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In defense of Lego Friends
So I just watched this well-done video on the new Lego Friends line, from Feminist Frequency:
Over the course of the video I went from peeved at Lego to actually really impressed with what they've done and grumpy at all the hate they've been getting for it, the exact opposite of what the video was aiming for.
I know! It's horribly gender-essentialist, all these pink and purple sets designed to help build houses instead of cities, with their human figures that look more like dolls than the iconic lego figurines.
But it's *exactly* the sort of thing that might have gotten me started playing with legos as a kid. I was never really into legos. I loved lincoln logs--I used them to build doll houses. I loved blocks--I used them to build doll houses. And I loved erector sets and chemical bond model kits (look I was the grandchild of a nano-physicist ok????) and mostly I really, really, loved cardboard, which I could cut and fold into ANY SHAPE I WANTED to build things with. (Mostly things for my dolls to live in and/or use.)
Legos always seemed horribly limiting. They only came in rectangles, for one, unlike things like erector sets and all the neat toys at my grandparents' you could use to build elaborate crystalline structures. And there were never enough vertical panels so if you wanted to build a doll house you had to build all your walls out of bricks, which just wasn't that fascinating an activity.
And those lego figures--they're pretty neat, I'll admit, with their different hair options and differently-colored shirts and stuff. But they're anonymous. They're not really people--they're just another shape of brick that you can use to decorate your scenes.
Lego friends introduces a set of distinct *characters* with names and personalities and identifiable features. That's an inroad to being able to use them to tell stories. And if there was one thing that I liked more than designing and building elaborate dollhouses out of everything I could possibly find for that purpose, it was acting out stories with my little sister and our dolls. Lego Friends would have let us do that, and hey, if we needed more pieces or wanted colors other than pink or purple we could have then turned to THE ENTIRE REST OF LEGO-KIND.
The uproar is about the fact that these are being marketed as "legos for girls", and I keep seeing this image being passed around the internet as a preferred marketing campaign:
And that's great for girls who want to play "like boys". But what about girls (and boys, and others) who want to play "like girls"? Lego Friends isn't necessarily Legos for Girls. It's Legos for Feminine Kids. And I'm sorry, but I can't be angry at Lego marketing itself to feminine kids and giving them a doorway into the broader world of playing with Legos. I created my own inroad with erector sets and the other "masculine" toys I played with, but not every kid does that on their own.
The path "forward" doesn't necessarily have to be a brave march forward into an increasingly "gender-neutral" future where masculinity is the norm. That's not gender-neutral. That's masculine. Sometimes girls don't need to be given the freedom to "act like boys". Sometimes they need the freedom to "act like girls", damnit. (This is the part where I really want to insert a pithy Julia Serano quotation but if I tried it would wind up being everything she's ever said. If you want to pause at this point and get a copy of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity and read the entire thing I don't blame you--that would be an excellent life choice. But there's only one more paragraph and you can go read all the Serano after that.)
Twenty-ish years ago another toy company did the same thing--they took a toy traditionally sold in neutral colors and created a pastel version, with a set of unique characters, each with their own personality. That was My Little Pony, a toy that's increasingly in the news as it gains more fans of all genders. Can we give Lego the opportunity to do the same?
(OK GO READ ALL THE SERANO NOW. TRUST ME.)
Over the course of the video I went from peeved at Lego to actually really impressed with what they've done and grumpy at all the hate they've been getting for it, the exact opposite of what the video was aiming for.
I know! It's horribly gender-essentialist, all these pink and purple sets designed to help build houses instead of cities, with their human figures that look more like dolls than the iconic lego figurines.
But it's *exactly* the sort of thing that might have gotten me started playing with legos as a kid. I was never really into legos. I loved lincoln logs--I used them to build doll houses. I loved blocks--I used them to build doll houses. And I loved erector sets and chemical bond model kits (look I was the grandchild of a nano-physicist ok????) and mostly I really, really, loved cardboard, which I could cut and fold into ANY SHAPE I WANTED to build things with. (Mostly things for my dolls to live in and/or use.)
Legos always seemed horribly limiting. They only came in rectangles, for one, unlike things like erector sets and all the neat toys at my grandparents' you could use to build elaborate crystalline structures. And there were never enough vertical panels so if you wanted to build a doll house you had to build all your walls out of bricks, which just wasn't that fascinating an activity.
And those lego figures--they're pretty neat, I'll admit, with their different hair options and differently-colored shirts and stuff. But they're anonymous. They're not really people--they're just another shape of brick that you can use to decorate your scenes.
Lego friends introduces a set of distinct *characters* with names and personalities and identifiable features. That's an inroad to being able to use them to tell stories. And if there was one thing that I liked more than designing and building elaborate dollhouses out of everything I could possibly find for that purpose, it was acting out stories with my little sister and our dolls. Lego Friends would have let us do that, and hey, if we needed more pieces or wanted colors other than pink or purple we could have then turned to THE ENTIRE REST OF LEGO-KIND.
The uproar is about the fact that these are being marketed as "legos for girls", and I keep seeing this image being passed around the internet as a preferred marketing campaign:
And that's great for girls who want to play "like boys". But what about girls (and boys, and others) who want to play "like girls"? Lego Friends isn't necessarily Legos for Girls. It's Legos for Feminine Kids. And I'm sorry, but I can't be angry at Lego marketing itself to feminine kids and giving them a doorway into the broader world of playing with Legos. I created my own inroad with erector sets and the other "masculine" toys I played with, but not every kid does that on their own.
The path "forward" doesn't necessarily have to be a brave march forward into an increasingly "gender-neutral" future where masculinity is the norm. That's not gender-neutral. That's masculine. Sometimes girls don't need to be given the freedom to "act like boys". Sometimes they need the freedom to "act like girls", damnit. (This is the part where I really want to insert a pithy Julia Serano quotation but if I tried it would wind up being everything she's ever said. If you want to pause at this point and get a copy of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity and read the entire thing I don't blame you--that would be an excellent life choice. But there's only one more paragraph and you can go read all the Serano after that.)
Twenty-ish years ago another toy company did the same thing--they took a toy traditionally sold in neutral colors and created a pastel version, with a set of unique characters, each with their own personality. That was My Little Pony, a toy that's increasingly in the news as it gains more fans of all genders. Can we give Lego the opportunity to do the same?
(OK GO READ ALL THE SERANO NOW. TRUST ME.)
no subject
Hmm...I agree that 'girly stuff' and figures and characters are great--my favorite parts of Lego growing up were the figures and the little bits of kit like trees and sharks and guns and tiny gold pieces--but I also agree with broader criticisms that designating their scrupulously constructed 'feminine play' as THE 'Lego for girls' isn't helpful. I'm not convinced that the limited color range is a good point of argument either. Yeah, pastels worked for My Little Pony in the 80s; it's something basically EVERY 'for girls' toy does, because it's now a quick, easy way to designate who is supposed to like their product. Which is stupid and pointless, and really doesn't help infant misogyny--how many boys in the last twenty years have been honestly scared to like pink because the toy industry says it's not okay? How many girls and gender-variant kids have refused to wear it because it makes people see them the wrong way? The version of My Little Pony that's catching everyone's attention, NOW, has a bright gorgeous full-color palate. And good characters. And a predominantly female cast. The pastel-only thing is stupid and harmful.
As a personal point, I also really feel no need for one more pink girl-toy with breasts. Barbies never taught me anything about appreciating or anticipating grown-up female bodies; I preferred to play with Kelly and Stacy and their familiar androgyny. I liked Legos for the same reason. And American girl. And, for that matter, Quints (which I also liked for having boys as well as girls) and Polly Pocket. The girls were still girls, the women were still women. They didn't need breasts to do it. This is not to say BREASTS ARE NOT APPROPRIATE FOR KIDS; that's stupid and misogynistic. And girls are allowed to want them, in every sense! However, there's nothing in the toy industry's presentation of female beauty that makes me thing they're saying, "breasts are great and it's okay to have them!" so much as "this is what you'll turn out to look like, so get on it!" I didn't like it then and I still don't like it now, especially when it's basically the ONE kind of (physical) figure the new Lego line is offering as correct for young ladies. Oops, we're making girl-toys now! Better add tits!
Huh--but I'm also not interpreting the old Legos ad the way you are. As I read it, it's not defending her Lego creation as masculine play that's acceptable for a beautiful girl; it's defending a weird lopsided not-quite-anything-recognizable as a legitimate piece of Lego art by a creative kid. Perhaps that's not cynical enough, but it's what I read.
no subject
And I agree with you about doll shapes--I never had a Skipper because I really didn't have a lot of matel toys. Mostly I had "Disney Barbies", and my preferred dolls of choice were actually the disney princess dolls that were about half the scale as Barbies and had much smaller breasts, etc. I'm all for long-haired dolls though, although I'd love ones with shorter hair too.
And hey--IIRC the new Lego figurines don't actually have breasts, since they're supposed to represent pre-teen girls. Yeah I wish they didn't come with body-molded skirts and that there were options for short hair, but I'm not going to argue with it.
I agree that this doesn't help infant misogyny, but that's... not its goal? Its goal is--given the overly broad gender stereotyping in the world of toys, to create something that girly-girls will pick up and play with too. The kids who are uncomfortable with pink and purple and girly-girl stuff already have the rest of the world of lego toys to play with.
Re: that old ad. I actually feel a lot more kinship with the little girl in it than I do with the girls in the current lego ads. The first several times I saw it my response was "yessssss." But the ad is about embracing the little girl's lack of gender conformity as much as it is about her lopsided legos. And I want to embrace gender nonconformity! It is awesome! Just not at the expense of the people who are conforming to a gender that doesn't get to count itself as a neutral state.
no subject
Hm--Speaking as someone who was girly as fuck as a child--I was delighted by frilly, "girly", glittery shit and butch, "masculine" shit in equally measures. Also speaking as someone who was a substitute teacher and got to see a ton of kids playing with a ton of things, I'm honestly not sure I've seen this phenomenon. Any kid with an imagination (shocker, that is pretty much all the kids!) can make something like legos (which are fairly neutral and have a pretty broad scope and a lot of options) as girly as they want. That's what I always did. That's what I've seen other kids do. I just don't feel like this is a niche that isn't being filled.
no subject
But apparently there's a gap that's big enough for the Lego marketing department to notice, and for people in general to have been talking about as a Problem for a while? So I'm going to assume that it does in fact exist even if I've never experienced it?