Fully articulated: the rise of the action figure and the changing face of 'children's' entertainment

The action figure is a relatively recent invention, a product of the 1960s, urbanization and a gendered re-inscription of girl’s dolls, making them suitable for masculine consumption and play. Yet despite the importance of the action figure in popular culture, both as a million dollar entertainment industry in their own right and as the basis for media convergence and filmic adaptation (as most recently confirmed with the box-office success of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009) and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)) the action figure has rarely been analysed as a media text. This paper will engage in such an analysis, exploring the history and importance of the action figure in the broader socio-cultural context through a series of case studies of the key properties: G.I. Joe, Masters of the Universe and Transformers. It will examine how narratives born of canny marketing decisions gave rise to some of the earliest examples of transmedia storytelling, how fandom supported such products well beyond their (quite literal) shelf-lives and how the cultural value of action figures has altered so that they are now desirable items for the adult collector as well as being playthings for children. In this way, I argue that the action figure is both symptomatic of modern commodity culture and indicative of the trends in media convergence