He-Man and plasticine: when children's play makes adults blush

Plasticine and He-Man: the kind of play that makes adults squirm

Some childhoods leave a mark, and others leave, quite literally, a collection of action figures with plasticine attributes. A man recalls that as a child he modified his He-Man figures, hand-crafting a moulded plastic appendage for them. Skeletor, the skeletal antagonist, got one that was robust, purple and with prominent veins. The anecdote would be a simple nostalgic memory were it not for the reaction of certain adults: the mockery, the disgust, and that urge to diagnose someone's sensual based on their toys. There is little patience for fragile masculinity.

---

Children's creativity knows no censorship

Children have been reclaiming their toys for decades, and plasticine is their best ally. The same author of the confession admits he extended his technique to the Jurassic Park dinosaurs, with a colour code: the red velociraptor, the green dilophosaurus. There is no sensual impulse there, there is a design project. Psychology frames it as bodily curiosity and scatological humour; that doesn't make anyone uncomfortable. What makes people uncomfortable is a child who doesn't trinc the canons of hegemonic masculinity.

The double standard of disgust

In parallel, another participant admits that what he really wanted was a Barbie to stage forbidden scenes with his Madelman figures. The first one gets laughed at; the second, not a single jeer. The asymmetry is the key to the whole thing. Nobody is scandalised when play crosses gender lines in a cute way; the scandal comes when the ultimate symbol of the male, He-Man, is touched and given what he supposedly should not have. A plasticine appendage on a toy figure is, for some, worse than blasphemy.

Who has the problem? The child who was exploring his world, or the adults who cannot stand the idea that childhood resembles their own? Let everyone answer with their own childhood in hand.