Hot Wheels Ideology

Hot Wheels Reinforced Dominant Male Ideologies

Hot Wheels are small and colourful cars designed for boys and were introduced to the public by the American toy maker Mattel in 1968. This toy is designed for boys over 3 years old. Many people have a problem with the inherent message that Hot Wheels sends to boys about their roles in society. This essay will evaluate how the Hot Wheels cars reinforce traditional male gender stereotypes.
Hot Wheels marketing and advertising promotes the range as only a boy’s toy. The ideological assumptions are reinforced by the promotion of high risk, competitive, fast and aggressive behaviours. This toy mostly has negative effect on children through the reinforcement of gender stereotypes.

Hot Wheels marketing and advertising promotes the range as only a boy’s toy. Hot Wheels can be found from boy’s toy section in a store and in the catalogue. Hot Wheels is coloured with bright colours and this toy comes in small box that coloured with blue and has fire scheme that says Hot Wheels at the top and also the fire scheme is their main logo. The promotional materials

reinforce dominant ideologies by using colours that appeal to the male psyche. Blue is the colour that is a background on their box, website and in their advertisement. Even their website sections are all targeted at boys. They have a video about a man teaching physics to two young boys and doing exciting experiments with them. In their experiment they use stereotypical male colours as their background. The two young boys are getting taught what men can do, how they should act and what is a man’s role in our society. There is sense that Hot Wheels are not designed for girls. Consequently, all the promotional materials for Hot Wheels reinforce male gender stereotypes.

Secondly beliefs and values reinforcing gender ideology are evident in advertising, marketing and usage of Hot Wheels toys.

In their advertisement they show a high-risk video where fast cars are jumping and speeding. The ideological assumptions that is reinforced is the promotion of high risk. The fact that the cars are driving really fast and doing stunts shows how dangerous it is. Showing dangerous driving is giving messages to young boys to how should drive a car. It also promotes competition. It also promotes competition by encouraging boys to beat each other during a race. It also promotes fast and aggressive behaviours. Young boys learn being fast is the best way to beat each other. When they lose their competition boys get angry and emotional. Hot Wheels promotes the male gender careers. Promotes make gender careers such as professional drivers, designers and so

on.

Finally, this toy mostly has negative effects on children through the reinforcement of gender stereotypes. This toy has negative effects on boys by playing games that are high risk, competitive and makes the young boys aggressive. On the other hand Hot Wheels has pre dominantly positive effects on boys like they the fact that they can spend hours counting their cars, driving around and sending them through a car wash. While the young boys are playing with their cars, they learn to count and also they learn about the mechanism of car. The fact that no girls are involved and they are completely ignored is reinforces dominant male gender ideologies.
Since 1968, the entire Hot Wheels cars have been designed and dedicated for boys. The beliefs and values of the toy are targeted at young male audience, through the promotion on high risk, competitive, reckless and violent behaviours then again the design of the car is aiming boys. Lastly this Hot Wheels predominantly has positive effects on boys, however there are aspects that has negative effects. In the final analysis, Hot Wheels reinforces dominant male gender ideologies in society.