Mattel Accidentally Puts Porn Website on Wicked Doll Packaging
This commentary is a repost from “Sex on Wednesdays” by Martha Kempner on Substack. Find her other articles on The Queen Zone here.
Not Ready for Wednesdays: But This One is Wicked
I wasn’t going to publish anything this Wednesday. It’s too soon for me to process the staggering loss or what it means for—and about—our country on an emotional or professional level.
I can’t yet wrap my brain around the future of sex education, sexual health, or reproductive rights. One minute, I’m imagining a world in which CDC information can’t be trusted (because it’s all written by RFK Jr. and his brain worms) and abstinence-only-until-marriage programs make a well-funded comeback complete with swag (think Altoids in tins that say “mint for marriage”). The next minute, I’m reminding myself that much of the damage that Trump did the first time around (like the domestic gag rule) was easily undone by Biden and that our worst fear (a Supreme Court that doesn’t believe in reproductive rights) is already here and not going anywhere regardless of who’s in the White House.
I also swing rapidly back and forth between being terrified by Project 2025’s Christian Nationalist agenda and convinced that it will go the way of Trump’s border wall or promise to overturn ACA (he won’t/can’t deliver). Somewhere in the middle of that emotional rollercoaster, by the way, I land on a future in which the ultra-right agenda has been pushed through, and Trump voters realize how much they miss porn. (Yes, there would be bigger ramifications, but allow me a moment of schadenfreude. I need it.)
I’ve basically avoided all election postmortem and all discussion of Trump 2 Electric Boogaloo. (Do you know how many separate Washington Post news update lists one has to unsubscribe from to maintain such a news blackout?) I needed time to be sad and to figure out how I can do what I do—deliver news about sex with a little dose of snark—without bathing in outrage for the next four years.
One week is not nearly enough time (even if it’s felt like a year). I do not have any of it figured out. None of it. So, I wasn’t going to write a newsletter at all.
And then this happened
Mattel Accidentally Puts Porn Website on Wicked Doll Packaging
The toy giant—riding high from the resurgence of all things Barbie—hopped on the branding bandwagon for Wicked. The new movie is based on a play which is based on a book which is based on The Wizard of Oz which is based on a book. (The Wizard of Oz is one of those classics that was already old when I was a kid and on television regularly. Somehow it took me years to realize that I really don’t like it.) In the newest iteration, former Nickelodeon Star Ariana Grande is good witch Glinda while Cynthia Erivo (who is three-fourths of the way to an EGOT) portrays green-faced Elphaba. They sing.
The movie doesn’t come out until November 22, but stores have been flooded with Wicked products for months. There’s makeup (green, I assume), clothes, shoes, mac-and-cheese (also green?), and toys, of course. Both Ariana and Cynthia have been immortalized in plastic. Some of the dolls sing. Some are poseable. There are fashion accessories. And there’s a link to a porn website.
Apparently, instead of using the actual URL for this movie extravaganza (www.wickedmovie.com), Mattel printed www.wicked.com on the boxes. It’s film-related, but not this film. It’s actually the website of Wicked films, a long-time producer of adult movies that had an early, exclusive contract with porn megastar Jenna Jameson. Today, the company boasts films starring Liz Jordan, Jewelz Blu, Kenzie Tyler, and Stormy Daniels.
The failure to proofread likely did not corrupt any children. The URL was in tiny print near the barcode and partially covered by a price tag in some stores. Moreover, the porn site requires visitors first to promise they’re not robots and then to promise they’re over 18. Sure, horny teens and tweens can get past the cleverness of a checkbox, but the toys in questions are marketed toward the kindergarten set. I have to believe they’re a little less internet savvy.
hasbro Still Gets The Oopsie Award
Mattel should take comfort that in the grand scheme of “wasn’t anyone paying attention?” this ranks way lower than Hasbro’s Troll doll that giggled when you pushed a button between its legs. Think of how many engineers, executives, and marketers looked at that design from sketch to mockup to product, and not a single one of them said, “Stop the presses, we’re making a doll with a clit!” A wrong URL pales in comparison.
Nonetheless, the mistake will likely cost the company a fortune as it has had to pull dolls from the shelves of retailers like Target, Walmart, and Amazon and may not be restocked by the time the movie comes out and holiday shopping has begun.
I do feel bad for the person who was supposed to do the proofreading before printing. I’ve been in their position before and came awfully close to publishing a pamphlet on public lice. Mostly, though, I want to thank them because this was exactly the kind of inconsequential, barely political (except for Stormy, I suppose), easily mockable news about sex that I needed this week.
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