By Gwen C. Katz
Being an American adult of a certain age, I own a lot of LEGO. They were a standard Christmas-and-birthday gift throughout my childhood (space LEGOs were the favorite), and we still pick up a couple of new sets every year.
Continual evolution is one of the key’s to LEGO’s longstanding success. New lines get introduced and retired on the regular. But in the past few years, a subtle but marked trend has popped up that denotes a major shift in the company’s history. We see it in sets like Beach Cleanup and Dog Rescue Center. In a deeply unusual move, LEGO is releasing sets that actively promote engaged prosocial civic behavior. There are now LEGO sets that not only model things you could do, but things you should do.
Why is LEGO telling us to pick up garbage? And who is LEGO telling to pick up garbage? On one level, of course, the answer is “anyone who wants a sea otter figure, ie, everyone.” But to really answer the question, we need to examine the lines involved, which requires us to step back and look at LEGO’s history—specifically, its complex history with gender. In this article, I’ll be focusing specifically on two LEGO lines: LEGO City and LEGO Friends.
In LEGO’s early days in the mid-20th century, it was simply a building toy, similar to Erector sets and other popular toys of the era. You could build things with it, but there was a limited amount of play you could do with the completed car or house (or jumble of bricks a child likes to pretend is a car or house). Then came two major changes. First, in 1975, LEGO introduced the minifig. It was now possible for LEGO sets to have stories and characters—which meant that LEGO had to make a proactive decision about which stories and which characters.
Then, in 1980, Ronald Reagan deregulated the FTC, opening the door for targeted advertising towards children. Toy companies increased profits by splitting both toys and children’s TV—much of which had been gender-neutral during the egalitarian 70s with shows like Scooby-Doo—into strict “boys’” and “girls’” categories. LEGO had to, quite literally, pick a side of the aisle. They chose boys. Over the course of the 80s, they moved from the gender-neutral marketing of the 60s and 70s to the boy-focused advertising that was ubiquitous in the 90s.
When LEGO first split into separate lines in 1978, this focus was apparent. Two of the initial trio of lines (Castle and Space) were focused on stereotypically-male interests. The third—LEGO Town, which was later renamed LEGO City—is one of the lines we’ll be looking at.
LEGO City is a bit of an odd duck. Ostensibly the slice-of-life line depicting realistic scenes, it also functions as a catch-all for sets that don’t belong anywhere else and don’t merit an entire line of their own. As a result, it often seems like LEGO doesn’t know what a city is. Still, having run continuously for almost 50 years, City remains the go-to for realistic role play sets. Its choices about what to depict or not depict set the tone for who LEGO’s primary audience is intended to be. Especially in its early years, a heavy focus on construction and emergency vehicles, a shortage of female-coded minifigs (although there is a female ambulance driver), and complete ethnic homogeneity draw pretty clear lines about who these sets were intended for. (You can see LEGO Town’s original 1978 lineup here.)
This created an opening for a LEGO product aimed at girls. Other companies were quick to edge in on this market, such as Mega Bloks, with its LEGO-compatible Fantasy line. LEGO made several abortive attempts to fill this gap: the fun-in-the-sun LEGO Paradisa, the Barbie-inspired LEGO Scala, and LEGO Belville, which managed to last for 15 years but never enjoyed much popularity.
These lines failed for mostly similar reasons: Incompatibility with standard LEGO sets (Scala even had incompatible pips), sets with large custom pieces that weren’t much fun to build and were difficult to reuse, and marketing that seemed inspired by SNL’s Chess for Girls.
But in 2012, LEGO finally struck gold with LEGO Friends. While it was announced with great fanfare as a bold move for gender inclusivity the initial launch of LEGO Friends retreaded a lot of the same ground as its predecessors: A completely gender-segregated world, a custom style of minifigs (notably called “dolls,” not the standard term “minifigures”), and overwhelmingly stereotypical girly activities like fashion and baking. But, importantly, the toys were at the same scale with other LEGOs and featured sets that were interesting to build. “Unlike previous LEGO toys for girls, LEGO Friends, at its core, does not apologize for being a construction toy,” says a spokesperson in the original press release, going on to say that LEGO Friends offers “beauty, details, accessories, real world themes and…strong interior play.” An accompanying TV series (drawing on the success of the previous year’s Ninjago TV show) created multiple entry points to get girls interested.
I recall finding LEGO Friends deeply cringey when it was first announced, and revisiting the initial lineup, I feel vindicated that it’s just as bad as I remembered (even the damn animals had eyeliner). And I wasn’t the only one. The announcement met with literal facepalms in feminist circles. But internet feminists are not actually the drivers of LEGO sales, and 2012 was not 1994. 90s girl power had largely fizzled out in favor of the gender-regressive attitude that girls should be actively encouraged towards stereotypical activities and away from gender-divergent ones, buoyed by the YA boom. Girls and their parents bought LEGO Friends, and they bought it in spades. LEGO’s sales shot up by almost a quarter. Finally LEGO had a line for girls that was a hit.
But I was surprised when I checked out the current LEGO Friends lineup. These actually look…fun? Were we too hasty in our initial assessment, or did LEGO change?
Some of each, but primarily the latter.
Unlike previous attempts, LEGO iterated on the Friends idea. In 2018, realizing that their original release was conspicuously white, they quietly tweaked the core cast’s designs; Olivia went from white to Latina and gained glasses, while Emma and Andrea’s eyes turned from green to brown. LEGO has also launched several sister lines with the same style of minifigs. While some of these, like LEGO Disney Princess, served to further entrench gender roles, others expanded girls’ play options, including the epic-fantasy LEGO Elves and a crossover with DC’s empowerment-focused Super Hero Girls.
Last year, LEGO relaunched the LEGO Friends line with a major overhaul. The purple logo with a heart and butterfly was replaced with a multicolored logo, and the pastel purple box art became dark teal. Replacing the all-female blonde-brunette-redhead-Asian-Black chick lineup is a more diverse cast of five girls and three boys. Half the characters are people of color and one has a prosthetic. And several characters go against gender stereotypes, such as a gamer girl and a boy who likes cooking. (Although you will never convince me that Nova is straight, there are officially no canonically queer or nonbinary characters as of yet, which makes the much-vaunted Everything Is Awesome rainbow set a bit of an empty promise.) While the original LEGO Friends line felt like a corporate boardroom’s idea of what would appeal to girls (beauty parlors! purple convertibles!), the new LEGO Friends feels much more like a genuine attempt to find out what kids are actually like and what toys would appeal to them.
We see the difference in the sets, too. The firehose of pink and purple has given way to a palette of saturated secondary colors with a lot of orange, lime green, and light blue. The expected shopping mall and horseback riding sets are there, but so are Sea Rescue Plane and Mars Space Base and Rocket. And, thank God, no more eyelashes on rabbits.
But the biggest shift was in the marketing language. While the original LEGO Friends didn’t make even a cursory nod to the idea that boys might also play with the toys, the new LEGO Friends doesn’t single out girls at all. The website advertises “There are LEGO® Friends toys for boys and girls alike!”
What happened? It all goes back to a survey on gendered play that LEGO conducted in 2021. They found that three-quarters of parents would recommend LEGOs to a son, while only a quarter would recommend them to a daughter, and that parents were vastly more likely to encourage girls than boys to engage in activities like dress-up and baking. The urge to say “The call is coming from inside the house” is overwhelming—this was less than a decade since LEGO proudly rolled out their line of baking and dress-up sets for girls—but the important thing is that LEGO acted on the results and announced that they would no longer market particular toys at girls or boys—a big shockwave to LEGO Friends in particular.
LEGO’s marketing materials follow through on this promise. LEGO’s Toys for Boys page includes a section of LEGO Friends Toys for Boys, which says “kids with all kinds of passions can dive into a world of storytelling with LEGO Friends.” Additionally, Castle Bed And Breakfast is listed under “Cool toys for boys” and “Top birthday gifts for kids aged 3+” includes Dog Rescue Center. Toys for Girls lists about the same number of LEGO Friends sets—one main section and a couple of others scattered throughout the site. Its LEGO City section also includes unexpected picks like Yellow Construction Excavator and Construction Steamroller.
But is this a genuine shift towards gender inclusivity or is it just lip service? I examined the marketing images on LEGO’s website. Of the 64 LEGO Friends products currently available, 49 showed girls or femme-presenting people playing with the sets, just two (both car sets) showed boys or masc-presenting people, and 13 showed both (often an adult man with a girl, implicitly a dad and daughter playing together). And remember, all these sets were rolled out after LEGO’s pledge.
What about LEGO City? While it fares better, 46 of its 88 available products show boys or masc-presenting people, 16 show girls or femme-presenting people, 19 show both, and 8 show neither. Some of the sets depicting girls go against gender stereotypes, such as 4×4 Fire Truck with Rescue Boat or Express Passenger Train. The sets themselves have also made progress. While femme-coded minifigs were hard to find when I was a kid (my sister and I once rebelled by drawing lipstick on our minifigs with a red Sharpie, an act that a gender studies department could spend an entire semester dissecting), almost all the larger sets now include women. Some are shown in stereotype-defying roles. There are female drivers in sets like Race Car and Car Carrier Transport and Emergency Ambulance and Snowboarder—and boys are shown playing with them. Sets like Holiday Camper Van depict families and babies. They’ve also introduced more sets with “girly” themes and colors that might once have been relinquished to LEGO Friends, like Penguin Slushy Van.
But LEGO City lags behind Friends in other areas. It’s still incredibly difficult to find traditional-style minifigs of color outside of licensed sets where they represent specific actors; the current LEGO City lineup contains no minifigs of color that I noticed. And while LEGO has introduced traditional minifigs with various disabilities and assistive devices, including hearing aids and seeing-eye dogs, they remain rare, mostly restricted to expensive sets, and concentrated in the LEGO Ideas line—indicating that much of the impetus is coming from outside voices. Where LEGO City does feature disabled people, such as the motor scooter user in Apartment Building, they are often seniors. (BrickNerd has a comprehensive examination of disability representation.)
Overall, we see that LEGO has upheld their pledge in their marketing copy and has taken important strides in the sets themselves in both LEGO Friends and LEGO City. But the marketing images reveal that there’s still a strong undercurrent of assumptions about who plays with what—which becomes important when we consider each line’s educational goals.
If LEGO Friends isn’t for girls anymore, then what is its niche? The answer can’t be “slice of life sets”—LEGO City already has that covered.
LEGO’s answer: Friends teaches social and empathetic play, which LEGO increasingly emphasizes is an important skill for both boys and girls. “[K]ids 6+ can work on their interpersonal skills and grow their emotional awareness through roleplay,” says the website. This focus carries through to the sets themselves. Karaoke Music Party is advertised with “Kids can assemble the details of this fun toy set, then get creative as they invent friendship stories for the characters,” while Leo’s Room says “Teamwork is the key: Olly helps with filming in the bedroom studio.”
Care is an important focus of many of the sets. “Care for the plants: Head to the rooftop garden to water the veggies” says Heartlake City Preschool, while Heartlake City International School has “Help Niko care for the class pet, Bunsen.”
Comparing LEGO Friends sets and their LEGO City counterparts is interesting. Heartlake City Hospital contains copy like “A new prosthetic for Autumn: Autumn comes with an additional face to show her emotions,” while Hospital (introduced in 2022, now retired) advertises “Awesome emergency vehicles.” Both sets feature maternity wards, but Hospital emphasizes the ward’s equipment (“The hospital is equipped and ready for expectant mothers”) while Heartlake City Hospital emphasizes interpersonal play (“Visit the maternity room to congratulate the new parents”). But there are similarities as well: Both sets include helipads described with almost identical language. We see a similar dynamic when comparing Heartlake City Hospital Ambulance with Emergency Ambulance and Snowboarder (both of which involve skate park accidents). Both sets emphasize excitement, role play, and accessories, but the former says “Inspire kids to tell the friendship story of Liann and Ben and the emotions that unfold when Ben injures himself” while the latter advertises “Kids role-play fun stories: Includes a scene depicting a snow-covered skate park.”
These different play goals bring out some probably-unintended undertones to the uneven split of representation. Putting disabled figures primarily in the line intended to teach emotional skills gives the impression that disabled people are present for children to practice empathy on, rather than because they are an ordinary part of any community.
But let’s return to Beach Cleanup. It is a LEGO Friends set. In fact, LEGO Friends advertises that “a selection of sets promote interaction with environmental issues like tree re-planting, animal conservation and electric vehicles,” making civic responsibility the secondary goal of the line. The current Friends lineup features 11 sets primarily centering on social issues, with the environment and animal adoption topping the list. Offerings include Sea Rescue Center, Electric Car and Charger, and Pet Adoption Day.
Why these particular topics? In the first place, they’re a great excuse to make a bunch of new animal figurines. No doubt LEGO also identified these as topics that would create a minimum of controversy—“Aliya interviews a boy as he tries to save the tree and owl” is a safer selling point for Newsroom Van than “Aliya interviews the boy as he protests against white supremacists.” They also lend themselves well to everyday settings and prop-heavy sets that show kids actively doing things; it’s hard to build a LEGO set of “divest your investment portfolio from weapons manufacturers.”
LEGO’s history with environmentalism is as complex as its history with gender. In 2020, they partnered with National Geographic on a line of ocean and jungle sets in both LEGO City and LEGO Friends. But some may find LEGO’s attempts to promote environmental consciousness as hollow as their bricks, given that LEGO has abandoned pledges to make bricks out of sustainable materials and that its durable ABS plastic can endure in the environment for up to 1300 years. After all, the environmental actions their sets promote are small, individual choices like picking up garbage or buying used clothes—they’re staying well away from anything that might disrupt the status quo of, say, a multinational toy company.
The boundaries of prosocial sets versus ordinary sets are indistinct. Old favorites like school and shopping have received prosocial twists, becoming Heartlake International School and Vintage Fashion Store (“Comes with lots of upcycled clothing items to get kids thinking about the planet while they have fun with fashion”). Renewable energy is popping up everywhere—nine LEGO Friends sets feature solar panels or wind turbines, including sets with no other overt environmental themes.
Farm Animal Sanctuary is particularly interesting. Both the copy and the set itself appear to be an ordinary farm set (“Complete jobs around the farm,” “Take the tractor around the farm to harvest produce”). But the name of the set recasts it in a prosocial light. LEGO Friends had begun to explore some of these themes in its original line-up, such as Organic Farm, introduced in 2022, which also featured a solar panel. But most of them are new—for instance, Heartlake City Pet Center (introduced in 2018) features a pet store and vet, but mentions nothing about animal rescue or adoption.
Some of these themes have found their way into LEGO City as well, but to a vastly lesser degree. Four sets feature solar panels. Electric Sports Car is present, but its copy advertises it as a “Futuristic toy sports car” and “A treat for fans of cool cars,” emphasizing that it’s high-tech and cool rather than that it’s socially conscious. (Using cool tech as a stalking horse for environmentalism is, of course, a time-honored strategy. But it stands in contrast to the LEGO Friends sets, which directly advertise their prosocial value.) There are many explorer sets featuring animal figures, like Jungle Explorer Off-Road Truck and Explorer Diving Boat, but all focus on adventure, travel, and discovery (“Kids get to enjoy an immersive building experience before embarking on exciting safari adventures aboard the off-road truck”) with no implication that the animals are in danger or need help. LEGO Friends has no non-rescue explorer sets. One of the few sets that directly mentions environmental themes is Recycling Truck, which says “Kids get to enjoy an immersive build before setting out on imaginative environmental-care adventures.” Of course, it’s also another perennial favorite—a truck set.
In a 2021 interview, designers of environmental-themed sets discussed their goals. Fenella Blaize Charity of LEGO Friends says “We have a responsibility to let kids experiment and learn about topics that they are interested in and celebrate and inspire kids on the way the world could be.” Callan Jay Kemp of LEGO City says “[C]hildren these days already have such a good grasp on the new technologies and environmental needs for the future. With this set we wanted to provide view of a more sustainable future as a playful learning experience.” These similar-yet-different statements illustrate the subtle differences that arise from the two approaches—social versus technological—to the same issues.
Were kids really asking for this? Maybe so. A 2022 poll found that 59% of children and youth are very worried or extremely worried about climate change and 75% find the future frightening. If there ever was a childhood free of worries about problems in the world, it’s gone. Socially conscious toys may help kids feel less helpless in the face of problems that are bigger than them, particularly sets that allow them to role play activities that kids can actually do, like picking up garbage and buying used clothes.
Still, as an adult, I can’t help feeling a little rankled that LEGO, a toy that was traditionally branded as unguided free play, is making a statement about what behaviors are good or bad. But this is misguided; LEGO has been making active statements ever since they began making representational sets, intentionally or not. Cops and robbers is a statement; LEGO’s longstanding commitment to not making modern military sets is a statement.
Sometimes the statement is a very clear one. This is the case with LEGO’s Real-Life Heroes interest category. Unsurprisingly launched in May 2020, it tapped into the “Heroes Work Here” enthusiasm of the early COVID era by rounding up mostly LEGO City sets focusing on firefighters, police, doctors, and nurses. The initial launch page exhorts: “Every story needs a hero, but not every hero has to wear a cape. Kids love to mimic and roleplay the people that occupy a more regular role in their everyday lives.” Some of the choices are puzzling (why is Donut Shop Opening included?), Overall, the tone hews closely to the cultural sentiment of the era, with its emphasis on the heroism of the everyday: “[T]he same doctors and nurses that saves lives also help treat bumps and bruises. Mixing heroic deeds with everyday acts is what makes these real-life heroes both relatable and special to kids.”
Real-Life Heroes still exists, but its focus has shifted as COVID anxiety has waned. Its initial lineup included just one LEGO Friends set (Heartlake City Hospital). But LEGO Friends’ new focus on prosocial play makes it a natural fit for Real-Life Heroes. There are seven Real-Life Heroes sets in the current Friends lineup: Two hospital sets, two dog rescue sets, and three wildlife rescue sets.
Meanwhile, what do Real-Life Heroes look like at LEGO City? Police, police, and more police. The lineup features ten police sets, nine firefighter sets, two emergency rescue sets, and no medical or animal-themed sets—the ambulance set is conspicuously excluded. And some of the selections, like Police Car and Muscle Car Chase or the firefighter with a jetpack, strain the definitions of both “real-life” and “heroes.” By contrast, LEGO Friends has never had a police set of any kind. (The TV series confirms that police do exist in Heartlake City, but also that there’s virtually no crime and they have nothing to do.)
So while both lines promote heroic rescues, they have very different definitions of what makes a hero. In the LEGO Friends universe, a hero is someone who cares for people or animals that need help, while in the LEGO City universe, a hero is someone who braves danger, especially to catch bad guys. It’s noteworthy that several of the fire rescue sets (Fire Rescue Plane and Fire Rescue Helicopter) include fires but no victims, and those that do feature victims usually depict funny scenarios, especially cooking accidents. Only two (Fire Command Truck and Fire Rescue Boat) depicts serious rescue situations. In contrast, all but one of the LEGO Friends Real-Life Heroes feature human or animal victims to help (the arguable exception is Sea Rescue Boat, which features dolphins and trash to collect, but no direct implication that the dolphins are being harmed or need help), and none feature any kind of bad guy character. So Real-Life Heroes reinforces the prosocial, interpersonal goals of LEGO Friends.
All this may seem like what my college writing professor called a TBNI (True But Not Interesting)—of course the toy line designed for social play is the one that promotes prosocial behavior, and on one level, that’s no more surprising than “most of the buildings are in the Architecture line.” But while LEGO has worked hard to rebrand themselves as a gender-neutral toy company, clear gendered undercurrents still remain that make these differences in emphasis much more fraught.
It all comes back to the lack of compatibility. While LEGO Friends and LEGO City are built to the same scale and therefore technically compatible, the different styles of minifigs—a styling choice that extends to animals and other custom sculpts—are glaringly mismatched when placed next to each other. A FAQ question (found at the bottom of the page here) confirms the compatibility, inviting kids to “expand Heartlake City with more LEGO Friends sets, a police or fire station from LEGO City, or a NINJAGO® temple,” but the sets themselves make it clear that that’s not the expected mode of play. After all, there are multiple lines with the LEGO Friends style of minifig—a kid who collects LEGO Friends is clearly expected to expand to LEGO Disney Princess or LEGO Gabby’s Dollhouse, which match seamlessly. Meanwhile, it’s the LEGO City collector who’s expected to also collect NINJAGO, Star Wars, or Marvel.
And then there are the duplicates. There are two electric car sets, two skate park sets, two fast food trucks, two space exploration rover sets, two rescue boats, two rescue planes, a rescue bike and a rescue motorcycle…okay, maybe kids just like rescuing things. Some of the redundancies are uncanny, such as Space Base and Rocket Launchpad versus Mars Space Base and Rocket, or the two skate park accident ambulance rescue sets. Why would LEGO make two nearly-identical ambulances? Because a kid who plays with LEGO Friends is not truly expected to incorporate a LEGO City ambulance, or vice versa.
Of course, real kids may well combine their LEGO sets with their Barbies, army men, and stuffed animals. But what is or isn’t built intentionally to be used together makes a difference. Think of DUPLO—technically it’s compatible with LEGO, but the figures look different and it’s clear that they’re aimed at different audiences. Likewise here, but if the difference in the audiences isn’t age, it’s…hmm, what could it be…
The fact is, LEGO Friends is still mostly bought by or for girls. The gap is narrowing, but it can’t be entirely eliminated as long as LEGO maintains two distinct types of toys.
Once you take into account that LEGO Friends is still mainly sold to girls, bought for girls, and played with by girls, the prosocial messaging—and its restriction primarily to one line—gains more uncomfortable implications. It ties into the long history of women and girls being disproportionately expected to develop empathetic skills and do emotional labor. Making friends of different races and disabilities and understanding multicultural perspectives is expected for girls, but can be ignored for boys. When there’s an emergency, boys can concentrate on the heroics like putting out fires, while girls attend to the victim’s feelings. Boys can go exploring or adventuring outdoors, but girls are there to help animals or clean up. And caring about the environment has long been seen as a women’s issue, which, combined with the omnipresent targeting of consumerism towards women, is a major factor in why green consumption (you know, like vintage fashion and electric cars) is being pushed so heavily as a solution.
So how do we solve these problems? The answer is not, as you might expect, “get rid of LEGO Friends.” While the choice to split LEGO into two types of sets that are only sorta compatible was a dubious one in the first place, the actual line has a lot to recommend it. The mini-doll style of figurine is appealing. The sets are fun to build. Restricting characters of color and disabled characters primarily to one line creates fraught implications, but it’s a positive development to see LEGO making serious attempts to portray diversity. And while these sets are, in practice, mostly given to girls, it’s still meaningful that they depict boys engaging in prosocial behaviors, like Olly helping out at the vintage fashion store and Zac rescuing a stranded whale.
LEGO has made a lot of progress since the days of Belville. While LEGO Friends initially looked like just another insulting, stereotypical attempt to pander to girls, it has since evolved into LEGO’s standard bearer for inclusivity and social responsibility, and LEGO City is slowly but noticeably making progress in its wake. LEGO Friends and LEGO City vividly illustrate the importance of choices large and small in how toys are portrayed, how they are received, and what message they send. Some of these choices have already been made, like updating the cast of LEGO Friends. Others I hope we will see in the future, like introducing minifigs of color to LEGO City. I hope we’ll see LEGO continue to evolve and follow through on their aspirations of gender neutrality and a positive, socially conscious play experience for all.
Preferably one where the rabbits don’t wear eyeliner.
Gwen C. Katz is the lead developer and wolfmaster of Nightwell Games, as well as an author, artist, and former mad scientist. She lives in Pasadena, California with her husband and a revolving door of transient animals. Her upcoming game, Surradia, is a deduction game that unravels the disappearance of three magical artists in interbellum France. You can visit her game studio at nightwellgames.com.