WEBVTT

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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,

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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 6'2"
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 is
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 somedays 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 is 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

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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
to how do we learn what we know

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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

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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

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over what you're allowed to see every day?

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Because in media studies, we spend
a lot of time saying

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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 think about
the things they want you to think about,

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and more importantly, not thinking about
the things they don't 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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Well 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, 
"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

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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 her 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

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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,

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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,

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the Age of Ultron,
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,

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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, 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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And I could have gone to Twitter
with the hashtag, as many people did,

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#WheresNatasha.

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But I'm tired of doing that.

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I'm tired of having to do that.

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All over the country right now,
there are kids playing with the

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Cycle Blast Quinjet play set,

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where Captain America rides a motorcycle
out of a moving jet

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and it's really awesome.

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You know how awesome it is?

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So awesome that when it happened
in the movie,

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it was Black Widow that did it.

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Not only has she been erased,

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but she has been replaced
with a male figure.

NOTE Paragraph

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And so what is this teaching us?

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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

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will have female solo leads. 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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than 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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all four of which are true of her,

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it doesn't matter.

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She will either be ignored like Gamora

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or erased and replaced with a boy

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like Black Widow.

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And it's not fair.

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It's not fair to her and it's not fair
to your sons and daughters either.

NOTE Paragraph

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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,

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

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What that basically is saying is,
those traits that define you,

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they're not really yours,
they're just on loan to you

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for a little while from boys.

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But do you know how much grief
she's going to take in her life

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for having a little tomboy in her?

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Zero. None.

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People will think it's cute.

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They'll call her feisty,

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because in our society,

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adding so-called male traits to girls

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is seen as an upgrade,

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seen as a bonus.

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I'm not raising a little boy, like Mike.

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Mike is a little boy in Florida.
He's 11 years old,

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and the thing that he loves
most in the world

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is a show called My Little Pony:
Friendship is Magic,

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like millions of other children
across America.

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Now, the show is marketed to girls
ages five to nine,

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but there are millions of boys

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and grown men

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who enjoy My Little Pony:
Friendship is Magic.

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They have a club.

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They call themselves Bronys,

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pony bros, guys who like ponies.

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I happen to be one of them.

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And what are Mike and myself

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and millions of other boys and men
learning in this feminine,

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sissified world of My Little Pony?

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Well, they're learning to study hard
and to work hard and to party hard

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and to look good and to feel good

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and to do good,

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

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So the other kids in his neighborhood
pick on Mike and they beat him up

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and they make fun of him,

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and at 11 years old, Mike goes home,

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finds a belt, wraps it around his neck,

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and hangs himself
from the top bunk of his bed,

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because we have developed
a society in which you rather be dead

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as a boy than thought of
as liking stuff for girls.

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And that is not Mike's fault.
That is our fault.

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We have failed him.

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We have failed our children.

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And we have to do better for them.

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We have to stop making it
so that the only female superheroes

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appear on shirts that are pink
and cut for girls.

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We have to stop.

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And when I was putting this together,
people said to me,

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"Well, that's never going to happen."

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And I said, "Oh really?"

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Because just this year, Target announced

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that they were going to stop
gendering their toy aisles.

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They were going to mix it up.

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Now, before we break our shoulders
patting Target on the back,

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just this week they released a shirt
in which one of the most

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iconic scenes in Star Wars: A New Hope

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where Princess Leia stands up
to the Dark Lord of the Sith,

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was released on a t-shirt
in which she's mysteriously

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replaced by Luke.

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So let's don't pat ourselves
on the back too much.

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Just this week also,

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Disney announced it was no longer
going to gender its Halloween costumes,

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which I say, "Thank you Disney,

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except the only costumes you make
are of male superheroes,

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so does it matter who you have
wearing them?"

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Just this week, Mattel, who makes Barbie,

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announced they're going to release
a line of DC superhero girls.

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And the funny thing is,

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they met with girls

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and asked them what they wanted
to see in dolls,

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and you can see, they have calves

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and elbows that bend
so they can do superhero stuff.

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And please buy them.

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And don't just buy them
for your daughters,

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buy them for your sons.

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Because it's important that boys
play with and as female superheroes

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just as my daughter plays with
and as male superheroes.

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As a matter of fact, what I would love

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is a world in which every person
who goes to the store

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goes with a little
flow chart in their head

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of whether or not they should buy
this toy for a boy or a girl,

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and it's a real simple flow chart,
because it only has one question on it.

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It says,

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"Is this toy operated with you genitals?"

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(Laughter)

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If the answer is yes,

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then that is not a toy for children.

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(Laughter)

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And if the answer is no,

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then it's for boys and girls.

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It's really simple.

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Because today is about the future
of the future, and in my future,

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boys and girls are equally respected,

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equally valued, and most importantly,
equally represented.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)