Wednesday, September 28, 2005
The violence of Lego
So, I am in this community of adult Lego fans, and so I have an unnaturally large knowledge of the Lego company, its products, markets and goals. I also think about Lego way more than Valerie would like. That said, one of the things about the Lego company is that they would really like to promote non-violent play. It is also one reason parents choose Lego, and other construction toys--to let their kids have imaginative building play, rather than playing "cops and robbers" (i.e., "kill your friends") or the newest blast-em video game.
They couldn't be more wrong about Lego.
Don't get me wrong. While I was growing up, Lego did a fantastic job of keeping things ambiguously harmonious. I collect space sets, and the "guns" were shaped like megaphones, or space lasers. Sure they could be guns, but they could be rocket propulsion or cutting tools, and thats mostly how I played them. The Minifigs were red and blue (Russia v. USA??), but they all had that perma-smile on, so they weren't really enemies. As the toy industry pressured, Lego came out with more realistic weapons: swords, spears, pikes, rifles, pistols. They also came out with more dramatic characters--soldiers, criminals, sherrifs. They were supposed to be "historical" and not relevant to current violence. They don't make modern weapons! Ok, so that theory makes no real sense, but they were trying.
What they failed to realize is the inherent violence in their basic toy. It is a construction toy. You build spaceships, or buildings, or cars with the bricks, and you are free to use your imagination how ever you would like to build amazing things. Its just too bad that is not how kids use construction toys. They build something -- anything, and the inherant nature of the Lego bricks makes it EASY TO DESTROY.
Lego is not used so much as a construction toy, as a destruction toy. Its a safe one, too. No one is going to yell at you for tearing apart a Lego set. (Unlike tearing apart your new computer... which I might add, I put back togther perfectly, Mom!) No value is lost by destroying your own Lego spaceship. Its easy to put back together, most of the time. Actually, most of the time you don't care, because you only built it to destroy it.
I hear all kinds of stories about how friends of mine built and played with Lego. Some people would build a ship and then toss it down the stairs. Then they rebuilt it to see if they could make it more survivable. I would have space battles (ok, eventually the "exploring for space rocks" theme wore off, and the mercenaries started muscling in, so the "scientists" had to defend themselves, no?) and I would break the models apart slowly with each hit. I watch my daughter play with Lego, and she is constantly ripping the models apart. Then I build them again, and she rips them apart. Especially the figures. There is something perversely satifying about ripping off the little mini-figures' heads. I got her a Lego set with a new type of 1 piece posable figure and she turned to me and asked, "Daddy, how do you get the head off?"
As an adult Lego enthusiast (ALE vs the previously horrible acronym AFOL for adult fan of Lego. Who makes an acronym that is depentant on the word "of" anyway!) I found myself immersed in building. I would analyze a building and try to recreate it out of Lego. I have never taken any of these creations apart, except to strengthen weak contruction techniques. But I found myself to be unsatisfied. It was only until I started playing BrickWars! that I realized what I was missing. The destruction.
And destruction is violence, to be sure. When you destroy a building you take something away. Maybe its land and shelter from people who were using it before. Maybe its history and culture, but its something. Our culture loves destructive violence. Look at how obsessed the news media was of Hurricane Rita. Do you think it was because were were concerned for the poor rural residents of Southwest Louisiana? No. We wanted to see another city get destroyed. It looked like Houston instead of New Orleans. When Hurricane Katrina whipped through, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi barely got a mention. Not becuase they had less suffering people than N'awlins, but becuase the destruction and devastation was far more dramatic!
We love destruction. We love watching buildings and bridges get destroyed. Granted, it shakes you up when it comes by surprise (like planes smashing into them!), but we still want to watch. We love watching war movies, where ships smash each other to bits. Some people love it so much, they go out and do it themselves. They pick up high powered rifles and start picking people off at the gas stations.
So what does Lego give us as a toy? Only the most destructive power there is in a toy. You aren't destroying weird aliens on a screen. You are destoying real things. Things that you built yourself. And you love it. But then, you respect it. If you don't remember how to rebuild your creation, you feel a very real loss. (As I did when my daughter took my newest spaceship, and well, it found those mercenaries again!) So does Lego have a good lesson about destruction? Yes. It can teach you moderation in destruction. It can teach you that if you throw your toy down the stairs, you might not have it any more, but in a safe way, in a way that means you still have something left.
But make no mistake (to quote our violent president),
Lego is a violent toy.
They couldn't be more wrong about Lego.
Don't get me wrong. While I was growing up, Lego did a fantastic job of keeping things ambiguously harmonious. I collect space sets, and the "guns" were shaped like megaphones, or space lasers. Sure they could be guns, but they could be rocket propulsion or cutting tools, and thats mostly how I played them. The Minifigs were red and blue (Russia v. USA??), but they all had that perma-smile on, so they weren't really enemies. As the toy industry pressured, Lego came out with more realistic weapons: swords, spears, pikes, rifles, pistols. They also came out with more dramatic characters--soldiers, criminals, sherrifs. They were supposed to be "historical" and not relevant to current violence. They don't make modern weapons! Ok, so that theory makes no real sense, but they were trying.
What they failed to realize is the inherent violence in their basic toy. It is a construction toy. You build spaceships, or buildings, or cars with the bricks, and you are free to use your imagination how ever you would like to build amazing things. Its just too bad that is not how kids use construction toys. They build something -- anything, and the inherant nature of the Lego bricks makes it EASY TO DESTROY.
Lego is not used so much as a construction toy, as a destruction toy. Its a safe one, too. No one is going to yell at you for tearing apart a Lego set. (Unlike tearing apart your new computer... which I might add, I put back togther perfectly, Mom!) No value is lost by destroying your own Lego spaceship. Its easy to put back together, most of the time. Actually, most of the time you don't care, because you only built it to destroy it.
I hear all kinds of stories about how friends of mine built and played with Lego. Some people would build a ship and then toss it down the stairs. Then they rebuilt it to see if they could make it more survivable. I would have space battles (ok, eventually the "exploring for space rocks" theme wore off, and the mercenaries started muscling in, so the "scientists" had to defend themselves, no?) and I would break the models apart slowly with each hit. I watch my daughter play with Lego, and she is constantly ripping the models apart. Then I build them again, and she rips them apart. Especially the figures. There is something perversely satifying about ripping off the little mini-figures' heads. I got her a Lego set with a new type of 1 piece posable figure and she turned to me and asked, "Daddy, how do you get the head off?"
As an adult Lego enthusiast (ALE vs the previously horrible acronym AFOL for adult fan of Lego. Who makes an acronym that is depentant on the word "of" anyway!) I found myself immersed in building. I would analyze a building and try to recreate it out of Lego. I have never taken any of these creations apart, except to strengthen weak contruction techniques. But I found myself to be unsatisfied. It was only until I started playing BrickWars! that I realized what I was missing. The destruction.
And destruction is violence, to be sure. When you destroy a building you take something away. Maybe its land and shelter from people who were using it before. Maybe its history and culture, but its something. Our culture loves destructive violence. Look at how obsessed the news media was of Hurricane Rita. Do you think it was because were were concerned for the poor rural residents of Southwest Louisiana? No. We wanted to see another city get destroyed. It looked like Houston instead of New Orleans. When Hurricane Katrina whipped through, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi barely got a mention. Not becuase they had less suffering people than N'awlins, but becuase the destruction and devastation was far more dramatic!
We love destruction. We love watching buildings and bridges get destroyed. Granted, it shakes you up when it comes by surprise (like planes smashing into them!), but we still want to watch. We love watching war movies, where ships smash each other to bits. Some people love it so much, they go out and do it themselves. They pick up high powered rifles and start picking people off at the gas stations.
So what does Lego give us as a toy? Only the most destructive power there is in a toy. You aren't destroying weird aliens on a screen. You are destoying real things. Things that you built yourself. And you love it. But then, you respect it. If you don't remember how to rebuild your creation, you feel a very real loss. (As I did when my daughter took my newest spaceship, and well, it found those mercenaries again!) So does Lego have a good lesson about destruction? Yes. It can teach you moderation in destruction. It can teach you that if you throw your toy down the stairs, you might not have it any more, but in a safe way, in a way that means you still have something left.
But make no mistake (to quote our violent president),
Lego is a violent toy.
