Lego has become a hotbed of controversy regarding plastics/petrochemicals and gender politics.
In response to the (rather silly) Lego Movie, its annoyingly catchy tune and star cast, Greenpeace placed the 3D advert Everything's Not Awesome in cinemas to highlight Arctic drilling, general poor record and long-term product placement of Royal Dutch Shell in Lego kits. And from the Greenpeace blog comments, the 120kg of Lego required for the advert was sourced without directly funding the Lego company.
Lego is also involved in a separate controversy regarding gender representation. Although some toy shops have been ostensibly gender neutral for a few years, Lego's choice of female characters over the same period has left people divided. The BBC News reports that:
A palaeontologist, an astronomer, a chemist - into the pantheon of children's toys stride three new Lego characters. Not so surprising. Except the scientists are all female.
In the context of criticism of endless pink-branded items for girls and sexist child marketing, Lego's new range - Research Institute - could be significant.
Further:
The Danish company was heavily criticised for Lego Friends, a range aimed at girls launched two years ago. It features five women who live in the fictional area of Heartlake and includes a salon, a vet, swimming pool and convertible car. Critics attacked the pastel colours and life of leisure led by the characters. They said the range lacked the educational "construction" element of equivalent products aimed at boys. And in February this year, seven-year-old Charlotte Benjamin wrote an angry letter to Lego - soon widely publicised - about the lack of strong female characters.
The new range of scientists was released online last week and has sold out, with another batch to be made available later this month. The company denies the set is designed to mollify feminist critics. It points out that the new range was an idea voted for by the public.
The Research Institute set was proposed by geoscientist Ellen Kooijman and backed in a public vote on a Lego crowdsourcing website. Kooijman has written that she wanted to counter "a skewed male/female minifigure ratio and a rather stereotypical representation of the available female figures". She is pleased with the result.
Lego hardly altered her designs although it did add make-up, something "she strongly discourages" in the lab. But she has no objection to tweaking it for children in this way, she says.
Although it is refreshing to see female minifigs which do not emphasize breasts, some of the female scientist minifig pieces appear to be unchanged from the cheerleader minifigs.
[Submitter offers 'full disclosure': I've stood for election as an environmental candidate, campaigned against discrimination, watched the Lego Movie in cinema and own Lego products.
(Score: 5, Funny) by dyingtolive on Saturday August 09 2014, @04:02AM
And here I was, thinking they were just yet another toy company making shit from plastic for the enjoyment of children. I'm literally running downstairs to grab my pitchfork and social justice warrior hat. Eyes totally opened. Totally.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Informative) by davester666 on Saturday August 09 2014, @04:42AM
"Although it is refreshing to see female minifigs which do not emphasize breasts, some of the female scientist minifig pieces appear to be unchanged from the cheerleader minifigs."
Of course, the exception being the scientist minifig's don't have pompoms for hands...
Also, they have different drawings for their clothes, and their faces don't have that "pop a dick in my mouth" expression I guess.
The actual minifig itself [if you buff off all the paint for the face/clothes] doesn't appear to objectionable at all. Except for the hair, it appears to be as featureless as a male minifig.
So, I guess the complaint is that some of these scientist minifigs have "cheerleader" hair?
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Saturday August 09 2014, @04:57AM
I think it's because whoever is complaining is a solution in desperate search of a problem.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 09 2014, @05:41AM
C'mon people! Women scientists? Lego mini-figs? We can do better than this, like pointing out that metrosexual is better than ammosexual, or oilsexual! If we all descend to the level of Ethanol-Fueled on a bad day, this sight is destined for a collision with homophonia that will beggar the question of what are we doing here. Anybody who says "political correctness" will be mercilessly down-moded by a gang of republican geese from the reign of Julian. (Look it up, if you do not get the reference.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 09 2014, @02:19PM
I didn't have any luck tracking down the reference, but seriously, I'm getting tired of the "political correctness" bullshit. While I believe that women can do pretty much any thing men can do (and vice versa), though there are a few exceptions ... it's annoying that women keep insisting on being included in absolutely every currently or previously male-only space. Then when men try to say that it is only fair that men be included in women-only spaces, they get attacked for it. Why is it okay for women to have women-only spaces but not okay for men to have men-only spaces? Yes, I know this is a bit off-topic, but let's take a look at, say, schools. Everybody seems to be perfectly fine with women-only schools, but whenever there are men-only schools, there's the women, insisting that they be allowed in, because otherwise it is discrimination!! So discrimination is okay as long as benefits women and/or harms men, but noth the other way around? Seriously, society, what the fuck is wrong with you?!?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cafebabe on Saturday August 09 2014, @05:33PM
Most people would benefit from a personal space and most people would benefit from a gender-specific space. However, there are a large number of people that just don't get this concept. Even when they fail to get this concept, they expect the world to revolve around them. From a magazine and forum for alpha hetrosexual men [returnofkings.com]:-
Further:-
FFS, when does a man get an opportunity to be manly?
Regarding your comments on schools, they are entirely on-topic in the Careers & Education section of SoylentNews [soylentnews.org]. I find it perverse that someone can be denied a place in an educational institution due to their genitalia. This is particularly incongruent with efforts to encourage [washingtonpost.com] education of girls [independent.co.uk] around the world. A beneficiary of an advanced education noted the disproportionate economic and social cost this could incur [nytimes.com]:-
Returning to Lego, my concern is that, due to market pressure, Lego has swung from one extreme to the other but has done so in a way which specifically impinges on the composition of future STEM graduates and that a traditionally masculine toy is signalling career options to girls in a manner which may be to the detriment of everyone.
I don't have a good answer this situation and it is possible that medical advances may make the situation worse rather than better [soylentnews.org].
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday August 11 2014, @02:53AM
Apparently, prospective civil servants in Brazil undergo medical examination to ensure 25 year ROI prior to training but women find it the most invasive [dailymail.co.uk]:-
1702845791×2
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:14AM
Ammosexual? Pleasuring oneself with ammunition? That doesn't seem particularly safe, although I don't see anything politically incorrect about it (unless there's an ammunition rights group that I don't know about?).
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday August 10 2014, @08:19AM
In some human activities, best not discussed with the very young, rate and vector of discharge are of the essence. But I think the term "ammosexual" was coined by Bill Maher referring to gun-nuts. You may NOT ask me how I know so much about the pleasures of release at +/- 25,000 psi.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Saturday August 09 2014, @03:47PM
I still see Lego toys for sale in stores, especially around Christmas, and it's a shame that they're not what they used to be. The sets I see are so specific that you could only build the toy on the box. The pieces are so specific to the set that it's just a toy you assemble. When I was growing up, Lego sets had a bunch of generic, interchangable parts. You could build the thing on the box, or you could build whatever you wanted. If you bought two sets, you had even more possibilities. Lego used to be about awakening your imagination. Kids could dream up new things to make. The sets I see aren't like that. A lot of them are branded with licensed properties (like Star Wars). If I was a kid again, I wouldn't have any fun with today's Lego sets. But I guess today's children don't need imagination. They need to be trained to consume things (especially licensed properties).
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @12:12AM
http://www.bricklink.com/ [bricklink.com]
This might be Brickbay.
If so, eBay might have
forced them to change their
names.
If not, Brickbay went under.
Anyway, this site appears
to be 'eBay for LEGO'.
Years ago I had generic LEGO
and made my own 'homemade' copies
of stuff I saw in movies and
TV shows. :D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 11 2014, @11:55AM
I guess you haven't seen the movie, as what you said was pretty much the message it conveyed. Okay, it obviously wasn't complaining about the sets being sold in shop, but it did have a message of not sticking to the instructions and using your imagination when playing with Lego.
It may be a kids movie, but its still entertaining for adults, you should watch it sometime.
(Score: 2) by emg on Saturday August 09 2014, @06:18PM
Is there really anyone on this planet who takes this kind of crap seriously?
The only real problem is when some company sees an astroturfing Twitter campaign, and actually believes large numbers of their customers do. Usually followed by changing their products and seeing a dramatic reduction in sales, because the people complaining weren't customers, and their changes have annoyed the real ones.