Florida Mom's Slippery Slope

What's the old saying about good intentions? The saga of "Florida Mom" (aka Susan Schrivjer "Meyers") and her quest to raise awareness about the evil of adult collector action figures has become a full-blown national media story, and illustrates a couple of things - it's a great example of how a single individual can harness social media to inflict change. It's also a good reminder of how fear and an opinion can sweep up thousands of others into agreeing with an agenda that tars one "parolee," while hundreds of other "escaped cons" frolic in its wake.

Florida Mom's ire and outrage involves the Mezco Toyz line of Breaking Bad figures, and their availability at retail giant Toys 'R Us. Her issue being that the figures are packaged with Crystal Meth and assorted drug-manufacturing accessories. That these figures were available in a toy store where children can see them was an affront to the values of parents and the retailer, so said FM, despite the fugures being clearly marked "15 and Up" and displayed in the adult collector aisle of Toys 'R Us.

 

So guess what? Toys 'R Us buckled like a belt. The retailer caved, and FM's 9,000-signature petition was enough to cause TRU to yank the figures from their shelves and their website, despite the media attention of Breaking Bad stars Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston, and a counter-petition from Action Figure Insider champ Daniel Pickett to keep the figures, that currently has over 53,000 signatures.

 

TRU has revealed a complete lack of character in this move, and Florida Mom's focusing on one lone feather of the entire bird is misguided at best. Because while the Breaking Bad figures are gone, you can go into the same aisle and still find plenty of Mezco's Sons of Anarchy figures,which evidently don't cause Florida Mom to lose any sleep. Because clearly the message here is that while the depiction of drugs is bad, depictions of gun-running outlaws, firearms or violence are perfectly reasonable. She had no issue with the Scarface Tony Montana figures, Texas Chainsaw Massacre figures, gore-splattered Walking Dead figures or any of the countless adult collector movie and TV depictions of violent characters that companies like Mezco, McFarlane or NECA have been selling at TRU for years. FM is evidently totally fine with the legions of violent videogames and tarted-up Barbie/Bratz objectification/role-model dolls for girls. That stuff's perfectly acceptable!

 

I'm a toy collector. I'm also the parent of a small child. Those two identities aren't in any kind of conflict, and there are thousands of similar enthusiasts across the USA and beyond. I've got Breaking Bad figures myself, and if I've got a beef with Mezco, it's their recycling of endless color variations in figure outfits, rather than diligently expanding the line (How may differently colored jumpsuited Jesse Pinkman figures does anyone need, all with the same expression?).

 

But it's my responsibility as a parent to shield my child from harmful imagery or negative depictions. If parents are letting their children run unsupervised into the (gasp!) adult collector aisle at TRU, maybe same parents should put down their phones and monitor what their children are doing.

 

I know plenty of moms (including my own wife) who aggressively advocate for, champion, and protect the rights, safety and well being of our children. I have nothing but respect and admiration for parents who take to social media to keep their children safe. In this day and age, we have to. The world is full of bad influences. But like adult content video games, these figures aren't displayed or sold to young children.

 

More importantly, if there's anything we need to truly be vigilant towards when it comes to our children's futures, it's being watchful against the knee-jerk impulse to ban things. To restrict the freedoms of everyone in the name of fear and protection. History teaches rather dramatically that that's a slippery slope. If one upset consumer can get big retailer to label products with a scarlet letter, and we see how quickly retailers flinch, then how hard will it be to start looking for other objectionable items that could threaten our youth? That should be removed or banned?

 

While this is definitely a First World problem and undoubtedly worthy of plenty of laughs, Florida Mom might be better served in directing her efforts to consider that the real epidemic that threatens our kids is the epidemic of school shootings and gun violence that claims the lives of so many of our nation's children each year. Instead of worrying about an accessory of blue plastic crystals, maybe we ought to be more concerned about the accessories that have triggers - and maybe let's worry about what's going on outside of the toy store for once.