
New LEGO Friends mini-doll with LEGO Alien Defense Unit traditional style mini-figure
In January 2012 the LEGO Group released their “LEGO for girls” line called Friends which includes a series of pink pastel colored kits focused on the lives of 5 Polly Pocket style mini-dolls. In the TV commercials these mini-dolls bake cupcakes, go to the beauty shop and take care of pets. In contrast LEGO produces over a dozen themes marketed primarily to boys which feature aliens, cops and robbers, space battles, knights and pirates. The TV commercials for these LEGO lines focus on action, violence and combat based play scenarios.
I thought a good way to illustrate the absurd gender stereotyping in each set of ads was to drop them into my HTML5 Gendered Advertising Remixer web app. Sure enough the remixing tool produces some hilarious and insightful gender juxtapositions. Read more about this project on the blog and try the remixing LEGO’s commercials for yourself!