Monopoly Games Omit Star Wars’ Lead Female, Relocate Des Moines To Ohio In

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It’s not a good week for Hasbro’s long-running (and apparently inexhaustible) Monopoly franchise. First, the company has to explain why its new Star Wars-themed game leaves out the new film’s female lead character, and now comes news that Hasbro has decided that Iowa’s capital city is actually located hundreds of miles away in Ohio.

The Monopoly Star Wars game includes four characters from fictional galaxy far, far away: Two good guys and two bad guys. And we do mean “guys” — all four of the characters are dudes. No Leia from the original trilogy, no Padmé from the prequels, and no Rey from the new series.

In response to fan’s concerns about Hasbro and Disney pushing only the male stars of the series, the company told EW.com yesterday that Rey was left out to avoid [spoiler alert for the one person who hasn’t seen the movie but felt compelled to read this story anyway] “revealing a key plot line that she takes on Kylo Ren and joins the Rebel Alliance.”

Um. I don’t think anyone watching even the very first trailers were of the mind that Rey was not going to be a Rebel. But given how mad some people were about the fact that early photos of Rey’s action figure showed her [spoiler alert #2… seriously, just go see the movie or stop reading stories about it] brandishing a lightsaber, maybe there’s something to keeping this rather obvious plot point a secret.

While we don’t fully understand Hasbro’s decision to omit a buttkicking female character from its Monopoly game, we do understand that Des Moines is a city in Iowa… not Ohio.

KCCI-TV in, where else, Des Moines reports that the Monopoly: Here & Now game describes the Iowa capital as full of “Fairs and farmers’ markets, miles of trails,” and even mentions the city’s world-famous cow sculpture made from butter.

All of that seems reasonable enough, except for the part about Des Moines being located in a time zone (and around 600 miles) away in Ohio.

“I’m used to people pronouncing Des Moines incorrectly, but it’s not often you hear them placing the city in the wrong state,” an anonymous Iowan who may or may not also be a Consumerist staffer explains. “Does the Ohio state fair even have deep fried butter on the menu?”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist