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I spend most of my time

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thinking about little girls,

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which is kind of a weird thing
for a grown man in our society to say.

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But I do. I spend most of my time
thinking about little girls,

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and I think it's primarily
because I have one.

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This one's mine, and I think
you would really like her.

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She is smart and funny

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and kind to people and a good friend.

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But when I talk about my daughter,
the word I find myself saying most

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is "athlete."

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My kid's athletic.

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She is strong and fast

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and has great balance
and good body control.

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She is a three-time,
back-to-back-to-back state champion

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in Shaolin Kempo.

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At nine years old, she is already
halfway to a black belt.

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My daughter is athletic.

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Now, when a man who is six feet two
and 265 pounds stands in front of you

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and says his daughter is athletic,

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you might think
that's a reflection of him.

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It is not.

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(Laughter)

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My wife in high school
was a two-time all-state soccer player

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and a two-time all-state
volleyball player,

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and I played "Dungeons and Dragons."

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And that is why,

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although my daughter is an athlete,

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she's also a huge nerd, which I love.

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She walks around our house
in a cloak of flames

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that she made herself.

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She sits on the Iron Throne --

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(Laughter)

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even though she has never
seen "Game of Thrones,"

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primarily because we are not
the worst parents who ever lived.

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But she knows there's someone
called the Mother of Dragons,

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and she calls herself that
and she loves it.

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She's a huge comic book fan.

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Right now, her favorite
character is Groot.

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She loves Groot.

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She adores The Incredible Hulk.

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But my daughter really at heart,

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her thing is Star Wars.

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My kid is a Jedi.

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Although some days she's also a Sith,

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which is a choice that I can respect.

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(Laughter)

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But here's the question
that I have to ask.

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Why is it that when
my daughter dresses up,

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whether it's Groot or The Incredible Hulk,

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whether it's Obi-Wan Kenobi or Darth Maul,

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why is every character
she dresses up as a boy?

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And where are all the female superheroes?

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And that is not actually the question,

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because there's plenty
of female superheroes.

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My question really is,
where is all the female superhero stuff?

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Where are the costumes?
Where are the toys?

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Because every day when my daughter
plays when she dresses up,

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she's learning stuff

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through a process that,
in my own line of work,

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as a professor of media studies,

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we refer to as public pedagogy.

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That is, it is how societies
are taught ideologies.

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It's how you learned what it meant
to be a man or a woman,

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what it meant to behave
yourself in public,

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what it meant to be a patriot
and have good manners.

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It's all the constituent social relations
that make us up as a people.

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It's, in short, how we learn
what we know about other people

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and about the world.

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But we live in a 100-percent
media-saturated society.

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What that means is that every single
aspect of your human existence

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outside of your basic bodily functions

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is in some way touched by media.

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From the car that you drive
to the food that you eat

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to the clothes that you wear

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to the way you construct
your relationships

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to the very language
you use to formulate thought --

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all of that is in some way mediated.

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So the answer in our society

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to how do we learn what we know
about other people and about the world

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is largely through media.

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Well, there's a wrinkle in that,

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in that our society,

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media don't simply exist as information
distribution technologies and devices.

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They also exist as corporate entities.

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And when the distribution of information
is tied to financial gain,

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there's a problem.

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How big of a problem?

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Well think about this:

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in 1983, 90 percent of American media
were owned by 50 companies.

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In any market, 50 companies
doing something is a lot of companies.

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It's a lot of different worldviews.

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In 2015, that number has shrunk to six,

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six companies.

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They are NBCUniversal Comcast,
AOL Time Warner,

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the Walt Disney Company, News Corp,
Viacom and the CBS Corporation.

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These six companies produce
nine out of every 10 movies you watch,

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nine out of every 10 television shows,
nine out of every 10 songs,

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nine out of every 10 books.

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So my question to you is,

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if six companies control
90 percent of American media,

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how much influence do you think they have
over what you're allowed to see every day?

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Because in media studies,

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we spend a lot of time saying
that media can't tell us what to think,

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and they can't; they're terrible at that.

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But that's not their job.

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Media don't tell us what to think.

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Media tell us what to think about.

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They control the conversation,

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and in controlling the conversation,

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they don't have to get you
to think what they want you to think.

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They'll just get you thinking about
the things they want you to think about,

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and more importantly, not thinking about
things they don't want you to think about.

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They control the conversation.

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How does this work in practice?

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Let's just take one of those companies.

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We'll do an easy one.

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Let's talk about the Walt Disney
Company for a second.

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The reason why I always pick
the Walt Disney Company is this.

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Is there a single person in this room
who has never seen a Disney movie?

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Look around. Exactly.

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I picked Disney because they have
what we call 100 percent penetration

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in our society.

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Every single person
has been exposed to Disney,

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so it's an easy one for me to use.

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Since 1937, Disney has made most
of its money selling princesses to girls.

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It's made a huge chunk of its money.

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Unless, of course, the princess
your daughter is interested in,

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as my daughter is, is this one.

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See, in 2012,

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Disney purchased LucasFilm
for the sum of four billion dollars,

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and immediately they flooded
the Disney stores with Han Solo

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and Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Darth Vader
and Luke Skywalker and Yoda

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and not Princess Leia.

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Why? Because this princess
messes up the public pedagogy

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for these princesses.

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So Disney did not put Princess Leia
merchandise in the store,

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and when people went to Disney and said,

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"Hey, where's all
the Princess Leia stuff?"

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Disney said, "We have no intention

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of putting Princess Leia
merchandise in the store."

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And fans were angry
and they took to Twitter

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with the hashtag #WeWantLeia.

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And Disney said,
"Wait, that's not what we meant.

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What we meant was,

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we don't have any Princess Leia
merchandise yet, but we will."

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And that was in 2012, and it is 2015,

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and if you go to the Disney Store,
as I recently have,

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and look for Princess Leia merchandise,

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do you know how many Princess Leia
items there are in the Disney Store?

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Zero, because Disney has no intention
of putting Princess Leia in the store.

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And we shouldn't be surprised
because we found out that was their policy

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when they bought Marvel in 2009

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for the sum of 4.5 billion dollars.

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Because when you make a lot of money
selling princesses to girls,

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you also kind of want
to make money from boys.

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And so what better to sell boys
than superheroes?

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So now Disney had access
to Captain America and to Thor,

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The Incredible Hulk,

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and they had access even

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to a group of superheroes
no one had ever even heard of.

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That's how good Marvel was
at selling superheroes.

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Last year, they released a film
called "Guardians of the Galaxy."

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It's a film that absolutely
should not work.

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Nobody knew who they were
except for comic book nerds like me.

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One of the characters is a talking tree.

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One of the characters
is an anthropomorphic raccoon.

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It should not work.

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And they made a killing
off of "Guardians of the Galaxy."

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This character here in the middle,
her name is Gamora.

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She's played by Zoe Saldana,

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and she is strong and smart and fast
and fights like a ninja,

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and she is played
by a beautiful black woman,

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and my daughter fell in love with her.

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So like any good nerd dad,
I went to buy my daughter Gamora stuff,

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and when I got to the store,
I learned a very interesting thing.

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If I wanted to buy her a Gamora backpack,

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well, Gamora's not on it.

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They probably should have marketed this
as "some" of the Guardians of the Galaxy.

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(Laughter)

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And if I wanted to buy her a lunchbox,
she wasn't on it,

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and if I wanted to buy her a t-shirt,

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she wasn't on it.

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And as a matter of fact,

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if I went to the store, as I did,

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and looked at the display,

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you would find a small picture
of Gamora right here,

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but if you look at any
of the actual merchandise on that shelf,

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Gamora is not on any of it.

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Now, I could have taken to Twitter
with the hashtag #WheresGamora,

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like millions of fans did
across the world,

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but the truth was
I wasn't even really that surprised,

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because I was there
when Disney had released "The Avengers."

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And just this year, we got
a new Avengers movie, the "Age of Ultron,"

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and we were very excited,

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because there was not one
but two female superheroes,

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Scarlet Witch and Black Widow.

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And we were very excited.

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But here's the real thing about this.

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Even though Scarlett Johansson,

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who is one of the most popular
actresses in America, plays Black Widow,

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and Black Widow is the star

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of not one, not two,
but five different Marvel movies,

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there is not a single piece
of Black Widow merchandise available.

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Not one.

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And if you go to the Disney store
and look for a Black Widow costume,

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what you will find, is you will find
Captain America and The Incredible Hulk.

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You will find Iron Man and Thor.

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You will even find War Machine,

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00:09:38,800 --> 00:09:41,576
who isn't even really
in the movie that long.

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Who you will not find is Black Widow.

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00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:47,576
And I could have gone to Twitter
with the hashtag, as many people did,

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# WheresNatasha.

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00:09:49,400 --> 00:09:51,736
But I'm tired of doing that.

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I'm tired of having to do that.

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00:09:53,560 --> 00:09:55,096
All over the country right now,

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there are kids playing
with the Cycle Blast Quinjet play set,

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00:09:58,600 --> 00:10:02,576
where Captain America
rides a motorcycle out of a moving jet

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00:10:02,600 --> 00:10:04,136
and it's really awesome.

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00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:05,496
You know how awesome it is?

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00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:07,976
So awesome that when
it happened in the movie,

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00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:10,376
it was Black Widow that did it.

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00:10:10,400 --> 00:10:13,976
Not only has she been erased,

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00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:18,480
but she has been replaced
with a male figure.

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And so what is this teaching us?

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00:10:22,720 --> 00:10:24,616
I mean, over the next five years,

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Disney and Warner Bros.
and a bunch of movie studios

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are going to release
over 30 feature-length films

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with comic book characters,

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and of those 30 feature-length films,

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exactly two of them
will have female solo leads.

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Two.

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Now, there will be females
in the rest of these movies,

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but they will be sidekicks,
they will be love interests,

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they will be members of teams.

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They will not be the main character.

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And if what we learn, what we know

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about other people and about the world
we learn through media,

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then these companies are teaching
my daughter that even if she is strong

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and smart and fast
and fights like a ninja,

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00:11:02,800 --> 00:11:05,856
all four of which are true of her,

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00:11:05,880 --> 00:11:07,616
it doesn't matter.

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00:11:07,640 --> 00:11:10,056
She will either be ignored like Gamora

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00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:12,736
or erased and replaced with a boy

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00:11:12,760 --> 00:11:14,000
like Black Widow.

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00:11:14,920 --> 00:11:16,576
And it's not fair.

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00:11:16,600 --> 00:11:20,656
It's not fair to her and it's not fair
to your sons and daughters either.

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But here's the thing:

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I'm raising a little girl,
and she has a little tomboy in her,

249
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which by the way is
a terrible thing to call a girl.

250
00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:31,016
What that basically is saying is,
those traits that define you,

251
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they're not really yours,

252
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they're just on loan to you
for a little while from boys.

253
00:11:35,560 --> 00:11:38,856
But do you know how much grief
she's going to take in her life

254
00:11:38,880 --> 00:11:40,600
for having a little tomboy in her?

255
00:11:41,320 --> 00:11:43,296
Zero. None.

256
00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:44,696
People will think it's cute.

257
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They'll call her feisty,
because in our society,

258
00:11:47,360 --> 00:11:49,776
adding so-called male traits to girls

259
00:11:49,800 --> 00:11:52,976
is seen as an upgrade, seen as a bonus.

260
00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:56,376
I'm not raising a little boy, like Mike.

261
00:11:56,400 --> 00:11:59,336
Mike is a little boy in Florida.
He's 11 years old,

262
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and the thing that he loves
most in the world

263
00:12:01,520 --> 00:12:04,456
is a show called "My Little Pony:
Friendship is Magic,"

264
00:12:04,480 --> 00:12:07,536
like millions of other children
across America.

265
00:12:07,560 --> 00:12:11,056
Now, the show is marketed to girls
ages five to nine,

266
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but there are millions of boys

267
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and grown men

268
00:12:15,240 --> 00:12:17,616
who enjoy "My Little Pony:
Friendship is Magic."

269
00:12:17,640 --> 00:12:18,856
They have a club.

270
00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:20,736
They call themselves Bronies,

271
00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:23,976
pony bros, guys who like ponies.

272
00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:25,896
I happen to be one of them.

273
00:12:25,920 --> 00:12:29,456
And what are Mike and myself

274
00:12:29,480 --> 00:12:32,338
and millions of other boys and men
learning in this feminine,

275
00:12:32,362 --> 00:12:35,216
sissified world of "My Little Pony?"

276
00:12:35,240 --> 00:12:40,096
Well, they're learning to study hard
and to work hard and to party hard

277
00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:42,176
and to look good and to feel good

278
00:12:42,200 --> 00:12:43,736
and to do good,

279
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and heaven preserve us from teaching
these wussified concepts to boys.

280
00:12:48,880 --> 00:12:52,816
So the other kids in his neighborhood
pick on Mike and they beat him up

281
00:12:52,840 --> 00:12:54,096
and they make fun of him,

282
00:12:54,120 --> 00:12:56,576
and at 11 years old, Mike goes home,

283
00:12:56,600 --> 00:12:58,936
finds a belt, wraps it around his neck,

284
00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:01,736
and hangs himself
from the top bunk of his bed.

285
00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:04,336
Because we have developed a society

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in which you would rather be dead as a boy
than thought of as liking stuff for girls.

287
00:13:10,280 --> 00:13:13,456
And that is not Mike's fault.
That is our fault.

288
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:15,776
We have failed him.

289
00:13:15,800 --> 00:13:18,096
We have failed our children.

290
00:13:18,120 --> 00:13:20,056
And we have to do better for them.

291
00:13:20,080 --> 00:13:22,976
We have to stop making it
so that the only female superheroes

292
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:26,120
appear on shirts that are pink
and cut for girls.

293
00:13:26,840 --> 00:13:28,056
We have to stop.

294
00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:30,896
And when I was putting this together,
people said to me,

295
00:13:30,920 --> 00:13:33,856
"Well, that's never going to happen."
And I said, "Oh really?"

296
00:13:33,880 --> 00:13:35,816
Because just this year, Target announced

297
00:13:35,840 --> 00:13:38,480
that they were going to stop
gendering their toy aisles.

298
00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:40,616
They were going to mix it up.

299
00:13:40,640 --> 00:13:44,216
Now, before we break our shoulders
patting Target on the back,

300
00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:46,176
just this week they released a shirt

301
00:13:46,200 --> 00:13:49,416
in which one of the most
iconic scenes in "Star Wars: A New Hope"

302
00:13:49,440 --> 00:13:52,416
where Princess Leia stands up
to the Dark Lord of the Sith,

303
00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:53,656
was released on a t-shirt

304
00:13:53,680 --> 00:13:55,936
in which she's mysteriously
replaced by Luke.

305
00:13:55,960 --> 00:13:58,976
So let's don't pat ourselves
on the back too much.

306
00:13:59,000 --> 00:14:00,496
Just this week also,

307
00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:04,976
Disney announced it was no longer
going to gender its Halloween costumes,

308
00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:06,776
which I say, "Thank you, Disney,

309
00:14:06,800 --> 00:14:09,536
except the only costumes you make
are of male superheroes,

310
00:14:09,560 --> 00:14:11,680
so does it matter
who you have wearing them?"

311
00:14:13,040 --> 00:14:15,256
Just this week, Mattel, who makes Barbie,

312
00:14:15,280 --> 00:14:18,736
announced they're going to release
a line of DC superhero girls.

313
00:14:18,760 --> 00:14:20,016
And the funny thing is,

314
00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:21,456
they met with girls

315
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:23,856
and asked them what they
wanted to see in dolls,

316
00:14:23,880 --> 00:14:26,256
and you can see, they have calves

317
00:14:26,280 --> 00:14:29,856
and elbows that bend
so they can do superhero stuff.

318
00:14:29,880 --> 00:14:31,416
And please buy them.

319
00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:33,456
And don't just buy them
for your daughters,

320
00:14:33,480 --> 00:14:34,816
buy them for your sons.

321
00:14:34,840 --> 00:14:39,776
Because it's important that boys
play with and as female superheroes

322
00:14:39,800 --> 00:14:43,776
just as my daughter plays
with and as male superheroes.

323
00:14:43,800 --> 00:14:45,656
As a matter of fact, what I would love

324
00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:48,256
is a world in which every person
who goes to the store

325
00:14:48,280 --> 00:14:50,976
goes with a little flowchart in their head

326
00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:54,096
of whether or not they should buy
this toy for a boy or a girl,

327
00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:57,501
and it's a real simple flowchart
because it only has one question on it.

328
00:14:57,525 --> 00:15:00,576
It says, "Is this toy
operated with your genitals?"

329
00:15:00,600 --> 00:15:02,856
(Laughter)

330
00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:04,720
If the answer is yes,

331
00:15:05,800 --> 00:15:07,616
then that is not a toy for children.

332
00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:09,200
(Laughter)

333
00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:13,936
And if the answer is no,

334
00:15:13,960 --> 00:15:16,176
then it's for boys and girls.

335
00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:17,696
It's really simple.

336
00:15:17,720 --> 00:15:21,696
Because today is about the future
of the future, and in my future,

337
00:15:21,720 --> 00:15:24,976
boys and girls are equally respected,

338
00:15:25,000 --> 00:15:29,600
equally valued, and most importantly,
equally represented.

339
00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:31,736
Thank you.

340
00:15:31,760 --> 00:15:34,960
(Applause)