Friends

I don't know why I woke up with LEGO Friends on the brain the other day, but I spent most of morning reading and watching stuff about them and the reaction of many people to their existence.  When I ended up with my free set a few weeks ago, I was surprised at how much I liked it and I'd been considering picking up a couple more since.  I have now added 3 small sets (#30108, #41001, and #41011) to my collection. It's not that the line isn't problematic, and while I hope that this era gives way to better integration of the themes and representation that Friends claims to bring into the LEGO universe, it's also an era I want to include in my collection.  Also, everyone needs more brick colors and overlarge animals with big eyes, okay? They just do.  Full acknowledgement here that toys and toy marketing are a HUGE part of the social construction of gender norms. As someone that loves toys from both "the pink aisle" and "the blue aisle," that is something that I would definitely like to see change.  Also, full acknowledgement that I love LEGO in a will-go-down-with-this-ship sort of way.

Okay, thing #1 is that I want to link to the information related to the debate over LEGO Friends that I found the most useful.  Firstly, there are 2 blog posts that I may not agree with in every point, but go a long way to providing history and context here and here.  I also thought these videos did a great job of explaining this issue and why it's important, here and here.

Here are pictures of the sets I got.  There is some diversity in the line in terms of stereotypical activities as well as colors.  The boxes are undeniably purple, but individually, they don't all scream purple.  

The thing that's interesting about this line is that while I understand the objections of many people to its content, if it weren't attached to the LEGO brand, I don't think it would have caught much attention as objectionable.  Take it out of the the LEGO aisle and it might even stand out from other "pink aisle" toys for the karate set, the magic show, and the invention lab (that debuted with the line's launch).  I've actually noticed a trend in some stores to shelve Friends separately from the rest of the LEGO toys. (I'm not sure if that is better or worse, honestly.)

Because LEGO is a block company and not a doll company, it is generally thought that they are precluded from producing dolls and that producing dolls, as toys meant for girls only, is a betrayal of the inclusive values of LEGO's origins.  I would argue that minifigures are dolls-- tiny, plastic, highly customizable, adorable dolls, and also that LEGO has produced dolls before.  The stigma attached to the word "doll" is as ridiculous as the idea that pretend play centered on humans should only be the domain of girls.  At this point, Friends are not even the only "pink aisle" building dolls around, now that Megablocks has a Barbie line out. This is a difficult issue given that LEGO already produces minifig dolls, but as the links I shared establish, there are not very many women/girls represented.  So, to some extent, I can respect how Friends is a version of an attempt to change that representation, but it seems like unnecessary segregation.  Making more women minifigures and using themes/locations like those included in the Friends line for sets across the themes would be a better way of doing this.   

There IS the argument that it should be socially okay for feminine things to exist independently of anything else.  The latest My Little Pony incarnation seems to be a good example of this, as something often praised for its values and the way the focus of the show remains on the core group of girl characters and their friendships and adventures.  Masculine characters take a backseat in the show and surprise: it's still good.  You don't have to add boys for something to be good. Feminine does not equal bad or lesser.  This perspective makes me see some inherent value in the Friends line as a separate entity. When you hold it up next to Belville, Friends is just so much better.  Next to Megablocks Barbie… Friends absolutely demolishes it on the construction front alone!  But, given the whole historical context of a company that had such inclusive roots that then progressed to marketing aggressively to only boys, it's hard not to want to see that original spirit return. Preferably in the form of a mass of creative, adorable new minifigures and sets. I guess my position is that while I like things about Friends, when Series 11 drops, everyone should be sure to go find the scientist and maybe let LEGO know how pleased they are that she exists.

Image: minifigures.lego.com

Happy August

It's clearance season! Clearance season is generally either fantastic or terrible depending on what you like. In my experience, this is the time when stores try VERY HARD to clear out all the failed product lines. Since I pay attention to toy stock all year, I'm rarely surprised by what goes on clearance. It's usually whatever they've been trying to get rid of for months reduced even more. This year I was pretty sure that the O.O.T.W. dolls were failing, which I think I'm right about based on clearance stock. In 2010-11, it was like like watching in slow motion as Cepia's Kung Zhu hamsters failed spectacularly. Though, that is probably a story for another post because I could talk for ages about how much I love Zhu Zhu/Kung Zhu. My point is that while liking a line that sells well is GOOD because there will be more new things, sometimes it's fun to like the toys that don't sell as well because you end up with tons of them for very little money. Often clearance is filled with the toys that you don't understand why they were manufactured in the first place. Case in point, this plush Gargamel doll from the Smurfs, which is marked down to $5.98 from $19.99, because of COURSE it is.

Anyone could have predicted this would end up in clearance.

 I ended up buying just a few things. All animal toys, of course. The first is a set of Pound Puppies toys, apparently a Toys R Us exclusive. These aren't marked down so much that I was going to buy ALL of them, though I kind of wanted to. I haven't seen the newest cartoon incarnation of Pound Puppies, so I don't know if it's any good, but none of these dogs seem to be main characters on the show anyway, and I am eternally a sucker for plastic dogs. It was quite tough to pick which set to buy as they had most of them, although, of course not the set with the secret handshake/brofist dogs, since that would be the obvious choice.

 You only get 2 pieces of plastic in these sets; either 2 puppies or a puppy and an object.  The soccer ball is a lie. The adoption certificate is cardboard and about business card size.  You can print additional ones on their website.  I finally settled on this set for the probably-pomeranian-possibly-samoyed. The paint is imperfect, but I quite like them and if they went on sale for any less, I probably would pick up the rest of them. My favorite detail is the outline of the paw prints that appear on their feet.

 As much as I like my new plastic puppies, my new prized possession is my Xia Xia hermit crab. Another effort from Cepia to recapture the Zhu Zhu pets craze was this line of battery-powered crabs. They have detachable shells and they sell the shells alone so that you can swap them around. They also had a few buildings/structures to play with them in. I've been watching this line fail basically from the start, I think. I guess kids aren't into crabs? The website for them is already completely gone. In any case, stores have been trying to unload them for months and months and while I kind of wanted one, it seemed like they had SO MANY that if I just waited, eventually I could have one for almost nothing. I was right, and now I own "Tobago" the battery-powered crab and 2 extra shell sets for a whopping $4 total ($2 for crab, $1 per extra shell). He has an on/off switch and he skitters both forward and backward at a tap to his claws. He looks like a cartoon superhero because of his giant chin. If the Power Pete were a blue, plastic crab, this is what he would look like. I've re-named the crab Power Pete.  I also love his black, beady eyes, as they remind me of original Littlest Pet Shop baby pets and their soulless eyes.

 I don't understand why kids weren't into these because this is the best $2 I have spent in ages. The short burst of motion is very entertaining; I'm thinking of putting him in to play with the Zhu Zhu pets. They knew when they've hit something and move in the opposite direction for a bit. The shells come with tiny "collectable surprises" or "little friends," which are TINY objects with an intense plastic smell about them that you can store inside the crab's shell and also have a hole in the bottom that can attach to a peg on the outside of the shell for additional decoration. Admittedly, these tiny objects are very weird. I have 5 altogether-- a rubber duck, a penguin, a fish driving a car, a globe with a face, and a …computer or TV monitor with a face. But I like the crab so much that I don't really care that these elements are weird. Now my crab's default shell has a lightning bolt on it, which I quite like, and I bought a yellow one and another blue one that is MY FAVORITE THING:

The design of this shell is a chicken face. CHICKEN FACE! I have no idea why this shell exists, but I'm really pleased I get to own one for a dollar. I love my crab, he was definitely worth $2.

Shark and Friends

I set out in search of #60011 Surfer Rescue, but picked up with a few more smaller sets on top of that.  The main draw of Surfer Rescue is the shark, which I love.  I ended up with #79106 Cavalry Builder for the horse and #41017 Squirrel's Tree House, which I had been trying to give as a Christmas gift last year, but could not find.  Since it was on sale, I picked it up.  Buying this for $3.48 entitled me to a $4.99 Friends set  (#30106) for free, which seemed odd, but OH WELL MORE BRICKS.

He may not be the most fearsome of all my fish, but I quite like him

Enjoying a popsicle with Friend Emma

I chose #79106 Cavalry Builder despite my disdain for the whole Lone Ranger disaster for the new style white horse and the 3 distinct faces on the minifigures.  It's a good price for 4 sets of minifig parts and the horse, plus a cannon and a white cowboy hat might see some use. 

This picture is so awful.  Literally, I bought more lamps after this, in order to prevent this level of impossible blur from happening again.

The newest horses have a wider range of poses, more details, and more realistic shapes

Like the 2012 bears, these horses can rear up

White horses: Old VS New

One major difference between old and new is the nose of the horses

Others have written at length about the Friends line, so I won't get into it here. This is the first set I've ever owned, so I will say that the scale isn't as off as it seemed like it would be.  The legs-torso  and the torso-head connections are non-standard, but the Friends' hair is interchangeable with any other head gear.  It's rubbery rather than hard plastic.