Mattel has just announced a new line of She-Ra action figures based on the hit Netflix series.
If you haven’t seen She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, you should probably add it to your Netflix wishlist. The series debuted in November of last year and has gotten rave reviews since then.
Based on the 1985 cartoon series, She-Ra: Princess of Power (which was itself a spin-off from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe—apparently the 1980s were full of long-winded titles), She-Ra is actually the name of the magical defender of Etheria which is bestowed only upon one worthy enough to wield her sword.
That person is Adora, who was previously a Horde soldier but realized that she was actually fighting for the bad guys. So she went AWOL, found the magic sword, turned into She-Ra, and then found her best friends Bow and Princess Glimmer on the side of the rebels. She also made a pegasus/unicorn completely by accident called Swift Wind.
The show is super inclusive and was even nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Kids & Family Programming, but lost out to Steven Universe. No surprises there, but that doesn’t mean She-Ra is any less family-friendly.
And now, nearly 8 months after the show’s debut, Mattel is finally giving the show exactly what it deserves: action figures.
Revealed in a recent tweet were a set of six action figures featuring Adora in both regular and She-Ra form, Princess Glimmer, Bow, Catra, and Swift Wind. Each is about Barbie-sized, but don’t call them dolls. They’re action figures.
They all seem fairly faithful to the show, except for Swift Wind which fails to capture the horse’s true glory and Glimmer who seems much taller and thinner than how she appears in She-Ra.
This last bit was definitely noticed by She-Ra fans, and they were not too happy. Mattel has received many angry tweets informing them that Glimmer’s figure is not at all thicc enough and the sudden weight surgery is unwelcome.
There’s a reasonable argument to be made that Mattel simply opted for a slimmer Glimmer figure due to manufacturing limitations, however, one Twitter user points out that Mattel certain has thicker body molds in their inventory.
Thin-Glimmer is a real step backward for Mattel. The entire point of a stockier character in She-Ra was to show young girls that you don’t need to be thin to be A) attractive, B) have magic powers, or C) kick some serious bootay.
Hopefully Mattel gets the message and Glimmer gets a redesign. And maybe Catra too—she’s got a dead-eyed stare that is more than a little off-putting.
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