Here’s the announcement on LEGO’s Facebook page:
The rumors are true! We are teaming up with DC Comics and Marvel to bring new super hero sets including characters like Batman, Superman, Iron Man, The Hulk, and many others! What hero are you most excited for?
On bricksuperheroes.com, you can see also see photos of Green Lantern, the Joker, Nightwing, Lex Luthor. Superhero sets also include: Robin, the Riddler, Killer, Mr. Freeze, Scarecrow, Bruce Wayne, Mr. Freeze’s Henchman, Bane and Twoface. The females I can find are Wonder Woman, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, Poison Ivy, and Hawkgirl. That’s 17 male characters to 5 female ones. Please let me know if you find anymore!
At least there are 5 females, and I would advocate buying these for your kids, but I am so annoyed with LEGO for its hyper-sexist Friends sets that I can’t support this company.
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There are girl characters in Seuss, movie makers simply choose to ignore them! Or they inject sexism that wasn’t originally there, as in The Lorax. There are good, well-known stories about girls that could be made into movies, but unfortunately not as many comic book heroines, (although my daughter seconded Raven, Lightning Lass, and Triplicate Girl).
Lego doesn’t generally create characters, just takes recognizable ones and turns them into products. I suppose, if they can create the Friends line they could make up a girl superhero, or base a toy around a more obscure one, but they are pretty much limiting their selection to characters from movies and tv shows, and sadly there aren’t many female characters there. It’s a frustrating cycle, no female characters…because there are no female characters.
Hi Lesley,
There are some females in Seuss but WAY more males. LEGO created characters, it made up all the personalities for its Friends line. I absolutely agree about the frustrating cycle.
MM
My daughter is 11 and loves Legos. She is very architecturally inclined and usually builds other things out of her sets that she gets. I don’t believe that Lego has created a hyper-sexist set in the Friends line. Are you saying this because they have a beauty shop or cupcake stand? Those are not just female dominated jobs anymore and so what if they were? They also have the set of Olivia’s workshop where she is a scientist in a laboratory. Explain how that is sexist? Lego has such a draw to both kids and moreso to aduts nowadays. I don’t think my 11 year old is worrying about whether the Lego company is being sexist or not. Their toys are mainly designed for children up to around 12 years old. Let kids be kids, they grow up too fast anyway these days. If they want to have a girlie house and sell cupcakes while at the same time have Darth Vader over for tea- all the better, I say!
Hi Megan,
These sets have hardly anything to build. The TV ad is all about going to the stylist and the cafe, not about building either. LEGO’s ads, packaging, placement in stores, and magazines are gendered as well. It’s pretty impossible to split girls and boys this way without catering to stereotypes which LEGO does.
MM
If the Friends WERE next to Darth Vader and Star Wars toys, I would agree with you. But they aren’t. The “girl” toys are more and more segregated, and the girl aisles tend to have all the art ,music, and “nurturing” toys whereas the boy aisles have combat , exploration, and science. It’s nice that Friends includes a girl scientist, but why do they have to describe her equipment as “accessories” and give them a pink/purple color scheme? And why, if you search the Lego online “Girls” category do you only find the Friends stuff? Why even have a “girl” cateogry? Doesn’t that exclude those boys who might want to make cupcakes?
Lego has aggressively marketed to boys over the past decade, with more and more boy combat and “action” toys: Ninajo, Star Wars, racing sets, and commercials that featured boys only. Then suddenly they realized they were losing half their audience, but instead of going back to inclusive toys and marketing, they decided to hyper segregate the genders even further. Good luck trying to find magic or astronomy or race cars or rock collecting next to that Friends display: you will likely find lots of dress up, fake lipstick, shopping tools, and Bratz dolls.
With all respect, as a male feminist (discount my opinion at leisure) I think the idea of rewriting or ignoring original stories simply because they didn’t feature a balance of male-female leads or ‘strong’ women roles is silly.
Also, as a LOTR fan, there were many strong female roles, there are a plethora of elven women leaders to choose from, and if you want to nerd out the Silmarillion has even more.
Keithmobrien,
Its the dominance of these stories that is the problem. In spite of the ‘eleven’ roles (which I cant confirm) the males are key in this series. It is the quest of a male, his key sidekick is a male, the wizard is male, and the major villains are male as well.
MM
MM
Well if they have Green Arrow they should have Black Canary, Other potentials include Supergirl, Batgirl, Huntress, Zatana, Vixen, Power Girl, Mary Marvel (alongside Captain Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr), Starfire, Raven, Wonder Girl, Donna Troy, Katana, Star Sapphire, Jessie Quick, Jade, Stargirl, Artemis, Ms. Martian, Terra, Saturn Girl, Lightning Lass, Triplicate Girl, Dawnstar and many more.
GoGirl is another company altogether.
And if you wanna go after the comics, do a vs Harley Quinn before and After the reboot relaunch 52. Her classic costume as instituted in Batman: The Animated Series and used in the Lego here:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZmTvVyVGUTE/TfJKpQNKhKI/AAAAAAAAAew/2SSYa00b174/s1600/HQ_BT_2.jpg
versus the super skanky remake as seen here:
http://unsubject.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/dc_reboot_suicide_squad.jpg
I’m sure someone’s pointed this out to you already, but the image posted here actually contains another female character: Harley Quinn, from Batman (the clown on the far right). Doesn’t really change the game, it’s still more dudes to chicks, but just to be accurate.
Hi Joi,
Thank you! Will add..so 4 females to 8 males?
MM
In defense of LEGO (can’t believe I’m saying that!) this is a problem with comic book superheroes in general. My daughter has long lamented the dearth of superheroines! They exist, but few have the market recognition of Wonder Woman.
HawkGirl is a pretty cool character, our favorite from the Super Friends. I’m glad they included her at least. There’s a terrific teen superhero called GoGirl; I’d love to see her in LEGO, but she’s probably too obscure, http://www.popimage.com/gogirl/gogirl.htm or http://www.darkhorse.com/Books/11-933/GoGirl-TPB
Hi Lesley,
The original stories featuring boys is often the justification for sexism for movies and products in 2012: Tintin, De. Seuss, The Lord of the Rings, on and on. Are we just going to recycle old stories for decades to come? Or are we going to create and highlight female characters? Iprefer the latter.
MM