LEGO Disney Princesses

Unfinished posts abound, covering everything from Hot Wheels to Squinkies, but as always, the thing that I can't keep quiet about is LEGO.  

On the first day of 2014, LEGO Disney Princesses are unleashed on the world.  While I'm not surprised that they are Friends-style figures, I'm disappointed.  I get it, to a point-- introduce a line in 2012, build on it in 2013, try to use a massively popular license to make it explode in 2014?  I've explained my stance on Friends before, and I've played with their compatibility in my own collection. Essentially, I think the doll-type figures are more invited to the party than most people would expect, but I see this immense wasted potential in not using the Disney characters for the standard size minifigs.  

If the point of Friends is to bridge the marketing gap that LEGO has created for themselves, to get uninterested girls and their parents into LEGO, literally this license is a perfect bridge into the rest of the lines. Assuming there are any kids who didn't really like LEGO before Friends and now they've been brought into the fold, wouldn't this be a great way to continue to lead them into more LEGO play with more kinds of sets and themes? 

I like these sets, I do.  Good elements, nice colors, range of prices.  I'm especially pleased to see Merida up there at the launch. But it would just be amazing to really be able to cross over with other lines.  I just think kids should be able to have Snow White drive a firetruck and that strikes me as a big missed opportunity.

Things I Hate

The point of typing any of this was supposed to be to put all my toy-related thoughts in one place. So far, I have a list of topics and very little actually written.  However, so far it's all positive stuff: why I love my Furby, the perfection of the 2012 TMNT figures, etc. etc.  As the new Ninjago set photos surface today, I am just so tempted to talk about some of the things I hate.

My increasingly frequent gripe is how many LEGO sets involve vehicles. I concede that the target market supposedly loves all things wheels and wings, but oh my god, I do not. Not at all.  Give me buildings. I don't need helicopters and planes and trucks. Holy crap, there are SO MANY TRUCKS. The best thing about LEGO, of course, is that you can always re-purpose the bricks into something besides yet another truck. I think this is why Star Wars as a license hasn't been a huge priority of mine. The places they've created are huge (and hugely expensive), and most of everything else is a spaceship. I feel vaguely that this opinion is sort of sacrilegious, but oh well.  Give me the minifigs, the animals, and the sweet buildings, you can keep your various modes of transport!

Speaking of licenses, I feel like I'm the only one not very excited about the upcoming Simpsons set/s.  It almost seems like something aimed at not necessarily children, but that doesn't make me especially appreciate it.  I've enjoyed the show when I've seen it, but I didn't grow up watching it, and it's just not stuff that I'd want to add to my collection.  Now, I'm sure there are tons of people who are extremely excited by the prospect of this, but I think it will be interesting to see how it sells.  Ultimately, any lines that don't interest me are GOOD because I'm not tempted to buy any of it.  I think most of my negative feelings are over the potential of doing a series of Simpsons minifigures, though it will be nice to save that money as well.  And they might make it up to me if the following series would end up being the rumored superheroes (but honestly I think that's asking too much, I don't expect that to happen).

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

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.