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Ruth Bader Ginsburg action figure smashes Kickstarter goal

Don't judge. The Supreme Court Justice and her famed lacy collar lower the gavel to obliterate the project's $15,000 goal.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
2 min read
FCTRY

Not to get judgy about a judge, but these Ruth Bader Ginsburg action figures win on appeal.

The Supreme Court associate justice, 85, has been re-created in action-figure form by Seattle sculptor Mike Leavitt for product incubator FCTRY, which has also made figures of Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and other famous names that certain of your Facebook friends will love, and others will hate.

The Bader Ginsburg Kickstarter project started on June 5, setting a goal of $15,000 that needed to be reached for the figures to be created. It quickly obliterated that goal, and as of June 15, backers pledged $233,989, with 25 days remaining in the campaign.

"We have an awful lot of fun making our toys and RBG is an exceptionally fun character to celebrate in this medium (we like to think of her as the Yoda of our little action figure universe)," the Kickstarter creators write on the project page. "But what makes this project extra-gratifying is the fact that RBG is such a tremendously positive and inspirational character to so many different kinds of people."

Different pledge levels result in different rewards, of course, but start at $20 for one figure. A pledge of $100 gets the backer either six Bader Ginsburg figures, or a "dream team" grouping including Bader Ginsburg, Obama, Clinton, Sanders, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Ginsburg's figure carries a gavel and wears her judicial robe, complete with her iconic lacy jabot (ruffly collar). The site describes her hair as "pulled back, because heroes have no time for flyaways," and her shoes as "heeled loafers, to stand tall against oppressors." Keep in mind, of course, that not all crowdfunding projects deliver as expected or on time.

Bader Ginsburg also made the news recently because to the 2018 documentary RBG, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is now in theaters.

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