Lego 'system Of Play'

Lego has undoubtedly changed throughout the years. Its reality has shifted beyond recognition and yet it has maintained the sheen of its most powerful, core premise. Creative freedom and imagination lie at the heart of the Lego brand. This 'System of Play' gives children the raw materials to build 'a whole new world' and design it to their specifications (Lego System Commercial). Lego was intrinsically limitless in possibilities and marketing potential. It could be advertised to everyone under the maxim that anyone can be creative. However, this concept has become ever more transparent and, upon inspection, we see that myth both surrounds and sustains the brand. Lego today is innately deterministic in its products and how they are marketed. Every modern Lego advert is a promotion for a specific, prearranged model with little room for creative freedom. The limitless possibilities of Lego become illusory and children instead complete a game of deductive reasoning, working out which parts must go where, with an emphasis on the word 'must'. Consequently, Lego perpetuates the sentiment that 'you control the action' whilst still guiding children to produce within a bourgeois framework (Lego System Commercial). Therein lies the latent influence of Lego; it engenders people with a sense of liberation before instilling social conventions, morality and cultural norms: 'None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.' (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Lego constructs our social identities, gender roles and worldview through process. Whilst blatantly assigning them to us is frequently done, and is by no means ineffective, reinforcement is required to permanently establish them as 'natural' to us. Lego endeavors to involve us on a fundamental level in the assembling of our own civic myths. Notably this is done through the materialistic, concrete world of miniature plastic blocks and not through anything intuitively 'cultural'. Indeed, the validity of Lego stems from this very solidity and 'concreteness' working in juxtaposition to anything ephemeral and abstract. For surely these are the things which we are instinctively wary of. The fallacy here would be to assume that because Lego is not overly verbose, its not trying to say anything about how we should live our lives. On the contrary, Lego encourages children to continually construct and reconstruct particular paradigms about themselves and the world around them. Children become so familiar with the integral workings of these modes of thought that to question them would be a kind of self betrayal. Building becomes a process of continuous reinforcement and it is the very perpetually of the thing, the ability 'to invent itself ceaselessly', which makes it so potent (Barthes 176). Ideally the user is left molded into an appropriately malleable, plastic like substance. For only after the child has been constructed can he or she be put to use in a greater building project. This is a very particular procedure which we might innocently call 'growing up'.

Lego simultaneously mirrors the material world and distances us from it; it is both familiar and alien: 'its like living in your own town' (Legoland Town Commercial). To suggest that its social engineering is subtle would be laughable. The reality is the reverse. Its existence is so apparent we do not even trouble ourselves to consider it and therein lies its authority: 'myth hides nothing: its function is to distort, not to make disappear' (Barthes 145). This distortion is epitomised by the archetypal Lego 'minifigures' which have a basic human likeness, but are alien by virtue of their generic universality. Lego imitates the world whilst also altering it, not only by representing the roles and institutions of bourgeoisie society, but also by recreating its myths within Lego City and exposing them to children early. This elucidates the longevity of the Lego brand and its strange popularity with parents. The Lego world is instantly recognisable to adults in being the myth of their own world and their own selves. Hence they have no choice but to endorse it or risk denying their mythologised identity. Lego City operates as a bourgeois utopia and a vehicle for mythology in its approach to criminal justice, gender roles and the notion of 'the other' as I hope to demonstrate.

Firstly, on the justice system, note that lawbreakers in Lego City are easily identifiable by the fact that they are already wearing prison outfits. This facilitates a swift and unquestionable criminal justice system within Lego City: 'build a new police station, take them in, get the confession and lock them up in the prison block' (Lego Prison Station Advert). Ultimately, everything in Lego City is as neat, predetermined and normalised as the minifigures themselves. History becomes irrelevant, for history implies change and this is inherently impossible in LegoCity. Instead we witness 'a world which is without contradictions because it is without depth, a a world wide open and wallowing in the evident' (Barthes 170).

In regards to gender, we must remind ourselves that Lego originally promoted itself as nonaligned. The original Lego System Commercial shows a boy and girl both playing with Lego. Yet now we intuitively feel like Lego is for boys, epitomised by their first mascot: 'Zach the Lego Maniac'. Gender neutrality in this world of construction has been abandoned and there is now distinct segregation in terms of advertising. Boys are offered situations involving space, firefighting and the police with a leaning towards confrontation. In stark contrast girls are given 'Lego Friends' and 'Heartlake City' with its purple and pink aesthetic. A world of homemaking, decorating and baking where cooperation is strongly emphasised. Crucially this world is distinct form Lego City and therefore reinforces the notion that girls and boys are just different on an essential level. Conversation on this is immediately shut down by the phrase 'that's just the way it is'.

Finally we come to Lego's inclination towards insularity and fear of the outsider. Themes of fortification and defense are prominent throughout Lego's advertising and the image of the castle incapsulates much of the Lego myth. Adverts repeatedly centre around the scenario of defending your fort against some unknown malevolent force. We even see this in the urban context of Lego City: 'Work is underway to prevent a disaster. Residents and the roadworks division are turning houses into a wall to keep out the intruder' (Legoland Town Commercial). By establishing the myth of 'the Other' from an early age, Lego engenders a tendency towards insularity going forward (Barthes 179). Children are therefore not only constructed to defend bourgeois institutions but also the myths that permeate them.