The Peril of Pink Bricks: Gender Ideology and LEGO Friends

Abstract

Purpose

Using the example of LEGO Friends, we investigate the discourses that develop when second-order consumers attribute moral weight to the production and marketing of toys perceived to sharpen and enforce gender norms.

Methodology/approach

We analyze reactions to LEGO Friends through a discourse analysis of online data collected from English-language blogs and news sites. The data is coded iteratively within the two primary categories of gender and the market.

Findings

We argue that children’s toys have reemerged as a moral battlefield where consumers stake out positions on the feminization and sexualization of young girls, forcing companies to take strong ideological stances while competing for market share. We show that in the debate over LEGO Friends, consumers’ discursive constructions of moral play were embedded in a heteronormative middle-class ideal that discourages expressions of stereotypical femininity.

Research limitations/implications

Our data is limited to a number of online forums blogs and web sites. We do not claim to have exhaustively catalogued the reactions to LEGO Friends, but merely to have explored discursive positions staked by consumers in the unfolding debate.

Practical/social implications

This research shows that companies can benefit from addressing second-order consumers’ negotiations of brand meanings in their marketing research and campaigns, and thus avoid becoming the next target of a moral panic.

Originality/value

Our paper addresses brand meaning negotiations by second-order consumers, in this case buyers of children’s toys.

Citation

Knudsen, G.H. and Kuever, E. (2015), "The Peril of Pink Bricks: Gender Ideology and LEGO Friends", Consumer Culture Theory (Research in Consumer Behavior, Vol. 17), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 171-188. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0885-211120150000017009