discovered fags (that’s what we called them when we were 10) who were boys who acted like girls.

Sixty years later we discovered boys who are girls. It’s a lot to adjust to. 

Because I have written about it, and have two transgender acquaintances, I know they account for 0.07 of the population. They are featured on magazine covers, on hit TV shows, yet they face real challenges..

But playing around with Potato Head — which always disguised gender by not including genitalia — will do nothing to enhance their lives. (Thank God the Potato Head characters are not white, otherwise we’d be hearing about supremacy.)

A slightly revamped Mr. Potato Head will not make things better and neither will a bill written by a couple of chucklehead California legislators who demand that stores eliminate separate sections for “boys” and “girls.” No, this is not a joke.

One of the idiot lawmakers said the bill “is important in regards to addressing perceived societal norms, but also ensuring that prejudice and judgment does not play a prominent role in our children’s life.” God forbid your child should learn about norms and exercising judgment.

At the same time, the politicians did not say, it was important that supermarkets not separate vegetables and meat,. and that dairy must be offered with household goods to avoid discrimination between them.

“This is step one,” one of the loons did not say. “Step two is to eliminate all signage in the store as implicit bias. Aisles can have numbers, but you can’t list the products on the shelves. Step three will be piling all the products in a huge pile in the middle of the store.”

I grew up, and maybe you did, too, knowing there were differences between boys and girls, men and women.

The French coined an expression: Vive la difference! 

As one woke Daily News editor once explained to me, “Men and women are different, Stu.”

“It’s funny,” I said. “When you say it, it is feminist. When I say it, it is sexist.” He laughed really hard.

In their desire for equality, some feminists declare that there are no differences between men and women, they are completely equal and totally the same.

But they are not. Different means neither superior nor inferior.

Trying to pretend men and women are identical, and to erase gender differences, is a fool’s mission.

And those of us who are not fools should laugh at it.