Abstract
This chapter is an attempt to understand the cultural value of toyetics – a media property suitable to be merchandised across a range of licensed tie-ins – by mapping their development through a specific case study, Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story trilogy. Merchandising is now regularly used to extend and enrich narratives, to personalise media properties, increase the cultural circulation (or shelf-life) of properties and occasionally even enable them to jump media platforms and survive in entirely new textual environments. Most importantly, toys themselves are increasingly becoming content providers for new screen franchises. I therefore argue that toyetic properties are important forerunners of convergent media and that what we are seeing now is actually better understood as toyesis – where a text’s origins are erased altogether.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Entertainment Values |
Editors | Stephen Harrington |
Place of Publication | United Kingdom |
Publisher | Palgrave Macmillan |
Pages | 23-39 |
Number of pages | 17 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781137472908 |
ISBN (Print) | 9781137472892 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |