Individuals’ tastes in automobiles preserve getting greater. This sucks — huge automobiles are worse for the world, worse for your pockets, and worse for all of the folks they mow down. However now, the American obsession with dimension has come for our most beloved car: The Little Tikes Cozy Coupe.
Don’t fear — the Coupe, and its eight variants, are nonetheless round. However they’re joined by a sinister alter, a twisted parallel universe model with malicious intentions: The Cozy Truck. This un-cozy impostor is a pox, a menace, and I would like to speak about it. I don’t care that it’s been round for 12 years.
See that darling little one over there, enraptured by the controls on America’s finest promoting automotive? That’s a really younger Steve, beneath two years previous if the date within the shot is to be believed. He’s sitting in what seems to be a second-generation Cozy Coupe — arguably the height of Little Tikes design — and clearly having a unbelievable time. Certain, this can be a scene from a bygone, car-loving period, however did we actually want to vary issues so drastically? Weren’t these days higher?
The Cozy Coupe is smoothed-over, spherical, approachable. The truck, against this, is all onerous edges advert sq. corners — its headlight eyes and smiling face aren’t sufficient to distract from its inherent unapproachability. It’s a meaner, extra aggressive car, and it parallels the alternatives grownup Individuals now make when shopping for automobiles — a should be greater, angrier, to win collisions.
The Cozy Truck additionally mirrors one other odd facet of American consumerism: The incessant must gender all the pieces. Have a look at the Cozy Coupe above, with its pink physique and yellow roof. It’s not a “boys’ toy” or a “ladies’ toy” — it’s only a toy. The Coupe does are available a pink Princess colorway, aimed toward “any little lady,” however the one blue variant is the Ice Cream Cozy Truck. Regardless of the title, it makes use of the Cozy Coupe physique, and its promo pictures present a lady behind the wheel.
The non-ice cream Cozy Truck, against this, is simply accessible in Genders: The blue Cozy Truck, and the purple Princess Cozy Truck. There’s no default possibility right here, nothing meant to be gender-neutral. After all, younger children of all genders can get no matter coloured toy they like, however the best way these toys are marketed and focused is obvious: The Cozy Coupe’s broad attraction is not legitimate, the trendy Cozy Truck’s gendered play is the long run.
The Little Tikes Cozy Truck is a microcosm of all the pieces improper with the trendy automotive market — dimension, aggression, gendered attraction. These items are all horrible in actual automobiles, so why are we extending them to the idealized shapes of youngsters’s toys? Why should we defile the Little Tikes Cozy title with this truck, when the Coupe has been so good for thus lengthy?