Sun-Man
This is Love - Vox Media Podcast Network
This episode of 'This Is Love' tells the heartfelt story of Wiley Eason, a mother who was deeply moved when her three-year-old son, Menelik,
Key takeaways
- Toys can shape a child's self-worth and sense of belonging from an early age.
Main topics
- Racial representation in children's toys
- The psychological impact of media on self-image
Notable quotes
"I can't be a superhero because I'm not white." – Menelik, age three
Conclusion
Wiley Eason's journey to create Sun-Man exemplifies how personal experiences can
Transcript preview
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Delta is proud to host these competitors, providing charter flights for every WNBA team to elevate their travel experience and champion equity on every leg of their trip. Keep climbing with Delta Airlines, the official airline of the WNBA. Speaker 3 (1:20) Hi, it's Phoebe. Today we wanted to share an episode we really love. It first came out in 2023, and when I first heard the story, I remember thinking, I want one of those. Speaker 3 (1:43) Describe what He-Man looks like. Okay. Speaker 5 (1:48) He-Man. Extremely muscular, huge biceps and thighs and legs and in a tiny Speedo-type undergarment, if you will, or outfit, costume, and a breastplate, an armor breastplate that looked like something from Viking era, and shoulder-length. Blonde hair. A muscled white guy. Yep, yep, yep. Muscled, Viking-ish white guy. Speaker 3 (2:26) This is Wiley Eason. Her son Menelik was born in New York City in 1981. Speaker 5 (2:32) I don't know where he developed this superhero toy fascination. It might have been at nursery school. It may have been with some of his other friends, but he was totally into them. I can also remember one of the, his first multi-syllabic word was collection. as in get the whole collection. And I really couldn't figure that out because we didn't have a television. We didn't have a television for the first three years of his life. And the only reason we got one was the neighbors told us that we would never get a babysitter. We'd never get a teenage babysitter if we didn't get a television. Speaker 3 (3:18) In the early 1980s, there were plenty of superhero toys and cartoons on TV. Shows like Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends. And Super Friends, which featured a mix of characters like Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman. And there was Manalik's favorite, He-Man and Masters of the Universe. And I think he was into Speaker 5 (3:42) He-Man because one of his favorite movies back then when it was VHS movies was Conan the Barbarian, when Arnold Schwarzenegger was still in loincloths running around with long hair. He loved that. I mean, we had to watch that over and over. and over and over. I was never into those kinds of movies, but I think the whole bigger than life, hero, conquering the world, I think that kind of fit into his imagination. Speaker 3 (4:16) In 1984, when Menelik was three, their family went on a vacation. Speaker 5 (4:21) It was right before Christmas. We were in Jamaica on the beach, and he was playing in the sand. I think there was another kid there. You know how you meet kids who are also there on vacation with their parents? And he was playing with the toy, and I think I said something like, Oh, you could be a superhero too, like He-Man. And he looked up at me with just the most serious expression on his face, and he said, no, I can't be a superhero because I'm not white. Speaker 5 (5:03) I was taken aback by that, and I was like, oh, well, yes, you can. In fact, we'll get you a black superhero when we get back to Brooklyn. And he just kind of looked in what I perceived as kind of a skeptical glance that he gave me, as if like, yeah, okay. And he went back to playing. Here's a three-year-old kid saying, that his imagination is limited because of his skin color. Now, remember, toys are just pure fantasy. Whatever you want to think about a toy, however you want to be in a toy, whatever world you want to create, you're totally allowed to do that because it is a toy. Therefore, you're completely at play. So I was shocked when he said that and, quite frankly, frightened because I felt as if some form of limitation had suddenly swept into his head at such a young age because of his skin color. And that was frightening. Speaker 3 (6:12) When Wyla got back to Brooklyn, she started looking for a black superhero toy for Menelik. Speaker 5 (6:18) This is before the Internet, so I couldn't go search for it. I went to stores. I talked to a lot of mothers. I asked a lot of questions. I asked people in the stores. I looked through the entire Mattel superhero line looking for a character, just assuming, I think at the time, Maybe not in 85, but they had more than 50 or 40 characters. Some were bad guys, but they had lots of characters. In fact, two of the characters of color who were Asian at the time, they actually were bad guys. So there weren't any good guys to point to whose skin was not white. Speaker 3 (7:03) So what did you do next? Speaker 5 (7:08) Well, what's that old saying? Invention is the motherhood, or motherhood is the invention of something. Anyway, what's a mother to do? You're going to try to solve the problem. So I said, okay, can't find one, have completely exhausted finding one. We'll make one. Speaker 3 (7:31) I'm Phoebe Judge, and this is love. Speaker 5 (7:46) I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know anything about the toy industry, so therefore I did not know it was a difficult, closed kind of industry to walk into where everybody knew everybody. And so I found out how difficult it would be when I found out how very expensive it is to make a mold. You've got to make a mold. You've got to find a manufacturer. You've got to do the packaging. So basically, the beginning was going to be about $60,000 to get everything done. And mind you, that's that kind of money back in 85. But again, I wasn't daunted by the thought because it just seemed like, okay. Let's go raise the money that was before GoFundMe, etc., but let's find people who will help us do this because I can't be and we can't be the only people who would like to see a black superhero Speaker 3 (8:50) today. Wiley Eason had gone to business school in the 70s and worked as an editor at a finance magazine, but she'd never owned a business before. Did you have an idea of what you wanted the toy to look like in your mind? Speaker 5 (9:08) Oh, yes. Yes. The first thing I wanted was for it to look like it was a part of the He-Man line. It's a concept in the toy industry called fit into play. It's like if you design a... a girl's toy and you want her to be a part of Barbie, then you've got to make sure she can wear Barbie's clothes and fit in Barbie's vehicles, etc. So I had that same idea that he's got to be the exact same size as the He-Man toy so that when a kid sees it, it's like, oh, this must be a part of this line. Same kind of muscular figure, same form of articulation. So that was the first thought. And then I also knew that because the issues that my son was having were related to skin color, that he had to be brown and that his powers were going to come from his skin. That was another. concept that I had, that I was going to make his skin powerful and started reading more about that and found out melanin is what makes our skin darker, and that would be one of his superpowers, his melanin. And that his facial characteristics, everybody was wearing small afros back then. He'd have a little afro. and that his features, he would not look like some of the black dolls, which looked like white dolls that had just been dipped in chocolate, if you will, that he would have, his phenotype would be African, that his nose, his lips, that he would actually look like a black man. So when kids looked at him, they could see themselves in him. Speaker 3 (10:56) Wiley Eason says around this time, she was introduced to Dr. Kenneth Clark. Dr. Clark, along with his wife, Dr. Mamie Clark, were black psychologists who conducted a famous series of experiments in the 1940s that included something called the doll test. In the doll test, they showed young black children four baby dolls. Many of the children attended segregated schools. Two of the dolls had white skin with yellow hair, and two had brown skin with black hair. Speaker 3 (11:33) Researchers would then ask the child to identify the doll's race, to hand them the doll they wanted to play with the most, and also to hand them the doll that was, quote, nice, or, quote, looks bad. Most of the black children said they wanted to play with the white doll with yellow hair and said the white dolls were the, quote, nice ones. Fifty-nine percent of the children said that the black dolls looked,