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Kelly Reed Class Visit - Get Your Make On!

For this activity, we decided to create items that play off of the gender expectations for both boys and girls. Toys are one of the first and most significantly gender coded items that kids are exposed to. For the sword, we intentionally mixed these codes to draw attention to these gender expectations. One side is black with flowers and the other is pink with flames. By mixing these concepts and codes, we neutralized the message of the sword being for boys, and pink and flowers being for girls. The toy is now a toy for anyone.

This message is represented in the portrait of Merida from Brave. One side of the portrait shows her being presented as stereotypically 'girly' and 'princess' like. The other side shows her more traditionally masculine, holding her sword with out the flamboyant colors of a typical Disney princess. This represents the theme of neutralizing the messaging of boy vs girl, as reflected in both pieces of our artwork.


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