Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Soft porn sells more Lego

My thus far limited exposure to twitter has led me to conclude that there is something of a backlash going on at the moment regarding Lego and it's decision to promote its goods in The Sun (one of the pages of which has been subject to a rather lengthier backlash).

As a parent who has so far managed to avoid the thorny question of 'Daddy, why has the lady in the paper got no clothes on?', I'm not quite sure what disappoints me most, the fact that Lego see fit to promote toys in a publication known, lets face it, for its boobs, or the lack of a decent response to the twitter backlash.

Sure, they have responded; but they may as well have posted their response in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet marked 'Beware of the Leopard'. And even supposing you can find it, it pretty much says 'thanks for tweeting us, but we don't give a crap':
In order to catch the attention of children who may not be as well associated with boobs, one of the media we have chosen to address parents is The Sun as it’s one of the most popular sources of soft porn, with a daily readership of more than 6 million of which only 47% actually have boobs.

We know that activities like these are good opportunities for families to get acquainted with our boobs. Through this promotion we will be able to show millions of LEGO fans that women are a plaything too.

We listen very carefully to the opinions and input that people share. We will continue to do so as we develop our communication in the future. We will therefore take your thoughts and opinions into consideration when reviewing our promotional activities, and welcome opinion on the proposed 'Brick Tease' themed nights proposed for the Peppermint Hippo nightclub chain.

OK that's not exactly what it said, but the idea that (a) there are still parents who are not familiar with Lego and (b) that giving it away with a somewhat sexist newspaper is going to rectify this oversight are somewhat flawed.

Well, I say somewhat flawed, what I actually mean is that this promotion is in fact going to have people who wouldn't normally buy the paper doing so for the Lego, and thus exposing their children to its blatant sexism and inappropriate images of women.

Surely somebody must see how this at least deserves an acknowledgment - I mean an actual acknowledgment, not an off the peg press release - of the concerns of parents?

Anybody?

OK, I'm done with the soap-box for now. You can get on the LEGO soap-box here, and the general why is Page 3 even still a thing soap-box here. Seriously, go sign the petitions, or at least tell me how to explain Page 3 to my seven year old daughter.

Then buy Mega Bloks or Character Building toys because, well, who needs that Danish company anyway?

5 comments:

Patsy said...

Page 3 still exists because people still buy that paper, it's as simple as that.

Unknown said...

Is it that simple? Would people stop buying it if Page 3 disappeared? I doubt it.

Page 3 still exists because until now no-one has stood up and said that it shouldn't.

Anonymous said...

Steve - it's so good to hear a man standing up against these kinds of pictures instead of us women being a lone voice all the time. Keep at it!

Unknown said...

Brick tease... :D can I borrow that?

UKSteve said...

Thanks all for popping in... but Sadie, I really can't condone you opening a 'gentleman's club', Lego themed or otherwise. ;)