I had a late night finishing up my review of the epic 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell set, so imagine my befuddlement waking up bleary-eyed today to these incredible screenshots floating all around social media that apparently, LEGO has gone “woke”.
Fox News and The Telegraph (who have changed their headline after being SLAMMED online) have decided to run inflammatory headlines accusing LEGO of going “woke” because of uhh… the new 2023 LEGO Friends reboot, which has the audacity to depict characters with limb differences, Down’s Syndrome, neurodiversity and uh… anxiety as being woke?
I’m anxious most of the time, so I really appreciate LEGO’s representation of my manic state of mind in minidoll form.
Let’s not even get into a debate about what “woke” even means, but apparently LEGO’s depiction of Autumn, one of the main characters in the new LEGO Friends reboot which has a limb-difference is “woke” now?
How dare you! Why would LEGO, the beloved toy brand start brainwashing kids into thinking that people with limb differences, Down’s Syndrome and more are normal, and exist out in society?
Anyway, I did my own research, as many people commenting on Fox News and right-wing media love to say, and apparently, LEGO is a Danish company!
Turns our the Danes (and most European countries) believe in crazy “woke” things like free healthcare, gender equality, social welfare, unemployment benefits, free education, human rights, and absolutely insane things like 52 weeks of paid parental leave!
And get this, Denmark (and most other Scandinavian countries) consistently rank as one of the world’s happiest countries. Go woke, go broke, amirite?
If Fox News and The Telegraph were capable of any form of journalism, they would also know that LEGO is one of the most progressive companies on the planet, and they take this stuff super seriously.
Here’s a list of 15 examples of LEGO being an awesomely progressive company.
- LEGO’s consistent message of gender equality when it comes to play
- LEGO promoting Renewable Energy with the Vestas Wind Turbine. Twice
- Taking a stand against racism and inequality
- Everyone is Awesome
- Removing Gender Bias In Toys
- MRI Machines for Kids
- Making sets based on other cultures
- LEGO City Minifigure Gender Equality
- LEGO Wheelchairs
- LEGO Prosthetic Leg
- LEGO minifigures and minidolls with Vitiligo
- LEGO Electric Vehicles
- Blind LEGO Minifigures and Seeing-Eye Dogs
- Plastic to Paper – fully recyclable packaging
- Carbon Neutral and Taking Action on Climte
1. LEGO’s consistent message of gender equality when it comes to play
Turns out, LEGO have been championing gender equality in their marketing material forever, advocating that it’s okay for girls to play with spaceships, and for boys to play with dolls.
Creativity and play isn’t bound by gender, who knew?
2. LEGO promoting Renewable Energy with the Vestas Wind Turbine. Twice
When I visited Denmark last year, the countryside was awash with Wind Turbines, something that Right Wing Media seem to hate because they don’t produce carbon dioxide and other nasty gasses that accelerate Climate Change.
Denmark is one of the world leaders in Wind Power, with close to 50% of energy consumption coming from Wind Energy.
It’s so bad that LEGO released not one, but two sets based on Vestas Wind Turbines. Madness.
3. Taking a stand against racism and inequality
During the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, LEGO made a commitment to stand together with the Black community against racism and inequality and that we would donate to organizations dedicated to supporting Black children and educating all children about racial inequality.
4. Everyone is Awesome
I sure hope the intrepid journalists at Fox News don’t find out about 40516 Everyone is Awesome and LEGO’s commitment to embedding Diversity and Inclusion into all levels of their organisation.
Truly gnarly stuff, this woke mindset of championing equality and ensuring diverse voices and backgrounds are represented in The LEGO Group.
5. Removing Gender Bias In Toys
In 2021, LEGO made a commitment to systematically remove Gender Bias and harmful stereotypes from their products and marketing, a deceitful attack on conversative norms our ways of life.
Who knew girls could play with City sets and boys could also play with Friends sets? What’s next, suggesting that women can be paid the same as men in the workplace?
6. MRI Machines for Kids
LEGO also does some terribly evil things to alleviate the anxiety (anxiety is woke according to Fox) of kids who have to undergo MRI procedures by donating specialised MRI-machine LEGO sets to hospitals and radiology departments.
And this initiative is entirely volunteer-driven too. Disgusting.
7. Making sets based on other cultures
LEGO are also responsible for undermining Western Civilisation™️ by producing sets catered to other cultural celebrations like the beloved Chinese Traditional Festival theme.
8. LEGO City Minifigure Gender Equality
Wokeness has also found its way to LEGO City, which apparently is filled with Liberal latte-sipping elites, who believe in things like Gender Equality.
This extends to modern LEGO City sets now having much more balanced genders in minifigures, and consistent depiction of female minifigures doing regular “dangerous” jobs like putting out fires, or chasing down criminals.
The audacity of LEGO to suggest that women are capable of the same things as manly alpha males.
9. LEGO Wheelchairs
LEGO have also dared to depict LEGO minifigures using wheelchair, and in their latest slide into woke depravity, are now even producing LEGO Dogs in Wheelchairs.
It’s absolute woke insanity to suggest that disabled people have the same rights to mobility and living a normal life, much less depict them in toys meant for children 🤢
10. LEGO Prosthetic Leg
LEGO even went one step further in 2022 by introducing a minifigure with a prosthetic leg!
Never mind why LEGO’s new minifigure is so important for representation, this is absolute tyranny to suggest that those without able bodies can live a life of dignity and partake in regular activities such as going to the supermarket.
11. LEGO minifigures and minidolls with Vitiligo
LEGO’s ongoing rampage to depict skin conditions like Vitiligo in minifigures in sets like 21337 Table Football has clearly gone too far.
What next, having the audacity to suggest that vision-impaired people should feature as toys?
13. Blind LEGO Minifigures and Seeing-Eye Dogs
Damnit LEGO, you’ve gone too far!
12. LEGO Electric Vehicles
Let’s not forget LEGO championing electric vehicles, charged by solar panels, all with the aim of destroying the petrol car industry. How are these cars going to run at night or when the sun don’t?? Huh??
14. Plastic to Paper – fully recyclable packaging
LEGO is also at war against single-use plastics, and have caved into Environmental Terrorists who insist that we reduce our use of single-use plastics.
LEGO’s wokeness in championing this will effect us all, as LEGO begin swapping over plastic bags with recyclable paper bags in sets from 2023 onwards.
15. Carbon Neutral and Taking Action on Climate
If that wasn’t bad enough, LEGO are also active combatants in the Climate Wars, and are doing as much as they can to reduce their carbon footprint, taking action on Climate and other wacky environmental initiatives, all in the name of Conserving and preserving our beautiful planet.
What next, appointing Greta Thunberg as LEGO CEO? I wouldn’t put it past woke LEGO to do so!
Please note, this article is purely satirical, and LEGO needs to be commended for the incredible work they’re doing with the new LEGO Friends reboot, and championing diversity and inclusion in the toys they make.
Check out the new range of 2023 LEGO Friends sets, or read some of my reviews below!
- Review: LEGO 41730 Autumn’s House
- Review: LEGO 41741 Dog Rescue Van
- Review: LEGO Friends 41732 Downtown Flower and Design Stores
Or if you’re into awesome LEGO sets, check out my new review of 10316 The Lord of the Rings: Rivendell!
To get the latest LEGO news and LEGO Reviews straight in your inbox, subscribe via email, or you can also follow on Google News, or socials on Facebook, Instagram (@jayong28), Twitter or subscribe to the Jay’s Brick Blog Youtube channel.
Canada and Australia are complete jokes. They are authoritarian regimes with a GDP less than 3/4 of the United States of America.
Sorry, can’t hear you over our free healthcare, lack of mass shootings and superior living wages.
You morons elected Donald Trump, then replaced him with someone who barely remembers his own name.
The leaders of the Western world , very scary!
Wow Jay, your excellent article really stirred up the lego community. Be nice to get back to the reviews and talking about Lego.
As an American, I agree with our countrie’s stupidity. (You know it’s bad when an American admits it) Also, Trump wasn’t bad, everyone was just mad at him because we “offended” people on Twitter. As for Biden, few people ever liked him, he only got elected because there was foul play with the voting ballots. While we definitely have a good system, the people here are just a huge mess. :/
One of the biggest jokes about the entire thing, is that FOX continues to keep the “NEWS” part in it’s name, it’s nothing more than a giant Right Wing OP-Ed, trying to stir their followers up and get them angry at something so they don’t notice that they too are being screwed over.
Anyways, Lego is great, I’m sure they will keep doing their thing and I’m glad for it.
Fox News is the only one brave enough to tell the truth!
Fox News, CNN, I pity you poor fools in the late, great USA. Now I know why you have no idea what is going on in the world…..
This is Onion levels of snark 😂 Get ’em, Jay! Great post!
You may want to check haw woke Denmark is when over 90% of the country is white heterosexual. Isn’t it easy not to be gender or race biased when there are no people to give that bias to? Denmark is nowhere near the utopia you make it seem. LEGO is in business to sell LEGOS. If demand is there, they will fill it. If it doesn’t sell production will stop. Instead of being woke, i suggest you wake up.
When was the last time you got a stamp on your passport?
Find God.
We built the Lego City school last week. Loved hearing my children talk about how the figure in the wheel chair fit in and finding ways to play through that characters experience. What a great way to learn empathy and understanding. Go LEGO! Take my money!
Eso es la maravilla de LEGO. Sigamos adelante!
If they are going to start pushing WOK we are done!!! They never pushed the other way!
WOKs are great for stir frying.
this fucking sucks
I have to say some of legos finest minifigures in my collection are females, the queen of the lion knights castle, last years Ninjago (swirly water legs) Nya, and now the Falconer from the latest cfm.
As a collector who just picks up one or 2 big sets a year, it doesn’t matter if the figs are males or females, it’s more about how well the figures are done. The theme of the set I chose is based on my interests and there’s a lot I don’t care for, but I take no issue with. If you dont like a set – buy a different one, I think there’s more choice now than ever.
But seriously…. Stop moaning or find a new hobby.
Don’t forget Chell from Portal and Aloy from Horizon!
Great post!
this website should go back to lego leaks, reviews. such articles is not needed and promotes hate!
Don’t tell me what I can or can’t do with my site.
Good on ya Jay, love your work dude 👍
Cheers!
If Lego want to do modern world sets that appeal to a large audience and reflect the diversity of today’s society then that’s fine…my issue is when they give us a set with a historical theme and then jam gender equality into that.
Lion Knight’s castle is an obvious example where half of the knights have lipstick and eyelashes (yes an easy fix as you can replace the heads and in fact the helmets hide the gendered faces quite well). They also failed to provide a king to go with the queen so you’re literally forced to have your castle ruled by a strong independent woman unless you have a king sitting around from another set.
If equality is really the goal a king should have been included and they should have either gone with the classic nongendered smiley faces like the Galaxy Explorer or provided extra male/female heads like the Foosball table so the end builder can make up their own mind. Instead they want $600AUD to preach to us…
Pirates of Barracuda Bay was actually pretty good as it gave us a couple of female minifigs that suited the theme (and there were famous female pirates) but the majority were male which suited the theme. If Lion Knight’s Castle had had a Joan of Arc type warrior fig no one would have blinked but 50% female warriors for a set clearly based on Medieval European traditions is a bit much.
Yes, this was another example of actual wokeness in Lego set designs (unlike, say, applying some environmentalism, principles that predate wokeness by nearly 100 years), but again, I don’t think most people were bothered by it because it’s just silly, like female trash collectors in every trash collector vehicle. Non-woke people won’t care and so Lego still makes a pretty buck. But wokes will feel all warm and fuzzy inside about buying a product for political reasons, so Lego wins one way or the other. It doesn’t make Lego a woke company, it’s just smart capitalism. Disney is an example of a woke company, Lego hasn’t actually made the moves to qualify.
10305 has a medieval theme yes, but I’d suggest the presence of a wizard a bit more ahistorical than female knights :p
I absolutely agree. Brilliant set but if you can’t see it as woke then you must be blind imho
this post. i like it *throws cup to floor* some more, please.
Reminds me of a quote in a Scott The Woz video lol
Well-constructed article, but unfortunately almost none of this is actually “woke” as meant by an average English-speaking Western. I think “progressive” is probably more difficult to pin-down, but “woke” implies the lens of institutional racism and “seeing” how everything is a structural impediment on those in alleged intersectional disadvantages. Simply representing the world as-it-is by including a female police officer, a blind individual, or a disabled dog isn’t in any way “woke.” Allowing that some boys will play with doll houses and some girls with vehicles is not at all woke–boys have played with dolls and girls with vehicles since those things existed, it is stating the obvious. Nor is marketing to a variety of cultures or sub-cultures–that’s just smart capitalism. I’ll grant this, the *over*-representation of, say, females in trash collection vehicles is indeed woke, because it deliberately misrepresents an industry dominated by males. It just happens that most people don’t care about this–and Lego knows this well.
If Lego was seriously woke and not just interested in expanding their market and making more money wherever they can, they would stop producing the Police line, they would jettison the yellow minifig, they would make a Wyldestyle movie rather than an Emmet movie, at least halve the male-to-female ration in say, Ninjago (but basically all their boy-aimed merch and programming in their history), and they would limit their reach in places where injustices are taking place by closing stores, pulling inventory from non-Lego stores, etc. In effect, that they don’t shows that they are more interested in getting money from those who are woke by presenting themselves as progressive where they know they can get away with it without offending the normies who buy Lego not for political reasons but because it’s a great toy.
I believe that is exactly what Jay is trying to point out with his satire. So much of what Fox News and the conservatives they are intentionally playing to to create faux outrage is not actual wokeness, but just a more equal representation of the way the world exist. Here in the US (and even some other countries) there is a battle by conservatives against anything that doesn’t cast the white, straight, Christian, man—and to a lesser extent, woman—as the main hero of the narrative. Anything that threatens those as the primary focus— whether it’s strong females, racial diversity, LGBTQI+ representation, etc—is automatically deemed “woke”.
While I’d agree the headline of the FN piece is stupid (although in the segment they mostly suggest wokeness is pressuring Lego, rather than claim Lego is woke), the rest of your comment is very inaccurate. The people decrying wokeness come in all genders, colors and sexual orientations. Peopke like Tim Pool, Candice Owen, Larry Elder, Dave Rubin, etc. are some of the loudest voices decrying wokeness. Wokeness concerns perceiving injustice against groups that has to be corrected basically by the opposite discrimination (i.e. at minimum overrepresenting or reversing or toppling power structures). So it has nothing to do with a focus on any demographic. That’s literally gaslighting and basically the very strategy woke people take to diminish any explorations of its pitfalls. That’s also the issue with Jay’s post, for anyone paying attention. It assumes that of course Lego is woke, because that’s of course the right position to take. Except wokeness is not represented by almost any of the liberal or progressive positions enumerated. Jay is associating wokeness with them as if it’s OK to be woke because it’s merely being cool with disabled people or with protecting the environment. But wokeness is a disguised form of hate and jealousy, so it’s the opposite of liberal, inclusive or tolerant.
Yup, to many of us that live elsewhere in the world, equality, human rights and the freedom to let people be themselves is a normal way of life.
So far, just about every self-proclaimed liberal term for being progressive has been taken up and reinterpreted sarcastically by right-wingers. Nothing new about that.
Your approach to this piece is why I love reading your blog. Well done…
Brilliant article, I hope it has been shared with those companies. Lego does great work and I love how inclusive they are.
Great article Jay… as a girl!! I can’t believe it took me decades to realise I was playing with a Boy’s Toy !!! Just immersed myself in playful fun & creativity.
Well said!!! Thank you!
Living in Denmark (after decades in the US) is a startling reminder how weird the States can be on so many things. Sometimes you’re so close to the problem, you forget it’s not a problem for everyone.
This is a wonderful post.
¡¡Saludos, Jay’s Brick Blog!! Aprovecho este reportaje para felicitarte por tus escritos. Muchos amigos en México somos fanáticos de Lego, y nos asombramos por todos los detalles que nos platicas en cada reportaje…
Espero que nadie se moleste por hablarles en español, pero si activan el traductor automático no deberían tener dificultades para leer este mensaje, gracias a todos por «Reconstruir el Mundo» =) ¡¡Hasta Luego, Viva Lego!!
Sorry Jay, I know this is an area near and dear to you and to be fair I didn’t actually watch the clip, I’m not a fan of Fox News, but I think LEGO is becoming a little “woke.” Cue the appropriate levels of outrage.
While I love the wind turbines, I also really miss the Shell sets – I thought LEGO was jumping the woke shark there, especially considering their speed champion line. Love the diversity angle, but I also thought “wheelchair dog” was ridiculous. LEGO are definitely sailing close to the woke wind and jumping on anyone that thinks that maybe we don’t need amputee/paraplegic animals in a core vet set, kind of proves the critics right. Now of course, no one needs to buy a set they don’t like, but they’re also allowed to say they don’t like them.
Also just quietly, having worked in Denmark for a number of years, it might be socially progressive in some respects, but it’s also a very very racist and insular society.
I agree. Europe is not as good as people make it to be!
That’s because by-and-large Europe is full of welfare capitalism that doesn’t quite work and requires private options only the very wealthiest can afford and meanwhile in my repeat experience too many people are still racist and xenophobic (although not as much as some other regions, particularly China, which is probably the worst). The USA is the least racist and most equitable society I’ve been in, and I say that being well-traveled and not native to this country. Despite that, it is chuck-full of woke forces seeking to tear it down. It’s reasonable to get weary of wokeness; wokeness is invariably divisive, dishonest, illiberal, tiresome, and ultimately destructive. Lego would do well to toe the line without crossing it.
USA is least racist??? And Putin is an enlightened humanitarian.
Least racist and most equitable society? What state do you live in? Denial?
Can you name a more equitable society with the ridiculous high standard of living enjoyed even by the working poor? I’ve never been to Australia, granted, but I’ve been around Europe to seen its ghettos and pockets of immigrant communities. I’ve been to parts of Asia and have seen the heart-breaking poverty there. I’ve been to Soith America and Mexico and the contrast between rich and poor is astonishing. Where is the more equitable place ? The only places the the USA where you see things like those are the woke-run cities that have state-sponsored injection sites, executive powers that literally favor criminals over victims, and keep throwing cash at the homeless without any end-goals And seriously, in terms of racial relations, there is no country in the world as self-conscious if its past and actually racially integrated and welcoming. I have not seen it, anywhere.
Sorry about the typing errors, I’m using my phone–and poorly. Anyway, I won’t continue a neverending barrage of comments. I appreciate that you have allowed for my viewpoint, which is more than a lot on the political left do nowadays. This is your Lego blog, so I’m going to let you have the last word and bow out.
I’m not sure if you have children, but my kids love “wheelchair dog”. The point of playing with a vet set is to help sick and injured animals. I applaud LEGO for the addition of “differently-abled” figures. It’s a great way to start conversations with children who are often confused or frightened when encountering these situations. My oldest daughter had cancer a few years ago. She was bald, in a wheelchair, & had a feeding tube. Some children said innocent, but hurtful things to her. Other comments were intentionally mean.
Any company that makes an attempt to encourage people to be more accepting of each other should be applauded, not labeled “woke”.
Dropping Shell was probably a good decision. It doesn’t come across well, actively supporting a business model based on draining finite resources.
As long as you demand oil to build LEGO’s and transport then across the world, their is no need to discriminate against people working in the natural resource extraction field. In fact you should be encouraging them as they are operating at a much cleaner environmentally way than say a Indian or Chinese oil company. LEGO’s are an oil based product/plastic and take around 1,300 years to degrade. LEGO has produced 60,000,000,0000 pieces which we actively consume. They are shipped in ocean liners which are one of the most polluting industries in the world and then go down the road in a truck burning fossil fuels to make it to your house. Legos and windmills are made in China which uses Uyghur slave labor extensively. The Chinese literally bussed Uyghurs to factories and made them work as slaves in the height of Covid to produce more crap to sell to the world produced from coal fired electrical plants. The west is as much to blame as anyone else and the constant rhetoric about how we are saving the world by “green consumerism” is beyond comprehension. I challenge all of you to peel back the onion and look deeper than the marketing and the latest fad to make you feel good about consuming.
You have drank the cool aid my friend.
I personally like the new Lego Friends. I find the unique personalities an aide in distinguishing each character. Lego may be getting “woke,” but it is not in Lego Friends from what I’ve seen. The rainbow in “Everyone is Awesome” and the Queer Eye sets promote, well, queerness, which I suppose is officially “woke,” if there is such a thing.
Hear, hear. Well done. All of the items you’ve depicted here are SO EFFING COOL. I didn’t even know about some of them and now I want them all.
Loving this response to the insanity so much! Thank you!
Lego should make some Jewish themed Lego sets like a menorah set for example
Lego avoids explicit religious references in their sets.
There’s been a minifigure produced of modern Batwoman Kate Kane, though. (Probably some more fictional and real-life Jewish persons, as well. Although I have trouble coming up with examples, as of now. Stan Lee was made a digital minifig, but not an actual minifig, yet.
Also Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, and Ben Urich, apparently.
And Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza… And Steven Spielberg…
And I guess Magneto is mostly written as Jewish, nowadays, although he has also been claimed to be Romani…
Don’t forget Woman of NASA 21312
Such a great article, really highlights both just how stupid the conservative rhetoric is and just how awesomely progressive Lego is.
There is nothing wrong with conservatism. Some things are better to be conserved rather than change into unrecognizable form!
You’ve hit the nail on the head… you and others don’t/ won’t or just don’t want to ‘tackle’ that there are differences amongst all people… it’s seems much easier to keep it all conservative and same old… unfortunately that makes it ever increasingly difficult for diverse people to go about their everyday.
I’m going to guess you’re American and somehow believe that acknowledging the diversity that actually exists in people is “woke”. Your culture wars are really demonstrating how many conservatives are actually just angry racists trying to pretend it’s the 1950s.
Post the video links of where Fox News bashed Lego for those issues… I’ll wait… they have praised Lego several times for being a toy that everybody can play with but yeah ok
Easy to find:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fox-lego-woke-down-syndrome-b2287742.html
Best column. I am thankful to be Canadian. We may not be as progressive as Scandinavia but we are not the late, great USA.
Great article mate.
the USA is the only ones with normal minds!
Fox News was speaking the truth! The original style was much better! Its not needed to see grotesque figures in the lego world !
Calling other human beings gross.
I think you really need to rethink your humanity as you seem to have misplaced it somewhere.
If we wanted armless minifigures, we could just–you know–pull the arms off.😉 My 00s minifigs are very inclusive.
The only grotesque thing here is your views.
Grotesque????? You are scaring me with you narrow world view. This is reality my friend…….hardly Grotesque.
It would be much better for lego to make normal figures instead of deformed figures. The missing arm is just a scam as we are paying full price but get less product! The paper bags are horrible and get paper stuck in the studs all shredded! Its much better to have the original plastic package which had no problems! The “everyone is awesome” is horrible. It is meant to be the song from the lego movie!
Hi Jay. Shame on you, mate: You’re showing yourself as ‘woke’ with this funny-but-scary-that-you-need/want-to-even-write-this post. My question is: Why aren’t Fox News and The Telegraph even 10% as ‘woke’ as LEGO. This was by far the funniest(/scariest) post of yours I’ve read. Thank you!
Nice work Jay.
Fox’s agenda is something else, I won’t use the appropriate words to describe it in this family friendly environment
Great article, Jay!
I fear SOME Americans will miss the satire and sarcasm entirely, and “agree” with a lot of your strong points!
😅🤦♂️
There will always be a “but” for people who don’t like the idea of other races, genders and full representation, currently that ‘but’ has a term known as ‘woke’. It’s not new, just another term to undermine another living human being.
Nice article.
Are you saying an all black concreting crew must hate whites, gays, trans etc etc. and not consider them human beings. You sound like the one that is not considering people as human beings because you don’t see representation of a particular colour etc That mate is the definition of woke. Sick
I think there’s a fine line between being inclusive and sexuality based content in today’s woke world. As long as they don’t start including sexuality targeted… toys… for children… there’s nothing wrong with it, its very positive even.
They should give options though, like a spare full arm for the amputee girl. Maybe she doesn’t want to be reminded her arm is broken.
Generally speaking, this is a pretty easy to understand idea.. there’s only one complication, if you have underage kids yourself, who are not ready for such topics, yet are so easily exposed to this in alot of media these days. As a parent, you have to be quite careful ive found. But if i wasn’t a parent of younger kids.. absolutely its positive and awesome.
Not sure if you are trying to say if TLG’s progressiveness is a slippery slope argument or not. Are you suggesting that TLG is already making sets that have obvious signals about sex. Are you suggesting sets like Everyone Is Awesome or Queer Eye are exposing children to topics about sex or sexuality? If so those sets aren’t anymore blatant about the subject than the hundreds if not thousands of sets that included (assumed) heterosexual couples and characters. As far as I know LEGO has yet to make a set that refers to sexual acts. The closest would be the introduction the baby minifigures. That should raise more questions than having to explain that some people love the opposite gender/sex, some people love the same gender/sex, and even some people love all genders/sexes. Even the sets targeting the adult crowd come no where near being explicit about sex. Sexual identity (who you love) is not the same a sex (what you do with them in the privacy of your home). I don’t think LEGO will be going down that road any time soon, if ever.
No. not at all. I think the worst they could do is “make a statement” somehow. But even that would look insanely bad as im sure they are still fundamentally making childrens toys.
I think i almost can imagine what you’re trying to get at (even though i probably dont), but trust me, when you have kids, there’s no political correctness, logical correctness, doesn’t matter in the face of keeping them safe, or raising them in a protected environment. When they come of age, they of course will do themselves, and society will lead them forward also, but until then its actually a negative while they still need you as parents like that.
So if anything, there’s more going on with this topic rather than just the primary subject matter that are still impacted by these types of decisions. And no, i don’t think lego has crossed the line yet, or will ever do.
Many Americans loathe Fox news and believe in a lot of the same things Europeans do. Jay you are awesome
– please don’t use Fox News as a barometer for what Americans believe. As far as Fox News and The Telegraph – let them show their true colors!
Price progressive company…
Finally someone who gets it!
Cheers for the insights, Jay. I’d not even stopped to think about whether Lego was being “woke” – it seemed to me they were just trying to broaden their reach by including minifigures and scenarios that more people could relate to. Sounds like good business sense to me. The children in my extended family play with them as naturally as they always have, which I guess ultimately is the whole point.
On a personal level, as someone who has to have regular MRIs, I’d love one of those sets ;). I’m also not sold on the paper bags (not that I’ve actually seen any yet). Paper manufacture and disposal still creates environmental impact, and these are single-use bags. Personally I bag up my sets in ziplock bags when I take them apart, and I would have preferred Lego take that position (like they do in Bricks & Pieces and the generic GWP packaging) as the packaging can be re-used.
Very well done Jay. Thank you for informing us of the efforts Lego has made.
Great rebuttal Jay!
Maybe some day FOX will ‘woke’ up.
Fabulous response and 100% on point! 👏
Awesome! I’ve known Lego was cool, and have been a lifelong fan ever since I stepped on my first brick barefoot 50 years ago. 😉
Great article / response Jay!