A Thousand Would-Be He-Men, Hermetically Sealed In A Nuclear Vault

As a kid, my entire world was He-Man. His nut-brown epidermis, the hulking mountains of his bronze thighs, the sinewy musculature of his forearms, the ponderous mound of his tattered loin-cloth…. all metamorphosing from the pupal casing of that pale, effete dandy, Prince Adam. It was a reminder that even I, a wimpy four year old, could one day become a herculean Techno-Viking and maybe even fight monsters for a living and live with other buff he-men in a castle of my choosing.

That the entire toy line was a metaphor for the gay lifestyle was utterly lost on me. I filled my pads of construction paper with crayon-drawn renditions of the imaginary heroes I dreamed up to fill-out He-Man’s constabulary of beefcakes. I’m lucky I never sent any of those off to Mattel, though, because according to this letter they sent a little boy who dared to suggest an action figure to them, they immediately sealed such letters in a steel-encased sarcophagus and placed them in a bank vault capable of bearing the brunt of a direct nuclear blast.

Dear Brian:
We at Mattel really appreciate your interest in our products, however we cannot accept your idea in connection with them.
Because we cannot return it to you, what we will do with your letter is to place it in a sealed box and make sure no one else in the toy company will read it. We are sorry we must handle your suggestion this way, but lor legal reasons, we must. We hope you will enjoy our Mattel products for years to come,
Sincerely,
T. Longworth
Manager, Consumer Affairs

What does that mean? Somewhere in America there’s a huge archive filled with the names and addresses of the future’s repressed gay population, complete with attached drawings of their ideal homoerotic avatars. If Mattel ever unearths the key to this treasure box, they’re going to have a new business on their hands: systematic blackmail.

Dear He-Man [WeeMade]