Awesome site lets you mash up boys' and girls' toy commercials

Anyone who went to a halfway decent liberal arts school knows gender roles are constructed. And one of the most effective ways that construction happens? Well, toy commercials of course.

Back in my day, it was all about Polly Pocket for the girls (that adorable choking hazard set to the tune of "Rockin' Robin") and Hot Wheels: Attack Pack for the boys (according to my editor anyway — I was too busy playing with dolls to notice). There were only a few commercials that managed to have crossover appeal — I'm thinking Better Blocks and Skip It. But in general, "appropriate" play has been gendered to the point that those of us who like to dress up our Barbies before we decapitate them were often left confused. 

Now that we're all grown up and examining gender norms, a fantastic new site has stepped in to entertain us. The HTML 5 Gendered Advertising Remixer let's you create gendered mashup commercials. Just drag one "boy" commercial into the audio box and one "girl" commercial into the video box (or vice versa) for a hilarious mashup. 

You really can't go wrong here, but my personal favorite would have to be GI Joe audio mashed up with the Polly Pocket video. But who am I to dictate mashup norms? Go forth and subvert the system by wasting your remaining hours at work on this site.