Why Sandra Bullock still wants the ‘Demolition Man’ pinball machine she was promised
After starring in the cult classic 1993 action movie Demolition Man, Sandra Bullock was put squarely on the path to superstardom.
Within two years, thanks to further hits like Speed, The Net, and While You Were Sleeping, an argument can be made that she became the biggest female star in Hollywood. However, everything wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the actor, who felt she suffered a grave injustice in the aftermath of the Sylvester Stallone/Wesley Snipes vehicle that started it all for her.
Bullock was screwed out of a Demolition Man-branded pinball machine, despite one being provided for the film’s male stars and its director, Marco Brambilla. The colourful, noisy machine was one of the main promotional items created to tie in with the film, along with a range of toys and vehicles that lined the shelves of every Hamleys. However, the pinball machine wound up becoming the most sought-after collector’s item, and Brambilla once said the “wonderful” gizmo was his “favourite” keepsake from the movie.
So, what gives? Why, as Bullock claimed in 2018, did Warner Bros furnish “all the men in the film” with a machine, leaving her as “the only one that didn’t get one”, despite the image of her character Lenina Huxley appearing right beside Stallone’s John Spartan and Snipes’ Simon Phoenix on the machine’s artwork?
Well, as frivolous as her complaint sounds on the surface, it does raise some interesting questions. While she was only half-serious in her outrage (“I literally shout out to Warner Bros that I want a vintage Demolition Man pinball machine!”), she inadvertently highlighted something pretty glaring. The ’90s were a time, after all, when tie-in merchandise based on major Hollywood blockbusters was blinkered at best, and extremely sexist at worst.
For instance, not only did Bullock not get to play a pinball machine adorned with her smiling face, she also didn’t get the chance to see her likeness in action figure form. Despite the Demolition Man toyline by Mattel boasting four different Spartan variants, from ‘Bazooka Attack’ to ‘Kick-Fighting’, and two Phoenixes (‘Blast Attack’ and ‘Flame-Throwing’), there wasn’t a single Huxley figure produced.
Maybe this was just an oversight, you may think, or maybe Mattel was only tasked with producing toys based on one hero and one villain? Hilariously, though, this was not the case. A figure was produced for Dennis Leary’s underground resistance leader, Edgar Friendly, a fairly minor character in the film, and most preposterously of all, an unnamed cryogenic facility guard, complete with ‘Cryo-Claw’ action, was immortalised forever in plastic. It seems like Mattel thought every child who actually managed to see the R-rated Demolition Man watched that random extra and thought, “Gotta get me one of those cryo-freeze guys!”
In truth, while the ’90s were particularly culpable for this vein of sexism, there’s long been a disparity in the kinds of action figures produced for properties that lean toward a male audience. In those days, it probably never crossed anyone’s mind that a little boy would want to play with a Huxley action figure, so it was never manufactured. The problem persisted into the modern day, where, for example, Marvel figures based on female characters like Black Widow and Captain Marvel are produced in considerably lower quantities than the males like Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor.
Could this unfortunate sexism have also been why nobody thought to give Bullock that elusive pinball machine? I’d say it’s not only plausible, it’s highly likely. So, come on, Warner Bros, it’s about time you sent a vintage machine to the A-list star’s house. She’s only been waiting three decades for it.
