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Saw that the other day. Tricky issue – nothing wrong with Friends sets, in theory (well, the Barbie-shaped figs are a bit offensive, perhaps…) but the mentality that girls can / should ONLY play with pink and purple is pretty backward. If certain girls (and boys, possibly) will only play with a creative toy if it’s marketed this way, then so be it. And the “boys” sets (city, etc.) have done better with including female figs lately, but still not great…
brick fan had a decent response that I agree with:
Ya I can see that. When I was growing up I got all kinds of stuff aquanauts, town, space and castle. The minifigure I made to represent me was an aquanauts body with a girl head, and I ran around and had all kinds of adventures. I drove a big truck, owned my own business, had a family and saved the world all the time! I had lots of fun without ever owning a Paradisa or Belville set (mind you, I wish I would have bought some Paradisa now), I just embraced the things I had fun with, whether they were marketed to me or not.
I can’t say I’m crazy about Friends, I’m not totally against it, but I wish they would have made them normal minifigures instead of taking the barbie approach. I think the main thing Friends has done for LEGO is to get adults to buy sets for girls because that’s what they see, it’s ‘for girls’. Where as previously they may not have bought LEGOS because they were ‘for boys’.
Legos marketing of friends to me is more a reflection of social perception, and the labeling of ‘toys for girls’ and ‘toys for boys’. God forbid you let your daughter play with something that is meant for a boy, and boys playing with toys meant for girls, OH THE HUMANITY!
Just my 2 cents. Sorry if it’s more of a rant. 🙂
Laura, you raise an excellent point. The fact that the Friends sets are “for girls” is most likely an adult perception rather than a kids perception. In order to get adults to but Lego for girls, Lego has to be perceived (by the general adult toy buying public) as a “girls” toy. Right or wrong, most of Lego’s sets are perceived by the general public as “boys” sets, even though AFOLs know that Lego is a gender nuetral toy at its core. One potentially unfortunate side effect of the Friends marketing (lots of pink, Friends figs, etc.) may be that kids themselves will begin to divide sets into “boy” sets and “girl” sets.
Perhaps Lego could have gone with normal style minifigs and the pink color combinations instead of creating something alien to everything else in the line.
Perhaps Lego could have gone with normal style minifigs and the pink color combinations instead of creating something alien to everything else in the line.
Paradisa
Paradisa
*shudder*
“…and a bunch of others that we don’t need to talk about…”
But seriously, I think Laura’s on the right track – it’s probably not LEGO forcing gender stereotypes on kids, so much as LEGO reading the market and realizing that (stupid) adults will only buy toys for their girls if they are pink and purple and have Barbie / Disney Princess bodies and / or licenses. I’m not opposed to the girly sets, just disappointed that in this day and age, people still think that way.
Why is this even a thing? Friends is great. Great colors for us and the sets sell really well. Obviously someone likes them. I’ve had enough of people raising gender issues about things like this that aren’t really problems at all.
I actually wrote a paper about this my freshman year haha and while LEGO adapted their products extensively for LEGO Friends (new minifigs and colors), we can’t exactly lie about the numbers. LEGO Friends is the most successful ‘girl’ line LEGO released. With flops like Paradisa and Bellville, LEGO spent a lot of time researching on how girls play vs boys play. Its quite interesting that Lara brought up ‘living through the eyes of her minifig’ because girls tend to roleplay more, so LEGO made sets that give specific purpose, with characters with backstories because girls love the detail.
Idk that’s my view, so while I don’t personally buy those sets, it has gotten a lot of young girls involved with LEGO, so I see that as a step in the right direction 😉
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