Christmas seasons are generally a tough time for me, made more difficult as I’m not particularly fond of finding gifts for others, hoping they are appropriate and wrapping them with love. Fortunately, most of the people in my life are at a stage where they would be satisfied with one of the following: dinner, gift cards or cold, hard cash. I do, however, have a cousin who is young enough where I am still expected to go through the whole gift-giving ritual. This past Christmas season gave me a revelation into the beloved Lego toy that has usually defined my holidays.
Lego has always been a dependable choice to make any kid smile, and I saw it no differently when I was considering different gifts for my cousin. I was specifically looking for something that could help her be inspired. The Lego sets I noticed she had already reinforced society’s categorizations of girls; namely, I couldn’t imagine myself buying for a boy a predominantly pink Lego set that only had female figures hanging out at a beauty salon.
Without digressing too much, I ended up getting her a Lego space station set, where there were these cool little pods for the Lego figures to eat and sleep and do their space research work. I wasn’t necessarily hoping that my cousin would grow up to be an astronaut, but hey, that would be pretty neat as well. Most importantly, the Lego designers did their homework and had adequate gender representation in the set: there was one clearly male figure (he had a beard), one clearly female figure (she was wearing lipstick), and another two figures that seemed gender neutral and ambiguous, depending on how hard you were looking. Ultimately, I felt the set was “woke” enough to be worth purchasing.
In all honesty, this article isn’t about gender roles, or gender equality. I am ill-equipped to write about such a topic (except on female pastors). Rather, this piece is about Lego, and why, despite the fact that I do buy Lego for others, I have developed a certain antipathy and distaste for them throughout the years.
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My distaste for Lego is nested within a broader discussion of visual imagery and representation. Visual representation is ubiquitous with daily life as the contemporary citizen is constantly connected with all types of imagery dissemination platforms, whether it would be Instagram, cable news, Facebook/Twitter feeds, or more refined platforms such as museums, art theory books, this blog, etc.
To grossly oversimplify, I believe that modes of representation fall under two main categories, which by no means are mutually exclusive. There are those methods which are descriptive. For example, photographs capture a scene and describe what is going on. A lot of imagery on social media platforms fall under this first category: photos of food (I am looking at food), travel (I am looking at a landmark), selfies (I am looking at you doing something that is supposedly meant to make me jealous and depressed).
There are other methods which are productive, such as photography which produce rich narratives beyond what is directly presented. One example would be Richard Avedon’s series of photographs found In the American West, a project that was commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum of Art. Avedon travelled to Western United States during the late 70’s to early 80’s, where he documented citizens living out in the West. Though his photographs might at first appear as straightforward black and white portraits of regular but distinct individuals, the attention to detail, sharpness and contrast, all suggest the harsh conditions that these fellow Americans were living under at that time, without the competing visuals of the context themselves. The context, removed by a large, white backdrop, was rather expressed by the physical fabric and texture of the subjects’ clothing and skin, which collectively convey a world that seemed so alien and dissimilar to the American East.
Images from Richard Avedon’s In The American West
Source: Richard Avedon/The Richard Avedon Foundation
The dichotomy of descriptive and productive modes of representation apply to other media, including painting, sketching and Lego. One can build a Lego set as is, following the instructions as most people do and produce the set as anticipated. You are buying a prescribed object and experience, whether it is a space station, a rescue helicopter or a Beaux-Arts style hotel. One could also take the Lego pieces and be productive through imbuing one’s own narrative into these plastic bricks. Make your own giant, robot chicken that lays dinosaur eggs, or an intergalactic space dragon that rocks with 80’s pop music, or your own zombie apocalypse bunker that only accepts Asian people (yellow figures).
But what I’ve been noticing, and this is probably obvious to everyone already, is that Lego has trended more and more towards that descriptive mode of representation, primarily defined by the company purchasing material from cinematic “reality” and producing product tie-in’s. There is the Disney-Pixar movie tie-in’s and the Harry Potter series tie-in, and the Marvel Universe series tie-in, where scenes from these movies are transformed into specific Lego sets, imbued with the confined narratives of the specific movie scenes themselves. The Toy Story 3 set below represented a specific scene in the movie where the main characters are trapped on a conveyor belt and facing their destructive, fiery doom (spoiler alert: they live). One article described this Lego set as potentially the “saddest toy ever”. How could anyone even start to spin off any other narrative that is not remotely Schindler’s List level depressing?
This is a passive-aggressive way of saying, I love you, kid, but not that much.
Source: https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Story-Trash-Compactor-Escape/dp/B003DTMQAM/?ascsubtag=994fce97b273f5f25b1657d82b21d59e54b60b48&ref=sr_1_3&tag=gizmodoamzn-20
Continuing this snarky tone of cynicism, one cannot help but think that the Lego Movie series were simply another means to sell more toys, as this very informative video astutely and hilariously observes. Furthermore, there is the Star Wars Lego collection, which comes out with “new” versions of the same set pieces once every few years. Seriously, how many versions of the Millennium Falcon have they come out with already? I count ten, so far. Some of these sets attain a collector’s item prestige and sell at a price ($800) which doesn’t exactly scream “creative freedom” as much as “honest capitalism”.
I kid you not, these are all distinct Millennium Falcon sets.
Source: Amazon
And please don’t get me started on the “Architecture” series that Lego is trying to market to a different audience. Sure, they are simple enough to attain a 12+ (or 6+) rating, but let’s be real, those promotional images that show an adult at play on a hardwood table, with the final product displayed on a window alcove, really suggest basic home (or apartment) ownership. The rating should really be: 21+, with college degree, no debt and dispensable income.
How many charcuterie boards can one have?
Source: https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Architecture-Collection-Francisco-Building/dp/B07GX7R73M
Furthermore, there’s much to criticize on the content of these “Architecture” sets. The San Francisco set features “iconic” Bay Area buildings and structures, including:
Salesforce tower (that was just completed in 2018, and just another clone of the phallic tower morphology, such as the Hong Kong’s IFC)
Transamerica Pyramid (apparently, the architects grossly procrastinated and drew something quick on a napkin before a client meeting, which is inspiring, I guess?)
Alcatraz (most of my friends and myself haven’t even set foot here, despite being in the Bay Area for over a decade).
555 California (okay, Lego is really digging deep here)
The Painted Ladies (which is precisely one of the main issues why contemporary architecture here in San Francisco sucks so much because many, specifically the municipal departments, hold to the Painted Ladies and that era of design as an inspiring, baseline standard rather than a historical relic that needs to slowly fade away).
To inspire the next generation of architects…
Source: https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Architecture-Collection-Francisco-Building/dp/B07GX7R73M
I do understand that there is a running joke where famous architects do their worst work here in San Francisco, but seriously, Lego, you couldn’t have included any of the following?
The original SFMOMA by Swiss legend Mario Botta before Snøhetta sharded on it?
Renzo Piano’s Academy of Sciences?
Herzog & de Meuron’s de Young?
V.C. Morris Gift Shop by Frank Lloyd Wright, his only project in San Francisco that was the prototype for his later, immensely renowned Guggenheim in New York?
Clockwise order (from upper left hand corner):
De Young Museum by Herzog & de Meuron, https://www.archdaily.com/66619/m-h-de-young-museum-herzog-de-meuron
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by Mario Botta, https://www.dezeen.com/2015/08/10/postmodernism-architecture-sfmoma-san-francisco-museum-of-modern-art-mario-botta-snohetta-craig-dykers-extension/
V.C. Morris Gift Shop by Frank Lloyd Wright, https://franklloydwright.org/frank-lloyd-wrights-san-francisco-gift-shop-meets-iconic-italian-design/
Academy of Sciences by Renzo Piano Building Workshop, https://www.dezeen.com/2008/10/03/california-academy-of-sciences-by-renzo-piano/
I would probably be less triggered if they printed “Cityscape” or “Skyline” on the boxes instead of “Architecture”, but you probably get my point by now.
Consequently, when I do buy Lego, I buy the Lego City sets. One, they provide a very utopian vision of the world; you never see a frowny person working their gig (unless if it is the robber running away from the cops), and you never sense that anyone is ever complaining about their jobs, unlike the many millennials here in the Bay Area. In all seriousness though, the main reason why the Lego City series is quite appealing, even to me, is that the productive potential still exists, and hasn’t been fully hijacked by Lego (yet). There is still freedom for the consumer to think and create that narrative. We are given cement trucks, ambulances and vacation RV’s, but we are not given the backstories and strict framework of play. Furthermore, since all the figures and sets of the Lego City series are designed with the same scale in mind, there is the appropriate intent of allowing these figures and sets to interact naturally with each other. In Lego world, a chartered airplane, prisoner transporter and horse trailer can all go on a road trip, share a beer by the campfire and agree how the Democratic Party should run Congress and the White House for the next 20 years.
To Lego’s credit, and credit of brilliant minds across the world, there are still many other “productive” methods in which Lego is being used. MVRDV’s foray into making Lego skyscrapers offer a productive partnership between a renowned architecture firm and Lego, the Lego Ideas series is the product of talented individuals finding new and creative ways to express themselves, and one could also purchase Lego bricks by the bucket at the stores (though one must walk to the very rear after passing every other purchasable item).
Where can I buy plain Lego Bricks? Oh, at the very back of the store…behind the cashier.
Source: Lego
So when my cousin had her birthday party, less than one month after Christmas (>.<), I had a mini crisis trying to figure out what to buy for her. Stress levels within my system started to increase again. I was really tempted to buy another Lego set, maybe the rocket ship to go along with the space station I had gotten her? Maybe a garbage truck (though I could be sending the wrong message to her parents)? Maybe finally bow down to Disney and buy some of their stuff?
With a mix of procrastination and poor planning, I found myself out of reach of a Lego store on the day of her birthday. To make matters worse, the only available stores nearby that sold Lego was a Barnes and Nobles, in their toys and gifts section. Unfortunately, all their sets felt like rejects from other retailers, and by this fact alone, I changed my mind in buying more Lego.
As I was perusing around the Barnes and Nobles looking for a different gift, by chance, I came across this cute little toy that was marketed as a programmable, drawing robot called Artie 3000, created by Educational Insights (this is not a paid post). There is a cool interface where one could either program basic commands (turn left, turn right 90 degrees, move straight, etc.) or use Python (for more advanced users) to draw cool geometry or custom designs. I thought it was a very thoughtful toy. As someone who is really big on design thinking and thinking critically about different design tools, I saw Artie as educational on both the design aspect and also on the technical aspect through teaching the basics of coding. As a product foil to Lego, little Artie gave some of that creative freedom and agency back to the user; it wasn’t a toy that was simply built to be displayed, a descriptive toy, but Artie was a productive toy doubling as a fun tool that was illustrative, informative and inspiring, what Lego was originally designed to be before it sold out. I was also shocked by the price of Artie ($70), which was comparable to a moderately expensive set of Lego. I have been getting ripped off! Who knew money could go so much farther?!
Here’s a cool image that Artie (and my cousin) drew below:
I promise you that as my 7-year-old cousin’s coding skills get better, these drawings will exponentially increase in complexity.
Source: image by author
In conclusion, I have learned my lesson and committed to stop buying Lego for any reason, which challenges myself to be a more discerning and thoughtful consumer and critic. Lego rightfully deserves my rants and wrath, but not my money.
But to be very honest, right when I was about to finish this article, I came across the NASA Apollo 11 Lunar Lander set, and really wanted to buy it, even if it is disgustingly overpriced at $99.
Fml.