Cultural Studies of LEGO

More Than Just Bricks

Rebecca C. Hains, Sharon R. Mazzarella, Rebecca C. Hains, Sharon R. Mazzarella

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9783030326630
• eBook ISBN: 9783030326647
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education
• Index: Social Sciences

This collection examines LEGO from an array of critical and cultural studies approaches, foregrounding the world-renowned brand's ideological power and influence. Given LEGO's status as the world's largest toy manufacturer and a transnational multimedia conglomerate, Cultural Studies of Lego: More Than Just Bricks considers LEGO media's cultural messages; creativity with and within LEGO artifacts; and diversity within the franchise, including gender and race representation. The chapters' in-depth analyses of topics including LEGO films, marketing tactics, play sets, novelizations, and fans offer compelling insights relevant to those interested in the LEGO brand and broader trends in the children's popular culture market alike.

© The Author(s) 2019

R. C. Hains, S. R. Mazzarella (eds.)Cultural Studies of LEGOhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32664-7_1

Begin Abstract

1. “Let There Be LEGO!”: An Introduction to Cultural Studies of LEGO

Sharon R. Mazzarella¹ and Rebecca C. Hains²

(1)

School of Communication Studies, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA

(2)

Department of Media and Communication, Salem State University, Salem, MA, USA

Sharon R. Mazzarella (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Rebecca C. Hains

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Upon entering the historic National Cathedral in Washington D.C. in May 2019, the second editor of this book was intrigued to see a large sign announcing “Let There Be LEGO!” The sign, featuring the image of a LEGO minifigure gargoyle, further read, “Help Washington National Cathedral become the world’s largest LEGO cathedral.” As part of a fundraising effort to repair significant damage from a 2011 earthquake, the cathedral had just launched a $19 million (US) campaign to sell $2.00 (US) LEGO bricks to build a LEGO replica of the cathedral, stationed in the cathedral’s gift shop. In-person visitors could add their purchased bricks to the model—guided, of course, by designated volunteers using official blueprints. When the replica is completed in two to three years, it is expected to stand 8 feet high, 13 feet long, contain half a million LEGO bricks and weigh 1350 pounds (Washington National Cathedral 2019). In fact, a volunteer explained that once completed, the replica would be too large to move from that room, as it would no longer fit through the doorway. It would become an enduring part of the public’s experience touring the cathedral.

We begin our introduction to this volume, Cultural Studies of LEGO: More Than Just Bricks, with this story to show the near-ubiquity of LEGO as a cultural artifact. The little plastic bricks and representations of them seem to be nearly everywhere.¹ Let there be LEGO, indeed!

LEGO is the world’s largest toy manufacturer² and an international, multimedia conglomerate. Due to its popularity among consumers, its marketing budget and its profitability, Brand Finance (Kauflin 2017) declared LEGO the world’s most powerful brand in 2017, with Business Insider (Rath 2017) noting that LEGO’s popular film properties contributed significantly to its rise to the top. While LEGO did not maintain this position the following year, it is still notable that they so recently ranked ahead of global behemoths including Google and Amazon.

While many still think of LEGO as the colorful building block toys they grew up with, toy production company The LEGO Group has grown its brand into a multimedia/multi-experiential phenomenon that includes seven Legoland theme parks spanning the globe from Denmark to Dubai. Moreover, LEGO boasts over 100 Lego Store retail shops worldwide, as well as videogames, board games, movies, television shows, books, a magazine, and even LEGO Wear children’s clothes. LEGO’s bricks and robotics kits have given the brand significant credibility as a STEM-oriented educational toy that is inherently wholesome and good for children. Still, however, the company considers the brick to be their “most important product” (Mortensen 2017). According to The LEGO Group, “the foundation remains the traditional LEGO brick” (Mortensen 2017).

Given the brand’s reach, popularity and ubiquity, LEGO is ripe for serious critical/cultural interrogation of the kind offered by the chapters in this book. In this chapter, we begin by introducing the reader to the history, evolution and expansion of the LEGO brand over the past 80+ years. We then briefly situate our project within the broader field of Cultural Studies before introducing each chapter.

History, Evolution and Expansion of the LEGO Brand

Named “‘Toy of the Century’ in 2000 by both Fortune magazine and the British Association of Toy Retailers” (LEGO, n.d.), LEGO has a long and storied history within the international cultural landscape. Attesting to its longevity and diversity as a cultural artifact, in 2018, The LEGO Group experienced three notable milestones: The plastic LEGO bricks as we know them today turned 60; the first LEGOLAND theme park (in Billund, Denmark, where The LEGO Group is headquartered) turned 50; and the LEGO minifigure turned 40. But LEGO’s history has not been an entirely upward trajectory, and in this section, we cover some notable events and time periods in the LEGO brand’s evolution. Individual chapters feature additional key dates and events, such as movie and product line release dates, when relevant to their topics.

Founded in Billund, Denmark in 1932 by Ole Kirk Kristensen, the same family still privately holds The LEGO Group, which boasts a long history of family leadership (Jensen 2015). The word LEGO is a contraction of the Danish “leg godt,” meaning “play well,” which, according to the LEGO Group Web site, is “our name and it’s our ideal” (Mortensen 2017). Coincidentally, the company later realized that in Latin, the word lego appropriately means “I put together” (Lauwaert 2008).

As a toy company, LEGO began first by producing wooden toys (Konzack 2014; Lauwaert 2008), moving to “the now famous automatic Binding Bricks” in the late 1940s (Schultz and Hatch 2003, p. 7). The company launched “the revolutionary ‘LEGO System of Play’” in 1955 (Mortensen 2017) which, according to the company,

essentially means that [bricks] can easily be combined in innumerable ways—and just as easily be dismantled. The more LEGO bricks you have, the more fertile your creativity can become. The combination of a structured system, logic and unlimited creativity encourages the child to learn through play in a wholly unique LEGO fashion. (Jensen 2015)³

In addition, in that same year, the company began what it describes as “The first real export of LEGO” (in this case to Sweden) (Mortensen 2017). As of this year, LEGO products are available in over 140 countries (Mortensen 2017).

It wasn’t until 1958 that “the brick in its present form was launched” (Mortensen 2017) and “the familiar stud-and-tube interlocking system was patented” (Schultz and Hatch 2003, p. 7). Indeed, in her technological history of LEGO, Maaike Lauwaert (2008) itemizes “three major instances in the history of the LEGO company” (p. 221)—the first being this transition from wood to plastics. Contrary to popular lore, however, some historians assert that LEGO did not invent the plastic brick toy (Lauwaert 2008). Rather, they “were inspired” by self-locking bricks called Kiddicraft that a man named Hillary Page had designed earlier in England, and in 1981, LEGO paid an out-of-court settlement for “residual rights” to the new owners of Mr. Page’s company (Lauwaert 2008, p. 223). Interestingly, as Lauwaert notes, this latter part of the evolution of LEGO bricks typically is omitted from the many published histories of the product.

While the company thrived for decades, Schultz and Hatch (2003) identify four broader social, cultural and technological changes that affected the LEGO brick’s viability and popularity by the end of the twentieth century:

1. 1.
   the pace of child development sped up such that kids aged out of playing with such toys at younger ages;
2. 2.
   competition from new digital technology including video games and digital toys took kids’ attention from simpler toys;
3. 3.
   overall trends in the toy industry resulted in toys going out of fashion more quickly;
4. 4.
   and toy companies began partnering with “global mega-brands” such as film franchises.

Moreover, the last of LEGO’s patents expired in 1998, resulting in the market being flooded with a range of copycat products (Einwächter and Simon 2017). As a result, according to Lauwaert (2008), the second notable phase in LEGO’s historical evolution, what she calls “a rather unfortunate episode” (p. 221), occurred in the period from the late 1990s through the early 2000s. In an attempt to compete and stay viable in this new environment, LEGO shifted emphasis from its bread-and-butter construction toys to a more varied yet less creative product line focused on role playing (often tie...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. “Let There Be LEGO!”: An Introduction to Cultural Studies of LEGO
• Part I. LEGO as Media Text
• Part II. Creativity in the LEGO Universe
• Part III. The Politics of Representation in the LEGO Franchise
• Back Matter