Return to Video

The LEGO Boys Club - Lego & Gender Part 2

  • Not Synced
    “Each day there’s adventure, always something new, and the team that dreams tomorrow up is LEGO Land and You”
  • Not Synced
    In my last video we visited the pastel coloured,
  • Not Synced
    gender stereotyped suburban wasteland that is the LEGO Friends theme.
  • Not Synced
    We also took a tour of LEGOs ridiculous and slightly hilarious attempts to market to girls in the past several decades.
  • Not Synced
    So if you haven’t watched that one go ahead and check it out before continuing on to this one.
  • Not Synced
    It’s not secret that LEGO’s clubhouse is currently designed and marketed primarily for boys.
  • Not Synced
    Reporter: There are very few toy brands as ubiquitous as LEGO.
  • Not Synced
    And yet research shows that LEGO only clicks with about half of all children, the male half.
  • Not Synced
    Boy: Look at mine mommy
  • Not Synced
    Reporter: Since 2005 LEGO has embraced that, marketing almost exclusively to little boys.
  • Not Synced
    And it’s giving boys a boost in the world,
  • Not Synced
    LEGO play has been attributed with accelerating boys development.
  • Not Synced
    Research shows that it helps fine tune spacial and math skills.
  • Not Synced
    How did the company shift from their initial relatively gender neutral universal building experience,
  • Not Synced
    to a more male dominated one?
  • Not Synced
    Well it wasn’t by accident.
  • Not Synced
    The LEGO group intentionally did it in three ways.
  • Not Synced
    #1 Marketing exclusively to boys:
  • Not Synced
    LEGO has been intentionally designing, creating and marketing
  • Not Synced
    almost the entire LEGO universe specifically and exclusively to boys since at least the mid 1980’s.
  • Not Synced
    First lets take a quick look at the history of LEGO’s marketing before this gendered shift occurred.
  • Not Synced
    LEGO can be traced back to the early 1930’s but started producing their interlocking plastic bricks in 1949.
  • Not Synced
    LEGO a whole new world to build
  • Not Synced
    This young girl had such fun, she used LEGO one by one.
  • Not Synced
    With a nic-nac-paddy-wack build a house of grand, this young girl’s a LEGO fan.
  • Not Synced
    LEGO focused on marketing their products with a strong emphasis on creative play, cooperation, and imagination
  • Not Synced
    for the next three decades in a relatively universal way to children of all genders and even as something that families can do together.
  • Not Synced
    By the mid 80’s, however, girls had all but disappeared and LEGO was marketing almost exclusively to boys.
  • Not Synced
    Some of you might remember Zack, you know, the LEGO maniac.
  • Not Synced
    I know a boy his name is Zack,
  • Not Synced
    his micro chips are out of wack,
  • Not Synced
    he built a Blacktron Cadillac,
  • Not Synced
    he’s Zack the LEGO Maniac.
  • Not Synced
    He sent his cosmic fleet to Mars,
  • Not Synced
    he’s out there cruising with the stars.
  • Not Synced
    His mind is lost in outer space
  • Not Synced
    A cosmonaut, earth calling Zack, hey Zack come back!
  • Not Synced
    ZACK became the official LEGO mascot,
  • Not Synced
    he embodied the LEGO experience, and helped to identify the brand with boys’ play.
  • Not Synced
    Boys continued to dominate LEGO’s marketing for the next two decades.
  • Not Synced
    Once upon a time a boy discovered a magic castle.
  • Not Synced
    Inside was a bat lord and his knights, a witch and the smell of rotting bones.
  • Not Synced
    It was time to go, and the boy tried to escape but the witch insisted he stay…
  • Not Synced
    for dinner.
  • Not Synced
    LEGO Mania. LEGO Mania.
  • Not Synced
    Yeaaaaaa…
  • Not Synced
    Pistons that pump, gears that will get you going, motors that muscle, and blades that’ll blow you away.
  • Not Synced
    Technically speaking it will turn you on.
  • Not Synced
    LEGO Mania. LEGO Mania.
  • Not Synced
    In 2011, LEGO made sure to drive home the point that LEGOs are for boys with their Build Together marketing campaign.
  • Not Synced
    Ah the father and son roadtrip, just a little imagination and you’re good to go.
  • Not Synced
    It’s been said that a man’s home is his castle
  • Not Synced
    and truer words were never spoken when that home is in the hands of this father and son team.
  • Not Synced
    Well done gentlemen, well done indeed.
  • Not Synced
    Each ad revolves around fathers and sons collaborating on imaginative LEGO creations.
  • Not Synced
    You’ll notice there are no grandmothers, mothers, daughters or sisters building together.
  • Not Synced
    #2 Producing male identified and male centered themes and sets:
  • Not Synced
    Over the next of couple decades but especially in the late 90’s and early 2000’s
  • Not Synced
    LEGO began creating and producing more sets that were intentionally male identified and male centered.
  • Not Synced
    To reinforce that LEGOs are specifically for boys,
  • Not Synced
    LEGO made their products male centered by populating their sets and themes with male minifigures.
  • Not Synced
    Male centered means that the focus of attention is on men, their stories and what they do.
  • Not Synced
    In terms of LEGO, this refers to their shift from their original less gendered minifigures to sets and themes dominated by male characters,
  • Not Synced
    oving away from the 2 dots and a smiley face to frowns, sneers and facial hair.
  • Not Synced
    On the rare occasion when women do appear, they’re sporting bright red lipstick, curves and cleavage.
  • Not Synced
    The lack of female minifigures in the LEGO universe is staggering,
  • Not Synced
    conservative estimates reveal that the ratio of unique male identified minifigures to unique indentified female minifigures is 18:1.
  • Not Synced
    The minifigure gender disparity only got worse when LEGO started making sets based on movie franchises
  • Not Synced
    such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean,
  • Not Synced
    because those films are male centered and male identified,
  • Not Synced
    not surprisingly the themes and sets based on them are also male centered and male identified.
  • Not Synced
    Out of the two hundred and fifty plus unique mini figures in the Star Wars sets for instance,
  • Not Synced
    you can count the number of women on your fingers.
  • Not Synced
    This positions boys and masculinity as the default for the LEGO universe.
  • Not Synced
    Who can help us?
  • Not Synced
    ADU is here. Step aside ma’am, let the ADU take over, go get em boys!
  • Not Synced
    #3 Focusing on stereotypical boys play scenarios with an emphasis on combat:
  • Not Synced
    Remember that whole creativity and imagination thing?
  • Not Synced
    You can build this transport pretending you’re on Mars.
  • Not Synced
    The box shows ways to change it by snapping off the cars.
  • Not Synced
    You can snap them back together and get a scouting craft, or match them with a laser for a base defender craft.
  • Not Synced
    You can make up something wild, supercharged and new.
  • Not Synced
    The sky’s the limit when the team is LEGO Land and you!
  • Not Synced
    That was back in 1985, let’s check in on what’s happening in the contemporary LEGO themes.
  • Not Synced
    Ready your weapons. And get ready.
  • Not Synced
    You control the battle.
  • Not Synced
    Transform to attack mode.
  • Not Synced
    Prepare for battle.
  • Not Synced
    Arm the rockets.
  • Not Synced
    Arm the weapons.
  • Not Synced
    Load the missile.
  • Not Synced
    You can load the bombs.
  • Not Synced
    Man the canons.
  • Not Synced
    Load the rockets.
  • Not Synced
    Arm the missile.
  • Not Synced
    Prepare the torpedoes.
  • Not Synced
    And fight back.
  • Not Synced
    Fire at will.
  • Not Synced
    Fire the canon.
  • Not Synced
    Fire the mighty catapult.
  • Not Synced
    Fire.
  • Not Synced
    Fire.
  • Not Synced
    Fire the missile.
  • Not Synced
    And attack!
  • Not Synced
    While LEGO group itself has admitted that they have prioritized catering to boys,
  • Not Synced
    his has notably shifted their marketing and product design
  • Not Synced
    to be less about LEGO’s educational benefits such as fostering creativity and imagination to more about combat,
  • Not Synced
    aggression, conflict and competition scenarios which feel a lot more like G.I. Joe then they do the LEGO of yesteryear.
  • Not Synced
    Even in the popular CITY theme we’ve started to see these conflict elements take center stage
  • Not Synced
    with the edition of the cops and robbers subtheme over the last couple of years.
  • Not Synced
    It’s not that women and girls are never interested in combat based play—-
  • Not Synced
    aggression and competition are of course, possible human behaviours for people of all genders.
  • Not Synced
    In our current patriarchal society, however, traits associated with men and masculinity are more highly valued,
  • Not Synced
    even ones that aren’t exactly the most socially beneficial.
  • Not Synced
    Narrator: Ninjago, rebuild your spinner and win the fight
  • Not Synced
    But what about my sister?
  • Not Synced
    We’re saving a girl? Is she hot?
  • Not Synced
    Become the master of spinjitsu
  • Not Synced
    In this case LEGO has strongly emphasized combat and violent conflict in order to market to boys.
  • Not Synced
    This marketing choice has a further consequence of limiting boys because they miss out on toys that help develop
  • Not Synced
    cooperation, relationship building, nurturing and caregiving.
  • Not Synced
    Now let’s bring all of this back to the new LEGO’s “for girls”.
  • Not Synced
    While the entire concept and marketing of the Friends theme is deeply problematic,
  • Not Synced
    it’s not without some small merits.
  • Not Synced
    The emphasis on sharing, cooperation and nurturing are values that I would love to see infused in toys for children of all genders.
  • Not Synced
    Even the title of Friends draws attention to the importance of relationship building,
  • Not Synced
    however, these values are almost exclusively found in media and toys for girls and are wrapped up in harmful gender steryotypes
  • Not Synced
    meanwhile, these positive values are almost entirely absent in toys aimed at boys
  • Not Synced
    the repercussions of this can be grave
  • Not Synced
    relegating the responsibility for fostering healthy relationships and communications on women
  • Not Synced
    and simultaneously reinforcing to boys and men that using violence is a practical option for solving conflicts
  • Not Synced
    even in our personal ones
  • Not Synced
    once lego had doubled down on gendering all their products "for boys"
  • Not Synced
    they were backed into a corner where they were forced to create a distinct and seperate "for girls" collection
  • Not Synced
    Lego friends is clearly marked as not for boys
  • Not Synced
    which defacto reinforces that the rest of the Lego universe is for boys
  • Not Synced
    and for boys alone
  • Not Synced
    If we look at the language in advertisng for the sets marketed to boys
  • Not Synced
    they are encouraged to actively participate in the building as a core part of the story
  • Not Synced
    you can build the huge helicopter
  • Not Synced
    you can build the massive clone turbo tank
  • Not Synced
    you can build the batmobile
  • Not Synced
    you can build the dino truck
  • Not Synced
    you can build the rocket
  • Not Synced
    you can build the king's castle
  • Not Synced
    but in the Lego friends marketing the construction is not central to the narrative being sold
  • Not Synced
    drive by Olivia's house
  • Not Synced
    pass the vet with all the pets
  • Not Synced
    to the newly built cafe
  • Not Synced
    we're here!
  • Not Synced
    Let's all help out
  • Not Synced
    make burgers, shakes, bake the cupcakes
  • Not Synced
    see how things have been built but the action is not attributed to anyone?
  • Not Synced
    The minifigs just show up at the newly built cafe
  • Not Synced
    and the playtime is supposed to happen after the building is complete
  • Not Synced
    unlike in the other commercials where boys are encouraged to actively build and construct
  • Not Synced
    as a part of their Lego experience
  • Not Synced
    now to the credit of girls and women, many of us have stubbornly continued to like the classic sets
  • Not Synced
    despite Lego's best efforts to ignore us and kick us out of the Lego clubhouse
  • Not Synced
    So Lego spent four years and millions of dollars
  • Not Synced
    to research the desires of girls to create another Barbie wasteland
  • Not Synced
    and continues to ignore the fact that they already have a potentially great product for girls,
  • Not Synced
    it's called Lego
  • Not Synced
    or it used to be
  • Not Synced
    Lego's logic surrounding giving girls what they "want" sounds and awful lot like self fulfilling marketing,
  • Not Synced
    as Lisa Wade pointed out on the Ms. Blog
  • Not Synced
    Executives are going to great lengths to explain that the line is based on research...
  • Not Synced
    This frame gives the company an excuse for reproducing the same old gender steryotypes
  • Not Synced
    that we see throughout our culture...
  • Not Synced
    In this way they are trying to make it clear that they shouldn't be held accountable for the messages
  • Not Synced
    their products send
  • Not Synced
    The real takeaway from Lego's research
  • Not Synced
    is that the literally billions of dollars that the media and toy companies spent
  • Not Synced
    over the last couple of decades
  • Not Synced
    on aggressively gendered marketing and gender stereotyping has worked
  • Not Synced
    We see fewer commercial of boys and girls playing together
  • Not Synced
    and more products that segregate boys and girls into different categories of people
  • Not Synced
    each with very rigid and limiting ideas of what roles are appropriate
  • Not Synced
    all of this marketing is inescapable
  • Not Synced
    and young people and adults alike internalize these deeply harmful and limiting messages
  • Not Synced
    Although we dont want to believe it,
  • Not Synced
    the truth is that advertising works to manipulate us
  • Not Synced
    and it works really well, or else corporations wouldn't do it.
  • Not Synced
    What Lego should have done if they were serious about expanding the Lego universe to include girls
  • Not Synced
    is to actually include them in a meaningful way
  • Not Synced
    Not segregate and separate them into their own pink enclave
  • Not Synced
    In the future, here are two suggestions that Lego can use as a starting point
  • Not Synced
    to think about when producing and marketing new products
  • Not Synced
    First, they've got to integrate more female minifig characters into their themes
  • Not Synced
    and make them the focus of those sets
  • Not Synced
    Then they've got to completely drop this ladyfig doll thing from the entire Lego universe
  • Not Synced
    Secondly Lego needs to go back to the drawing board and create products that foster creativity and imagination
  • Not Synced
    that children of all genders will adore
  • Not Synced
    they can start by deemphasizing the macho, testosterone, and the combat
  • Not Synced
    and create universally appealing sets
Title:
The LEGO Boys Club - Lego & Gender Part 2
Description:

In part 1 of my two part LEGO and Gender series, I explored how LEGO went terribly wrong with LEGO Friends and provided a brief history of LEGO's ridiculous and slightly hilarious attempts to market to girls since the late 70′s. Watch Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrmRxGLn0Bk

In part 2, I delve into how LEGO shifted their products from their initial relatively, gender neutral building experience to a more male dominated and male identified one. The LEGO group intentionally did this in three ways: 1. Marketing exclusively to boys, 2. Producing male identified and centered themes and sets and 3. Focusing on stereotypical boys play scenarios with an emphasis on combat. The strong focus on boys has effectively kicked girls out of the LEGO club house. Keep watching until the end where I provide a few suggestions to LEGO oh how to fix their gender segregation problem.

For more information, links, and a full transcript visit: http://www.feministfrequency.com

To donate visit: http://www.feministfrequency.com/donate

Watch the LEGO Violence Ads Montage - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDThHosFS_0
more » « less
Video Language:
English
Team:
Feminist Frequency
Duration:
13:43

English subtitles

Revisions Compare revisions

Our website uses cookies for analysis purposes.