tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/the-lego-movie-8976/articlesThe Lego Movie – The Conversation2020-04-29T12:11:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1369082020-04-29T12:11:14Z2020-04-29T12:11:14ZAre we living in a dystopia?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330857/original/file-20200427-145503-so76k5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">State police officers during a "Reopen Virginia" rally around Capitol Square in Richmond on April 22, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/state-police-officers-monitor-activity-during-a-reopen-news-photo/1210663121?adppopup=true">Getty/Ryan M. Kelly / AFP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dystopian fiction is hot. Sales of <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/326569/1984-by-george-orwell-with-a-foreword-by-thomas-pynchon/">George Orwell’s “1984”</a> and Margaret <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6125/the-handmaids-tale-by-margaret-atwood/">Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”</a> have <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/02/dystopian-fiction-why-we-read/">skyrocketed</a> since 2016. Young adult dystopias – for example, <a href="https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/books/hunger-games-the-by-suzanne-collins/">Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games,”</a> <a href="https://veronicarothbooks.com/books/divergent/">Veronica Roth’s “Divergent,”</a> <a href="https://www.hmhbooks.com/shop/books/The-Giver/9780547345901">Lois Lowry’s classic, “The Giver”</a> – were best-sellers even before. </p>
<p>And with COVID-19, dystopias featuring diseases have taken on new life. Netflix reports <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/outbreak-movie-top-10-netflix-titles-movies-pandemic-tv-series-coronavirus/">a spike in popularity</a> for “Outbreak,” “12 Monkeys” and <a href="http://blog.dvd.netflix.com/new-dvd-releases/4-virus-related-films-to-watch-in-the-time-of-covid-19">others</a>. </p>
<p>Does this popularity signal that people think they live in a dystopia now? Haunting images of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/23/world/coronavirus-great-empty.html">empty city squares</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/coronavirus-wild-animals-wales-goats-barcelona-boars-brazil-turtles/2020/04/14/30057b2c-7a71-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html">wild animals roaming streets</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/business/economy/coronavirus-food-banks.html">miles-long food pantry lines</a> certainly suggest this. </p>
<p>We want to offer another view. “Dystopia” is a powerful but overused term. It is not a synonym for a terrible time. </p>
<p>The question for us as <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jnBSYuwAAAAJ&hl=en">political</a> <a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LWLkiYMAAAAJ&hl=en">scientists</a> is not whether things are bad (they are), but how governments act. A government’s poor handling of a crisis, while maddening and sometimes disastrous, does not constitute dystopia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330876/original/file-20200427-145566-jkjxke.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Today’s empty city streets capture the feeling of a dystopian time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/photos/empty-city-coronavirus?agreements=pa:77130&family=editorial&locations=61907&phrase=empty%20city%20coronavirus&sort=newest#license">Getty/Roy Rochlin</a></span>
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<h2>Legitimate coercion</h2>
<p>As we argue in our book, “<a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/survive-and-resist/9780231188913">Survive and Resist: the Definitive Guide to Dystopian Politics</a>,” the definition of dystopia is political.</p>
<p>Dystopia is not a real place; it is a warning, usually about something bad the government is doing or something good it is failing to do. Actual dystopias are fictional, but real-life governments can be “dystopian” – as in, looking a lot like the fiction. </p>
<p>Defining a dystopia starts with establishing the characteristics of good governance. A good government protects its citizens in a noncoercive way. It is the body best positioned to prepare for and guard against <a href="https://la.curbed.com/2018/4/17/17244978/lucy-jones-book-earthquake-flood">natural</a> and human-made horrors. </p>
<p>Good governments use what’s called “<a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/a228/d1aceec6ea2cadf1c41d2319793dd0ca9d30.pdf">legitimate coercion</a>,” legal force to <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/legitimacy/">which citizens agree</a> to keep order and <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174556/read-my-lips">provide services</a> like roads, schools and national security. Think of legitimate coercion as your willingness to stop at a red light, knowing it’s better for you and others in the long run. </p>
<p>No government is perfect, but there are ways of judging the imperfection. Good governments (those least imperfect) include a strong core of <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/Methodology_Proof1.pdf">democratic elements</a> to check the powerful and create <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/Development_as_Freedom/Qm8HtpFHYecC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=amartya%20sen%20development%20as%20freedom&pg=PR4&printsec=frontcover">accountability.</a> They also include constitutional and judicial measures to check the power of the majority. This setup acknowledges the need for government but evidences <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Federalist-Anti-Federalist-Papers/dp/1495446697">healthy skepticism</a> of giving too much power to any one person or body. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=EWbOLZcXugsC&lpg=PA1&ots=G0KJZqipPn&dq=federalism%20democracy%20devolution&lr&pg=PR4#v=onepage&q&f=false">Federalism</a>, the division of power between national and subnational governments, is a further check. It has proved useful lately, with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/13/politics/states-band-together-reopening-plans/index.html">state governors and mayors</a> emerging as strong political players during COVID-19.</p>
<h2>Three kinds of dystopias</h2>
<p>Bad governments lack checks and balances, and rule in the interest of the rulers rather than the people. <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0058%3Abook%3D3">Citizens</a> can’t participate in their own governance. But dystopian governments are a special kind of bad; they use illegitimate coercion like force, threats and the “disappearing” of dissidents to stay in power. </p>
<p>Our book catalogs three major dystopia types, based on the presence – or absence – of a functioning state and how much power it has. </p>
<p>There are, as in Orwell’s <a href="https://www.amazon.com/1984-George-Orwell-ebook/dp/B003JTHWKU/ref=sr_1_1?crid=6FALM24842SX&dchild=1&keywords=orwell+1984&qid=1586894038&s=books&sprefix=orwell+%2Cstripbooks%2C142&sr=1-1">“1984,”</a> overly powerful governments that infringe on individual lives and liberties. These are authoritarian states, run by dictators or powerful groups, like a single party or corporate-governance entity. Examples of these governments abound, including <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/20/syria-torture-opposition-regime-defector/">Assad’s murderously repressive regime in Syria</a> and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rm5pE_BDtCc">silencing of dissent</a> and <a href="https://cpj.org/data/killed/europe/russia/?status=Killed&motiveConfirmed%5B%5D=Confirmed&type%5B%5D=Journalist&cc_fips%5B%5D=RS&start_year=1992&end_year=2020&group_by=location">journalism</a> in Russia. </p>
<p>The great danger of these is, as our country’s Founding Fathers knew quite well, too much power on the part of any one person or group limits the options and autonomy of the masses. </p>
<p>Then there are dystopic states that seem nonauthoritarian but still take away basic human rights through market forces; we call these “capitocracies.” Individual workers and consumers are often exploited by the political-industrial complex, and the environment and other public goods suffer. A great fictional example is <a href="https://www.pixar.com/feature-films/walle">Wall-E</a> by Pixar (2008), in which the U.S. president is also CEO of “Buy ‘N Large,” a multinational corporation controlling the economy. </p>
<p>There are not perfect real-life examples of this, but elements are visible in the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/republic-samsung">chaebol</a> – <a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/south-koreas-chaebol-challenge">family business</a> – power in South Korea, and in various manifestations of corporate political power in the U.S, including <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2017/12/05/tracking-deregulation-in-the-trump-era/">deregulation</a>, corporate <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/575125/corporations-are-not-people-by-jeffrey-d-clements/">personhood</a> status and big-company <a href="https://time.com/5814076/coronavirus-stimulus-bill-corporate-bailout/">bailouts</a>.</p>
<p>Lastly there are state-of-nature dystopias, usually resulting from the collapse of a failed government. The resulting territory reverts to a primitive feudalism, ungoverned except for small tribal-held fiefdoms where individual dictators rule with impunity. The Citadel versus Gastown in the stunning 2015 movie <a href="https://www.warnerbros.com/movies/mad-max-fury-road/">“Mad Max: Fury Road”</a> is a good fictional depiction. A real-life example was seen in the once barely governed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/23/somalia-no-longer-a-failed-state-just-a-fragile-one-says-un">Somalia</a>, where, for almost 20 years until 2012, as a U.N. official described it, “armed warlords (were) fighting each other on a clan basis.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330874/original/file-20200427-145503-3vslgu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fiction best describes dystopia – as in this reference to the landmark dystopian novel, ‘1984,’ by George Orwell.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/graffiti-1984-is-now-titel-of-the-novel-1984-by-george-news-photo/545003371?adppopup=true">Getty/Schöning/ullstein bild</a></span>
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<h2>Fiction and real life</h2>
<p>Indeed, political dystopia is often easier to see using the lens of fiction, which exaggerates behaviors, trends and patterns to make them more visible. </p>
<p>But behind the fiction there is always a real-world correlate. Orwell had <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/books/review/dorian-lynskey-ministry-of-truth-1984.html">Stalin, Franco and Hitler</a> very much in mind when writing “1984.” </p>
<p>Atwood, whom literary critics call the “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/margaret-atwood-the-prophet-of-dystopia">prophet of dystopia</a>,” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/15/margaret-atwood-interview-english-pen-pinter-prize">recently defined dystopia</a> as when “[W]arlords and demagogues take over, some people forget that all people are people, enemies are created, vilified and dehumanized, minorities are persecuted, and human rights as such are shoved to the wall.” </p>
<p>Some of this may be, as Atwood <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/15/margaret-atwood-interview-english-pen-pinter-prize">added</a>, the “cusp of where we are living now.” </p>
<p>But the U.S. is not a dystopia. It still has functioning democratic institutions. Many in the U.S. fight against dehumanization and persecution of minorities. Courts are adjudicating cases. Legislatures are passing bills. Congress has not <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-nominations/trump-threatens-to-adjourn-u-s-congress-idUSKCN21X3GI">adjourned</a>, nor has the fundamental right of habeas corpus – the protection against illegal detention by the state – (yet) been <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/21/doj-coronavirus-emergency-powers-140023">suspended</a>. </p>
<h2>Crisis as opportunity</h2>
<p>And still. One frequent warning is that a major crisis can cover for the rolling back of democracy and curtailing of freedoms. In Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a medical crisis is the pretext for suspending the Constitution. </p>
<p>In real life, too, crises facilitate authoritarian backsliding. In Hungary the pandemic has sped democracy’s unraveling. The legislature gave strongman Prime Minister Viktor Orban the power to <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/understanding-hungarys-authoritarian-response-pandemic">rule by sole decree indefinitely</a>, the lower courts are suspended and free speech is restricted. </p>
<p>Similar dangers exist in any number of countries where democratic institutions are frayed or fragile; leaders with authoritarian tendencies may be tempted to leverage the crisis to consolidate power.</p>
<p>But there are also positive signs for democracy. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/330860/original/file-20200427-145544-nfvkhi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A sign ‘We are in this together’ is written in chalk on the sidewalk in front of NYU Langone Medical Center during the coronavirus pandemic on April 22, 2020 in New York City.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/sign-we-are-in-this-together-is-written-in-chalk-on-the-news-photo/1220487757?adppopup=true">Getty/John Lamparski</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/30/21199785/homemade-coronavirus-masks-n95-ppe">People are coming together</a> in ways that didn’t seem possible just a few months ago. This <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/ct-ptb-vu-face-shields-st-0416-20200413-zyreuxfwqfajhirqlql2khhpj4-story.html">social capital</a> is an <a href="http://robertdputnam.com/bowling-alone/social-capital-primer/">important element</a> in a democracy. </p>
<p>Ordinary people are performing incredible acts of kindness and generosity – from <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/17/us/coronavirus-student-volunteers-grocery-shop-elderly-iyw-trnd/index.html">shopping for neighbors</a> to <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2020/03/17/son-serenades-mom-during-coronavirus-lockdown-harmony-brentwood-tennessee-nursing-home/5065211002/">serenading residents at a nursing home</a> to a <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/3/30/21199785/homemade-coronavirus-masks-n95-ppe">mass movement to sew facemasks</a>. </p>
<p>In politics, Wisconsin primary voters risked their lives to exercise their right to vote during the height of the pandemic. <a href="https://wisconsinexaminer.com/brief/voters-sue-legislature-leaders-and-wec-demanding-april-7-revote/">Citizens</a> and <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/14/time-essence-after-wisconsin-fiasco-150-civil-rights-groups-urge-congress-protect">civil society</a> are pushing federal and state governments to ensure election safety and integrity in the remaining primaries and the November election.</p>
<p>Despite the eerie silence in public spaces, despite the preventable deaths that should weigh heavily on the consciences of public officials, even despite the authoritarian tendencies of too many leaders, the U.S. is not a dystopia – yet. </p>
<p>Overuse clouds the word’s meaning. Fictional dystopias warn of preventable futures; those warnings can help avert the actual demise of democracy.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>‘Dystopia’ is a term that’s gained popularity during the coronavirus pandemic. But it’s not a synonym for ‘a bad time,’ and a government’s poor handling of a crisis does not constitute dystopia.Shauna Shames, Associate Professor, Rutgers UniversityAmy Atchison, Associate Professor of Political Science & International Relations, Valparaiso UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/898912018-01-16T10:39:28Z2018-01-16T10:39:28ZWhy Lego could be the key to productive business meetings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201385/original/file-20180109-36025-z4uo93.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>It’s 60 years since <a href="https://theconversation.com/structuring-thought-and-imagination-brick-by-brick-lego-is-more-than-childs-play-88691">Lego patented their little plastic blocks</a> and since then over 600 billion bricks have been produced. These bricks have been used to build cars, death stars and a multitude of creations born in the imagination of “legoists” all over the world. </p>
<p>While some people think Lego is just for children – or that being grown up means leaving playfulness behind – my job often entails convincing fully grown adults, in sensible jobs, to play with Lego and build whatever comes to mind.</p>
<p>As an accredited <a href="http://www.s-play.eu/en/">Lego serious play facilitator</a>, I ask people to build their thoughts, ideas and feelings. I was introduced to the concept through an <a href="http://www.s-play.eu/en/">EU-funded project</a>, where I came to see the power of Lego in creating an environment for open dialogue within diverse groups.</p>
<p>The “serious play” aspect encourages participants to get creative through play. This allows people to put aside their usual barriers and respond in a more natural, unconstrained way. This <a href="http://www.theory.org.uk/david/book8.htm">has been shown to</a> evoke narratives and expressions not usually available – because when people are playful, they can say and do things they don’t normally say and do. And when we say things we don’t normally say, we get to talk about things that we don’t normally talk about.</p>
<h2>Playing seriously</h2>
<p>The Lego Serious Play method asks participants to build models – symbolic or metaphorical – which represent their thinking. This gives them the space to <a href="http://www.ijkie.org/IJKIE_August2014_SEAN%20MCCUSKER.pdf">consider their own ideas</a>, without the influence of other people’s input. It means that when they are then asked to present their ideas, these are already formed and not modified to conform to any perceived consensus view. Through this, people can find more authentic and honest voices. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201386/original/file-20180109-36016-1bw4ygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201386/original/file-20180109-36016-1bw4ygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201386/original/file-20180109-36016-1bw4ygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201386/original/file-20180109-36016-1bw4ygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201386/original/file-20180109-36016-1bw4ygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201386/original/file-20180109-36016-1bw4ygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201386/original/file-20180109-36016-1bw4ygm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lego can help people open up and express their true feelings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Of course, the models themselves make little sense to the casual observer, as their significance and meaning only emerge when the builder describes them. And one of the rules of a Lego Serious Play workshop is that when the builder speaks, everyone else must listen. Other participants are also not allowed to infer any meaning about the model, beyond what the builder gives it. </p>
<p>In these situations, the builder is the expert, regardless of where they stand within the organisational hierarchy. Everyone else must accept what they have to say without questioning or adding to it. This ensures a discussion in which everyone’s ideas are heard and equally valued.</p>
<h2>Caring, sharing, cooperation</h2>
<p>One of the issues people often face when they try to solve problems where more than one person is involved, is that different parties don’t see the problem in the same way. As such, people are often trying to find a single solution to a variety of different problems.</p>
<p>This is where the serious approach to Lego can help, because it invites participants to build physical representations of their ideas – which are then placed within a landscape of models made by their colleagues. This allows ideas to be made explicit and shared, allowing the relationships between them to be seen and explored.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201387/original/file-20180109-36028-1f5gdep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/201387/original/file-20180109-36028-1f5gdep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201387/original/file-20180109-36028-1f5gdep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201387/original/file-20180109-36028-1f5gdep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201387/original/file-20180109-36028-1f5gdep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201387/original/file-20180109-36028-1f5gdep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/201387/original/file-20180109-36028-1f5gdep.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Thinking outside the blocks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>Through this process, diverse and discrete ideas can be brought together within the same space. Individual models can also be connected to create a single shared model – with all participants feeling they have played a part. The resulting shared model can stretch over many metres, representing a single vision of how people see every stage of a complex process, from the starting point through to the proposed solution.</p>
<p>Participants are then asked to discuss and give a single narrative which explains the whole model – and this is where the magic happens. I’ve seen how a group of up to 12 participants from a range of different positions – culturally, educationally and professionally – have managed to agree on a shared view of a problem and how it might be addressed. In many environments, this is quite a rare achievement.</p>
<h2>Building the future</h2>
<p>I have been using the Lego serious play method for about five years now – in the UK, China, Malaysia and the US. I’ve watched people play with Lego in a variety of environments: small businesses, trainee teachers and those working in international research. In every case I have seen the transformation – from dubious playfulness to deep engagement – with participants building models that represent complex, abstract ideas. </p>
<p>Participants tell me how the method has allowed them to express things they would not normally express. How they now have a much clearer understanding of how others see the world and how these ideas relate to each other. And in this way, Lego can help to overcome some of the drawbacks of conventional meetings and discussions.</p>
<p>When Ole Kirk Christiansen started the company in 1932, he called it Lego, from a truncation of the Danish phrase “leg godt” which means “play well”. The “toy building element” patented in 1958 has certainly allowed many generations to do just that. And I have personally seen how playing well is something we need to keep doing – no matter how grown up we think we are.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sean Mccusker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The power of play and how Lego is changing the world one brick at a time.Sean Mccusker, Associate Professor in Education, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/886912017-12-13T19:07:07Z2017-12-13T19:07:07ZStructuring thought and imagination brick by brick, Lego is more than child’s play<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198042/original/file-20171206-31546-1d5peaq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lego is not just a toy. The bricks are designed as a universal tool to make anything we can imagine. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You might think Lego is just a kids’ toy – one you played with as a child and now step on as you walk through the house as a parent. </p>
<p>These days, however, the bricks are showing up in all sorts of unexpected places – on display in museums, in street art, in home renovations and at work. Those playing with Lego are unexpected too, including artists like <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ai-weiwei-unveils-lego-project-390686">Ai Weiwei</a>, <a href="http://seriousplaypro.com/2016/05/03/what-companies-use-lego-serious-play/">corporate business people</a> facilitating a work function or engineers <a href="https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/what-do-legos-have-to-do-with-engineering/">designing sophisticated robotics</a>. </p>
<p>Our recent book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Philosophy-Constructing-Reality-Blackwell/dp/1119193974">LEGO and Philosophy</a>, offers a new perspective. These brightly coloured bricks are not mere child’s play. They raise important and challenging questions about creativity and play, conformity and autonomy, identity and culture.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198523/original/file-20171211-27683-z2sphm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198523/original/file-20171211-27683-z2sphm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198523/original/file-20171211-27683-z2sphm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198523/original/file-20171211-27683-z2sphm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198523/original/file-20171211-27683-z2sphm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198523/original/file-20171211-27683-z2sphm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198523/original/file-20171211-27683-z2sphm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<h2>Not just for kids</h2>
<p>Interest in Lego has recently extended beyond simple child’s play. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10803-004-2550-0">Sociologists</a>, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1362361315621054">psychologists</a> and <a href="http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-65132017000200303">economists</a> have studied the use of Lego bricks as tools for achieving certain ends via Lego-based therapy and similar activities. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/blocks-are-still-the-best-present-you-can-buy-children-for-christmas-87171">Blocks are still the best present you can buy children for Christmas</a>
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<p>Tools are for using, building, working, thinking, teaching, imagining, playing and much else. In fact, tools can be for anything. As soon as we realise Lego is a tool, its uses beyond mere play are obvious. Indeed, it is a universal tool that can be used to make anything we can imagine. </p>
<p>The company Lego Group is well aware of the bricks’ role as a universal tool for the imaginination: one of its most successful advertisement campaigns carried the minimal tagline “imagine”. </p>
<h2>Structured thought, brick by brick</h2>
<p>This is also where we need to be more reflective, more critical and perhaps even wary of the largest toy company selling the primary tool for children’s minds. Do we really want a for-profit company, whose commercial and financial interests are front and centre, governing what our children think and <a href="http://journals.ama.org/doi/10.1509/jmr.13.0499?code=amma-site">directing how our children imagine</a>? Here are some of the highlights from our book, and areas of improvement, for Lego in its role as a tool for thinking.</p>
<p>Lego’s tagline, “imagine”, implies that one’s own imagination is the only limit to what you can build. Of course, that’s not quite right. One of the book chapters explores the ways in which Lego comes with some inbuilt constraints, and how those limits actually help inspire sophisticated Lego builders. </p>
<p>Some of those limits lie in the nature of the bricks. With each set, we can build a world of our own creation, both literally and metaphysically. Another chapter explores the similarities between Lego worlds and our own world, constructing a metaphysics of the bricks. </p>
<p>Instructions constitute another set of limits for Lego creations - assuming, at least, that you’re the kind of player who follows the rules. And here we come to a divide in Lego users between those who follow the rules dogmatically, and those who ditch them altogether, in favour of free play. The <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1490017/">Lego Movie</a> mocks these two kinds of Lego users in exaggerated characters. </p>
<p>Lego sets, complete with a metaphysics and rules, profoundly shape the world in which we live. Sometimes Lego does this well, but not always.</p>
<h2>Is Lego constructing your world?</h2>
<p>The problem of Lego shaping what and how we think has come to the fore recently with the company’s increased gender-based marketing, as <a href="https://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/learn/postgraduate-study/academic-staff/staff-rhiannon-grant/">Rhiannon Grant</a> and <a href="https://www.kent.ac.uk/history/staff/profiles/wainman.html">Ruth Wainman</a> worry in their <a href="https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=2scmDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA113&lpg=PA113&dq=Grant+%26+Wainman&source=bl&ots=KzfpYFZXNr&sig=qFK-Ic_7my2Ke4s94zV31j0O8Q8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwipycLozIHYAhVIvrwKHaMkBGcQ6AEILjAB#v=onepage&q=Grant%20%26%20Wainman&f=false">book chapter</a>.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When Lego produces materials for children that assume girls are more interested in characters, stories and emotions, and boys are more interested in building, cars and explosions, they are both playing into a dominant cultural narrative that tells children how they should be, and helping to create a world in which children are shaped to fulfil those expectations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This explains why so many objected in 2012 to the pink-and-purple Lego Friends, designed to appeal to girls’ feminine desire to care for animals or play house. As <a href="http://www.philosophie.uni-muenchen.de/lehreinheiten/philosophie_4/personen/gutwald/index.html">Rebecca Gutwald</a> reminds us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>… the problem with Friends is that they seem to be presented as the only options for girls in this Lego world and in the world in general.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The fact that Lego Friend characters are not designed to be attached to the regular blocks creates a literal gender divide during playtime. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198522/original/file-20171211-15358-eo2lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198522/original/file-20171211-15358-eo2lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198522/original/file-20171211-15358-eo2lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198522/original/file-20171211-15358-eo2lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198522/original/file-20171211-15358-eo2lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198522/original/file-20171211-15358-eo2lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198522/original/file-20171211-15358-eo2lg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>Of course, there is some good news: not long after Lego Friends were introduced, <a href="http://jaysbrickblog.com/2014/09/14/interview-ellen-kooijman-designer-lego-research-institute/">Ellen Kooijman’s</a> all-female research institute set (above) was allowed to go into production. But it was quickly retired and it nevertheless buys into a gender-based conception of girls’ play.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Apart from building the equipment and figures, no engineering or scientific skills are embedded in playing with the set.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Breaking down racial stereotypes</h2>
<p>That said, Lego has had more success with the issues around race and ethnicity. Its original all-yellow minifigures may seem to embody an idealistically well intentioned, racial neutrality, but Lego’s representation of race has tracked the changes in society’s own assumptions about race. The bricks and figures are tools for showing us how we think, and for encouraging us to change how we think about race. </p>
<p>This is an opportunity for Lego. If it is a tool for building anything, then it also is a tool for constructing new paradigms through which to think about race, gender and social justice. As <a href="https://cambridge.academia.edu/TylerShores">Tyler Shores</a> highlights in his chapter, Lego has the power to challenge the status quo, to encourage critical thinking and deep reflection about the world and to help children and adults alike to rethink the way we should inhabit this planet. </p>
<p>Now that would make the popular bricks a truly innovative and creative tool for the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88691/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sondra Bacharach does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In a new book, philosophers argue that Lego’s coloured bricks are not just a toy, but a tool that raises challenging questions about creativity, conformity and culture.Sondra Bacharach, Associate Professor in Philosophy, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/733002017-02-28T15:09:49Z2017-02-28T15:09:49ZLego Batman: the darkest knight yet?<p>“All important movies start with a black screen,” growls Will Arnett over the opening of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGQUKzSDhrg">The Lego Batman Movie</a>, as he breaks the fourth wall to speak to the audience with the same knowing tone which unexpectedly stole the original <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5lUgBNBUC8">Lego Movie</a> in 2014. And although this latest outing mines the same seam of pop culture irony – to often hilarious effect – there is a bitter aftertaste: the film also reinforces many of the property’s toxic tropes and legacies.</p>
<p>The pleasure of Batman’s appearance in the original Lego Movie was how successfully the character channelled the essence of the now 78-year-old character into a song. Batman’s self-penned thrash metal cacophony, Untitled Self Portrait, was a brutal skewering of the character with the lyrics: “Darkness, dead parents, continued darkness,” perfectly capturing the latent adolescence of his alter ego Bruce Wayne. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ulbz3YZ6_fg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Untitled Self Portrait: Lego Batman.</span></figcaption>
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<p>The real surprise of the new film is how much it attempts to explore this arrested development. But in doing so it celebrates the bleakest of Batman source materials: <a href="http://www.dccomics.com/talent/frank-miller">Frank Miller’s</a> <a href="http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batman:_The_Dark_Knight_Returns">The Dark Knight Returns</a>.</p>
<p>Featuring a Batman staring down the barrel of retirement, Miller’s bruising 1986 work concludes that Wayne’s vigilante persona has not disempowered the villains he fights but has instead inspired them. This theme is given flesh (or brick) in the new Lego film when Zach Galafianakis’ Joker bursts into tears because Batman refuses to acknowledge him as his arch enemy. “You mean nothing to me, no-one does,” <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUPXPPq64Vk">Batman spits</a> at the blubbing clown prince of crime – who then spends the next 90 minutes attempting to win back the hero’s gaze in ever escalating ways. This is a brilliant lampooning of Miller’s concept but the problem with ultimately using this source material for a family film is that The Dark Knight Returns does not end with Wayne reaching any form of enlightenment. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158710/original/image-20170228-29933-159afc0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Batman in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/12215704@N03/15151049455/in/photolist-p5R69B-RpC2Yx-4UYSC8-dRbYdi-fhBfM2-jrthXA-rikfNz-oc6RuZ-u6Jiov-pyXcVV-nN8B46-ejFP2P-HuA1sE-qngpf7-7JFjaZ-Ssef4A-bGNVHR-bhu3KP-dWwGhJ-aJNeHZ-aE4poP-fhRwku-quDsRu-s5ThhK-g7AJ8Z-vFtH7N-p5ECbc-pLtc9R-spVvKR-ea58bq-g7ARp3-g7ARvL-e8JT3v-g7B6Ah-eT7AYe-LYdZqE-Sh5X8o-4kgBW7-p5PQQw-e6Pzct-dpxUpx-GwXBhh-kR2tV-JdEfyf-dVtjur-7JVhKD-Ssefod-g7AJrp-rRm3pp-5DEAn8">nick gaurkee/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>To Miller, the only thing that means anything to Wayne is Batman. This leads to a highly problematic climax when, rather than be re-integrated into lawful society, Wayne instead goes further underground and forms a private army of child soldiers. Miller’s piece has been attacked by critics as a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/apr/01/frank-miller-fascist-dark-knight-modern-archetype-donald-trump">fascist parable</a> and one of the the biggest shocks of The Lego Batman Movie is seeing how its climax equally celebrates the character eschewing normality. Instead he settles down with a new surrogate family who enable his dark disease. The fact that they all wear batsuits together provides a chilling echo to Miller’s story and the troubling nods it contains to the cult of personality.</p>
<h2>The Killing Joke</h2>
<p>Two years after Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, acclaimed British writer <a href="http://www.dccomics.com/talent/alan-moore">Alan Moore</a> examined the depraved dynamics of the Batman/Joker relationship in a storyline whose single gunshot echoed around DC for decades to come. In 1988’s <a href="http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Batman:_The_Killing_Joke">The Killing Joke</a> the Joker is depicted as so desperate for attention that he disables Batgirl <a href="http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Barbara_Gordon">Barbara Gordon</a> and forces her father into viewing photographs of her naked, broken body. This brutal treatment of the character has since become <a href="http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/460">emblematic of the portrayal of female characters in comic books</a> as victims, stereotypes and ciphers. So it makes it all the more dispiriting that the Lego Batman Movie treats its female lead in a similarly reductionist manner. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=824&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/158708/original/image-20170228-29933-8p4a5k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1036&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/alexlc/4255195730/in/photolist-7u1ZrC-fw3vQS-7gPTzQ-7hdWbq-5YhwVJ-dZuJ8R-7ffDmX-6diPMn-7hdWaf-748gDf-cYac2q-gA1ECx-ffxJRg-po7GTY-oovF8b-rtPFo5-2WWxGp-aDqKBa-hwsw2h-3iu5QY-fHwXMX-9SH18g-bnWhEh-8uzp8P-5BmPTt-haDaqx-52H7Kb-gJtpNi-HrXogb-oFurEP-ouKgQ4-5M4zJy-dEaStq-6Ubtmd-2NR5tJ-nkdzit-nKnUJa-uyHMU-a7UcGx-kDADL3-n5qVaS-5f7jdd-6PbLti-59teGT-2jMsCf-btouMU-dPGtfV-55NmFW-61cfSi-9n6WFc">Alexandre López/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Thankfully Rosario Dawson’s Gordon is not subjected to the same level of physical humiliation as her comic book namesake. She instead suffers an insidious process of trivialisation which diminishes her status from an empowered Batman rival to an ancillary sidekick. Studies of <a href="http://worldsciencepublisher.org/journals/index.php/AEL/article/view/1197">gendered linguistics</a>
have laid bare the suppressive nature of names, typified in this film by Batman’s ceaseless paring down of Gordon’s moniker from Commissioner Gordon to Barbara to “Babs” and finally Batgirl. </p>
<p>And, although the narrative attempts to sideswipe this disenfranchisement with a sly line of dialogue, it is clear that this character’s independent identity has been replaced with that of a supplicant, a process known in comic book circles as <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge">“fridging”</a>. </p>
<p>Fans of <a href="https://geeks.media/rise-of-harley-quinn">Harley Quinn</a> - the Belle de Jour of the contemporary comic book - may rightfully complain that her portrayal in the Lego film is tied to an outdated 1990s version of the character. But at least this subordinate representation has precedent. Squeezing a successful adult woman into Batgirl’s juvenile uniform is instead a chauvinistic creation of the filmmakers but one which sadly chimes with the often <a href="http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2016/03/the-long-and-terrible-history-of-dc-comics-mistreating-batgirl/">troubling history of the character</a>. </p>
<h2>Toxic behaviours?</h2>
<p>But are we reading the piece too much at face value? The point of satire after all is to exaggerate the flaws of the subject in order to puncture the pomposity of the myth. And when the film is at its most lucid, the Lego Batman Movie does this very well. Not even Miller portrayed the wretchedness of Wayne’s life as vividly as the excruciating Lego scene in which he watches a microwave slowly warm up his dinner. </p>
<p>But the film often dangerously indulges the toxic behaviours of its protagonist too. The message of the film to children, that playing together is better than playing alone, may appear innocent enough on paper. But that message appears troubling onscreen when that togetherness involves strong female characters surrendering their status and identity in order to accept sidekick roles.</p>
<p>Sequels typically go darker but here the “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cQgQIMlwWw">Everything is awesome</a>” mantra of the first Lego Movie seems has been swallowed up entirely by that opening black screen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/73300/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Ross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Lego Batman Movie is a worldwide box office smash – but have the filmmakers delved too much into the character’s more ‘toxic’ elements?Andrew Ross, Graduate Tutor and Lecturer in Film, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/454052015-08-03T14:08:42Z2015-08-03T14:08:42ZEmojis have hit Hollywood – and thriller or rom-com, they’ll take it by storm<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90598/original/image-20150803-6005-19zxfsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Get brainstorming.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ungureanu Alexandra/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The world’s global means of communication, emoji, has just been promoted. The ubiquitous smileys, winks and love hearts are about to make it out of the smart phones in our pockets and on to the silver screen. Sony Pictures recently <a href="http://deadline.com/2015/07/emoji-movie-sony-pictures-animation-anthony-leondis-kung-fu-panda-secrets-of-the-masters-1201482768/">announced</a> that it has bought the rights to a film project written, and to be directed by, Anthony Leondis, of Kung Fu Panda fame. </p>
<p>Emoji are clearly hot property: while the colourful glyphs are not subject to copyright restrictions – they reside firmly in the public domain – Leondis’ screenplay reportedly led to a bidding war, with Warner Bros and Paramount out-muscled by Sony’s fast-talking megabucks.</p>
<p>Emoji — which literally means “picture character”, from the Japanese — first appeared on international smartphones in 2011. But today, they are so firmly established in the world’s public consciousness that their forthcoming incarnation, as movie characters, perhaps should not surprise us. From tennis ace Andy Murray’s famous wedding day <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/andymurray/11531674/Andy-Murrays-emoticons-leave-me-lost-for-words.html">tweet</a>, to an emoji <a href="http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/author-translates-all-of-alice-in-wonderland-into-emojis">translation</a> of Alice in Wonderland – a book of just over 27,000 words, conveyed using around 25,000 emojis – their appeal seemingly knows no bounds. There is now even an official World <a href="http://worldemojiday.com/">Emoji Day</a> (July 17). </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"586811114744320000"}"></div></p>
<p>Their everyday use in getting our message across to our nearest and dearest is now unrivalled on the global stage. In a <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-the-rise-of-the-emoji-doesnt-spell-the-end-of-language-42208">recent study</a> I found that in the UK, 80% are now avid emoji users and that 72% of 18-25 year olds believe they can to express our emotions better using them. In the United States, a survey commissioned in 2014 by the dating site <a href="http://time.com/3694763/match-com-dating-survey-emoji-sex/">match.com</a> found that among singles there is a correlation between emoji usage and dating success: the more you use emoji, the more dates you go on. And get this: emoji-using singles even have more sex. To cap it all off, last month, a software company, Intelligent Environments, launched an emoji <a href="http://www.intelligentenvironments.com/info-centre/press-releases/now-you-can-log-into-your-bank-using-emoji-1">passcode service</a> to replace the humble PIN, soon to be so last century, perhaps.</p>
<p>And yes, whilst many people are still getting used to the idea of communicating Pictionary style using a palette box of pre-prepared smiley faces and choice vegetables, Hollywood is in the process of developing a feature-length movie populated by them. So in the spirit of embracing the meteoric rise of emoji to undoubted riches and stardom, what might the plot-line of an emoji movie look like?</p>
<h2>Once upon a time …</h2>
<p>The movie’s characters are likely to be developed from <a href="http://emojipedia.org/apple-emoji-list/">Apple’s library</a> of emojis. In terms of cast, at present there are 93 human-like pictograms, 15 family-of-four emojis, ten happy couples and even anthropomorphic cats – seven in total. </p>
<p>One plot possibility is an origin movie. This is a staple of Hollywood film franchises. The recent rebooting of the James Bond mythology, starring Daniel Craig, got things going with the original Fleming novel Casino Royale. Then there’s Ridley Scott’s sci-fi epic, Prometheus, Star Wars prequels, and everything in between. Emoji was first developed in the 1990s, in Japan. The original 172 emojis, crude in comparison to their modern descendants, borrowed extensively from the Manga comic-strip tradition. So one option could be the escape of the emojis from the print comic page.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90471/original/image-20150731-17178-zv7t80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90471/original/image-20150731-17178-zv7t80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90471/original/image-20150731-17178-zv7t80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90471/original/image-20150731-17178-zv7t80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90471/original/image-20150731-17178-zv7t80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90471/original/image-20150731-17178-zv7t80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90471/original/image-20150731-17178-zv7t80.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Print to digital.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/arileu/19131371928/in/photolist-v9zhm9-pVxeWc-7zXZkY-5eEY44-59zm9V-sVLwEG-gjtUpn-9Fn1a-smLkuF-niArrg-CyarD-7pr4b-rYgHh-jCvCo-8BYYR2-2KvH-85Gvw3-njDWVF-qjopxJ-bm79Qc-5drQp3-aGY92x-5dHZbU-7aAbjk-5djXA1-6MLLns-85GB23-8C35JN-66QVjE-6Vedu7-3TW6mx-dMxiJA-8CtpCc-8C33TL-85JvWw-8WCmK5-ngPXvT-5ewiAu-ngSjPj-dMxib3-QgDX-absZFz-a936DP-t8nhBa-aodpaJ-s1qiBN-f4AhoS-6yyHCA-dj3Eit-7i3apF">arileu/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Or given film director Leondis’ track record in the world of animated martial arts, an emoji kung fu epic might be on the cards. Emoji clearly has the technicolour vocabulary to deliver on this front, with the pop fist, praying hands and panda emojis already available, as well as host of nefarious red-devils, ghouls and evil faces supplying the evil assassin and the assorted entourage of baddies. There is also a ready-made set of weapon emoji, including a handgun — which landed a 17-year-old Brooklyn teenager <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/02/can-emojis-really-be-used-to-make-terror-threats">in jail</a>, earlier this year, for an alleged terrorist threat when he posted an ill-advised Facebook status update. Perhaps, though, a bespoke samurai sword emoji might better fit the bill.</p>
<p>Of course, a rom-com always delivers at the box office, so that might be the way the movie pans out. Emoji certainly have plenty to offer there – ideally suited as they are to express the emotional rollercoaster of a good love story. A universal “language” for expressing our emotional selves in our interconnected cyberworld of digital talk, the most prevalent usage of emoji is to express emotions – as a recent <a href="http://swiftkey.com/en/blog/americans-love-skulls-brazilians-love-cats-swiftkey-emoji-meanings-report/">survey</a> that analysed a billion pieces of data from across 16 languages made clear. Overall, 45% of emojis relate to positive emotions, including winks, kisses and smiles. Sad faces (including angry faces and other negative emotions) account for another 14%. Love hearts, of all types, including the broken heart emoji, were used 12.5% of the time. Across these three emotion-related categories, a whopping 70% or so of our emoji usage directly enables expression of our feelings.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fZ_JOBCLF-I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>There are a handy-set of potential love interest emoji characters, ranging from the dancing red lady, a personal favourite of mine, to various work-related emojis – including the statuesque police officer, or even a bespoke square-jawed firefighter emoji. The wealth of city-scape emojis might form the backdrop for a heroic rescue, atop a blazing skyscraper emoji – a riff on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072308/">The Towering Inferno</a> – combining both romance and danger. Love would be, of course, at first sight. There’s even a range of vehicle emojis enabling our love-struck couple, newly free of danger, to disappear into the distance.</p>
<p>As is evident from my extended speculation, the emoji language has much to offer in almost any genre. And if the sum forked out for the rights of something in the public domain, I’m sure we’ll all be pleasantly surprised, Lego Movie style, by the real emotions cinematic emojis can dredge up in us. Love them or hate them, they are here to stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vyvyan Evans consults to TalkTalk Mobile.</span></em></p>Hollywood is in the process of developing a feature length Emoji movie. So what might the plot look like?Vyvyan Evans, Professor of Linguistics, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/325712014-10-15T01:08:56Z2014-10-15T01:08:56ZHumilitainment – the sorry story of reality TV<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61744/original/st9pxcsd-1413332395.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Come play with us. For ever. And ever. And ever. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alex Eylar</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Yesterday the Danish Toymaker Lego <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/oct/14/lego-reality-tv-show-lego-movie-batman">announced</a> its plans for a reality TV show to be launched in 2015, rumoured to be based on the idea of Master Builders, the top “construction workers” in the insanely successful <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lego-movie-understands-what-separates-kids-and-adults-25314">Lego Movie</a> earlier this year.</p>
<p>Surely the show will be more about the minifigs than the personalities of the people putting them together? Well, no, recent history would suggest otherwise. </p>
<p>As Paris Hilton <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0362153/news?year=2006;start=21">famously said</a> of her reality program, which ran from 2003 to 2007:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Simple Life is a reality show and people might assume it’s real. But it’s fake. All reality shows are fake basically. When you have a camera on you, you are not going to act yourself.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Television has changed dramatically in the past two decades. </p>
<p>Back then there were a small number of cable or satellite channels and a few terrestrial networks broadcasting standard formats, based upon film studio production methods, of situation comedies, police/crime procedurals, quizzes, cartoons, and so on, using professional actors or presenters, working from scripts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61639/original/yr6b8g4j-1413264332.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paris Hilton takes her TV reality show to a party in Beirut.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Nabil Mounzer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, a very large proportion of its programming in all TV formats (free-to-air, cable, and satellite) could be meaningfully described as “reality” – as distinguishable from scripted shows with relatively high production values.</p>
<p>Reality TV covers a wide variety of formats such as personal makeovers, “Mr Right/The Bachelor” programs, survival, talent contests, cooking contests, home renovation contests, weight reduction contests, “real housewives of X city”, docusoaps (programs that appear to be documentaries but have the feel of soap operas), dancing competitions, job-seeking contests …</p>
<h2>The origins of reality TV</h2>
<p>One of the tropes of reality TV - the filming of non-actors in actual settings, usually entailing some trick or prank, must go back to Alan Funt’s 1948 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CpzNGhfVio">Candid Camera</a>, a format revived by MTV with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk%27d">Punk’d</a> in 2003.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-CpzNGhfVio?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Candid Camera, 1953.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, like the hidden camera experiments of psychologist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Milgram">Stanley Milgram</a>, those shows did not carry the taint of suspicions of it all being a put-up job - which takes us back to the question of what reality is. </p>
<p>In some respects, reality TV, or the vague feeling that we are watching something synthetic, goes back to an American historian Daniel J. Boorstin, who in 1962 produced a book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Image-Guide-Pseudo-Events-America/dp/0679741801/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410244479&sr=8-1&keywords=the+image+boorstin">The Image: A Guide To Pseudo-Events In America</a>. </p>
<p>Boorstin attacked “pseudo-events” such as press conferences, presidential debates (which existed merely to be reported) and publicity stunts concocted by public relations and advertising professionals. </p>
<p>He also attacked the manufacture of celebrity – “a person who is known for his well-knownness” (later known as “famous for being famous”). His insights are almost eerie in their predictive power of “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity%E2%80%93industrial_complex">celebrity-industrial complex</a>”, within which much of reality TV exists. </p>
<p>Media academic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reality-TV-Genres-Misha-Kavka-ebook/dp/B00EMT2Y4A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410245836&sr=8-1&keywords=reality+tv+misha+kavka">Misha Kavka</a> tracks the next phase of reality TV from 1999 onwards, calling it the age of Surveillance and Competition, with programs such as [Big Brother](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(TV_series) and [Survivor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_(U.S._TV_series).</p>
<p>A series of industrial strikes by US actors, writers and extras in the late 1980s and early 1990s helped precipitate the search for production that would step around unions and search for lower-cost formats. Reality TV helped solve those. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61637/original/vq4b93qy-1413263720.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contestants of the 2006 series of American reality show Survivor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Nine</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Companies such as the Dutch company <a href="http://www.endemol.com/programme/big-brother">Endemol</a>, <a href="http://au.eonline.com">E!</a>, [Bravo](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bravo_(U.S._TV_network), and <a href="http://www.mtv.com">MTV</a> were able to produce reality format shows at much lower costs than mainstream production houses and networks. </p>
<p>Endemol developed Big Brother and franchised the show throughout the world. Over time it developed more sophisticated programming, including conventional dramas and comedies, including Australia’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1530541/">Offspring</a>.</p>
<p>Franchising of formats has provided a substantial source of income for developers.</p>
<p>Survivor, a game format show where people are “marooned” in harsh environments, launched in 1997 as a Swedish show, and debuted on US TV in 2000. It has been a ratings winner for more than a decade. Early morphings of reality TV (perhaps helping lower the bar of what was acceptable on TV) were “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabloid_talk_show">Trash TV</a>” programs such as the talk shows of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcMY3mNvfgs">Maurie Povich</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGo1HZAWA4I">Jerry Springer</a>.</p>
<h2>Ordinary people and anti-talent</h2>
<p>Kavka argues that “ordinary people” who appear on reality shows sometimes become celebrities themselves, but not always in ways they had anticipated. </p>
<p>Sara-Marie from the first series of Big Brother in Australia, who had been nominated for eviction six times before finally being voted out, was greeted on her exit with screams of adoration by a nation keen on replicating her joyful “bum dance” in pink pyjamas and bunny ears. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61615/original/2y24x5gc-1413258138.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=615&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jemma, Peter and Sara Marie in the final eviction at the Big Brother household, 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Dave Hunt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>None of these sudden celebrities could be described as having talent. On the contrary, the very thing they became famous for - ignorance, malapropisms, turning one’s bottom to the camera and slapping it - could be better described as “anti-talent”.</p>
<p>Ray Richmond of the <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/calling-reality-tv-is-altogether-150164">Hollywood Reporter</a> counted 18 casting staff in the pre-production of a Gordon Ramsay cooking show:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Why does a program populated primarily by the actual employees and customers of real restaurants need 18 people to cast it? If the casting department’s job is strictly scouting out the eateries and judging charisma and on-camera appeal, are they not in fact conducting auditions?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To a certain extent, then, the scene we see on screen - staff, angry chef, customers - is all pre-arranged. American media critic <a href="http://www.realitybitesbackbook.com/about-reality-bites-back">Jennifer Poszner</a> has described the way reality TV producers will often look for stereotypes to cast – such as the so-called slut or the dumb jock – so role-taking on the part of participants, at variance from their normal behaviour, seems to be the norm. </p>
<p>Contestants on the Idol/Voice franchises sometimes appear in Ford commercials, thus <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Reality-Revolution-Television/dp/0313399018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166290&sr=8-1&keywords=edwards+triumph+of+reality+tv">breaking down the barriers</a> between show and commercial breaks - a weird inversion of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_placement">product placement</a>.</p>
<p>When Survivor cast member Jerri Manthey appeared on a 2004 interview show, the audience could only focus on the manufactured persona of Manthey as a villain on the show and booed her off: as she fled, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Reality-Revolution-Television/dp/0313399018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166290&sr=8-1&keywords=edwards+triumph+of+reality+tv">she cried</a> “We’re real people too!”</p>
<h2>Humilitainment and schadenfreude</h2>
<p>It is also true that the confected conflict built into many reality shows leads to what has been called “<a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/joy-and-pain/201403/humilitainment-anyone-0">Humilitainment</a>” - the entertainment value we apparently are meant to derive as contestants are bullied, critiqued and undergo rituals of shame, degradation and embarrassment as they are excluded from a competitive situation - expelled from Reality Garden of Eden. </p>
<p>As Ben Pobjie <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/exposing-bigfoot-sure-to-raise-hairs-20140716-3c1fl.html">observed</a> about Masterchef in the Sydney Morning Herald:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>But look, the important thing is: somebody is going to cry.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61617/original/fzb54fx9-1413258884.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Masterchef Judges Gary Mehigan, Matt Preston and George Calombaris.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Network Ten</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some analysts have linked this phenomenon to that of the German concept of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude">Schadenfreude</a> - the pleasure one derives from the suffering of others. This is often exacerbated by the absurdly melodramatic pausing of judges giving their in-or-out verdict on the contestants. </p>
<p>The economics of celebrity is also tied up with how money is made out of the shows.</p>
<p>The Kardashian family produces books, clothing brands, nail polishes, perfumes, diet supplements, cosmetics and clothing boutiques. Endorsements of other products earned them US$65 million in 2010. Social media <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13527266.2012.726235#.VA1ug4C1bbE">accelerated these processes</a>.</p>
<p>Additional money flows into the coffers when shows split revenues with telephony service providers viewers use to phone or text in to vote for a contestant. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Reality-TV-Genres-Misha-Kavka-ebook/dp/B00EMT2Y4A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166222&sr=8-1&keywords=kavka+reality+tv">Kavka</a> argues that once a person has spent money on a call, they are more likely to spend money on the iTunes download, a single, an album or a ticket to a live performance - in other words, they become emotionally invested. </p>
<p>Pop culture scholar Leigh Edwards points out that Coca-Cola thinks it is worth US$64 million a year to have <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Reality-Revolution-Television/dp/0313399018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166290&sr=8-1&keywords=edwards+triumph+of+reality+tv">Coke containers in front of the judges</a> of American Idol, another example of product placement.</p>
<p>Perhaps crucially, reality TV is so much cheaper to produce than conventional high-production value shows - anywhere from <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0410/why-networks-love-reality-tv.aspx">50% to 10% of the cost</a>. </p>
<h2>Constructing a Frankenbite</h2>
<p>While much of reality TV seems to be live, to be happening in real time, such is often not the case. </p>
<p>Shows such as The Apprentice may have a shooting period of five months, and even the talent shows may have multiple re-takes. On some shows such as Big Brother and the Kardashians, hundreds of hours of tape or film may be shot, which means editing becomes very important.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61633/original/343fzqcy-1413263423.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West at The GQ Men of the Year Awards at Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, September 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ NEWZULU/ Richard Goldschmidt</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Because so much film is shot in reality programs, editing assumes a greater importance than it normally would. Here, Jeff Dawson discusses some <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Editing-Reality-Accessible-High-Paying-Hollywood/dp/1935247085/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410252343&sr=8-1&keywords=dawson+editing+reality+tv">tricks of the trade</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>So what is a Frankenbite? Simply put, a Frankenbite is an interview bite that has been CONSTRUCTED (capitals in original) from fragments of otherwise unrelated interview material. It is a sentence or series of sentences MANUFACTURED in the edit, as opposed to a sentence of series of sentences actually captured ‘in reality’ on set. This is called CHEATING. A Frankenbite follows the same logic, but takes it to a more extreme level. In a Frankenbite, words - even word fragments - are elements to be drawn from and manipulated any which way needed to best tell the story. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He offers some hypothetical monologue from Keeping Up with the Kardashians:</p>
<p><strong>Kim</strong>: I buy couture and I love it. </p>
<p>Some people might really hate me for saying that.</p>
<p>Khloe is the youngest. Though if you ask her, she says she’s the most mature.
And she looked at me like … stand up! You can’t sit there all day!</p>
<p><strong>Frankenbite</strong>: I hate Khloe. I really can’t stand her.</p>
<p>On a Bachelor-type show, Joe Millionaire, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Triumph-Reality-Revolution-Television/dp/0313399018/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410166290&sr=8-1&keywords=edwards+triumph+of+reality+tv">editors re-cut audio</a> to make it sound like the male and a female contestant were having sex in the woods, when that was not true. It’s amazing that this is legal in the US. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61635/original/6xys7ftd-1413263602.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Contestant Joelene during Network Ten’s The Bachelor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Network Ten</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many people who participate in reality TV programs quite enjoy the experience, but there are several dark sides. US journalist <a href="http://www.vh1.com/celebrity/2014-05-26/reality-stars-who-did-porn">Stacy Lambe</a> tracks the number of reality “stars” who ended up doing pornography, while <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/consequences-train-wreck-tv-226683">Hollywood Reporter</a> in its analysis of “train-wreck TV” raises “questions about reality’s exploitation of the sick, weak and mentally ill as insiders reveal a one-sided dynamic where the ‘star’ almost always loses”. </p>
<p>This is mainly about the contrast between the very low pay of participants and the millions earned by producers. </p>
<p>The reality of reality is therefore often grim: while there have been tens of thousands across the planet who have participated in the talent show franchises, there have only been one or two that have had some type of major success (but not so much of late), such as Kelly Clarkson and Susan Boyle, which is not a spectacular average.</p>
<p>Many talk of this being a golden age of television, with high-budget, high production values, high-concept shows such as Game of Thrones and Breaking Bad. But there seems to have been a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/171563/hollowing-out-america">hollowing-out</a> of shows in the middle, with low-cost reality TV at the other end of the spectrum. </p>
<p>But let’s not get snooty: reality/unreality TV “stars” are the sages of our age. Sit back, and <a href="http://www.torontosun.com/2014/08/06/dumbest-reality-tv-star-quotes">enjoy their wisdom</a>. </p>
<p>And if that fails, crack out your Lego set and get building.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Baden Eunson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Yesterday the Danish Toymaker Lego announced its plans for a reality TV show to be launched in 2015, rumoured to be based on the idea of Master Builders, the top “construction workers” in the insanely…Baden Eunson, Adjunct Lecturer, School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics , Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/327612014-10-11T09:00:21Z2014-10-11T09:00:21ZGreenpeace v Shell via Lego: the building blocks of a successful campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61289/original/nnnj9c6g-1412864549.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stick 'em up.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/me2_too/11849935206">Me2</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>October 9 2014 was a big day in eco-activism: Lego announced that it would <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/09/lego-ends-shell-partnership-following-greenpeace-campaign">not renew a product-placement deal</a> with Shell, following concerted pressure from Greenpeace as part of a campaign to ban Arctic oil exploration by attacking firms associated with such activities.</p>
<p>It is a common tactic of major energy companies to engage in collaborations with companies such as Lego as part of their quest for what they call a “<a href="http://socialicense.com/definition.html">social license</a>” to operate. That means winning local, national and international community support. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/61294/original/fypmmfpv-1412868135.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=814&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Did I mention I drive an Aston Martin?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunechaser/385846713">Andrew Becraft</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For its part, Lego benefits from the money that comes with product placement; <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-james-bonds-relationship-with-product-placement-has-changed-2012-10?op=1">as per a James Bond movie</a>, the producers defray their costs well in advance of sales to customers by accepting funding from firms that want to be associated with a happy, friendly, trustworthy image. </p>
<p>In this case, the firm is Greenpeace’s sworn enemy, Shell. As a sub-plot, Lego has been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/lego-design-sustainability-circular-economy">boasting of its green credentials</a>.</p>
<p>On July 1 2014, <a href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/2014/july/lego-group-comment-on-greenpeace-campaign">Lego said</a>: “A co-promotion contract like the one with Shell is one of many ways we are able to bring Lego bricks into the hands of more children.” It went on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Greenpeace campaign focuses on how Shell operates in a specific part of the world. We firmly believe that this matter must be handled between Shell and Greenpeace. We are saddened when the Lego brand is used as a tool in any dispute between organisations.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now, <a href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/2014/october/comment-on-the-greenpeace-campaign-and-the-lego-brand">Lego’s tune</a> differs:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We continuously consider many different ways of how to deliver on our promise of bringing creative play to more children. We want to clarify that as things currently stand we will not renew the co-promotion contract with Shell when the present contract ends.</p>
<p>We do not want to be part of Greenpeace’s campaign and we will not comment any further on the campaign. We will continue to deliver creative and inspiring Lego play experiences to children all over the world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This is, surely, one of those moments when a big but pusillanimous multinational corporation withers in the face of critique from a gallant but small non-government organisation – when activism trumps business, ethics triumphs over size, and scale is helpless in the face of righteousness.</p>
<p>It has been <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/greenpeaces-biggest-victories-against-corporations-politicians-1469239">hailed</a> by Greenpeace true believers as “one of the most high-profile victories in its history” thanks to “guerrilla tactics”. The organisation itself immodestly announced in an email to its supporters that: “Today was a great day for the Arctic, and for people power.”</p>
<p>But was it? Perhaps this was a smart, sophisticated, well-heeled multinational marketing campaign, undertaken via a vast network, using the services of advertising agencies and borrowing trademarks and copyrights to make a political point?</p>
<p>Is this actually about what happens when multinationals fall out, when two vast companies (Shell and Lego) are separated by another powerful not-for-profit multinational (Greenpeace) revelling in the fantasy that it is David taking on Goliath? One version of these events might read: Greenpeace has not achieved very much in its critiques of Shell, so it went after a soft target. Lego caved in, the victim of a form of secondary boycott.</p>
<p>While <a href="http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/climate/how-lego-got-awesome-savethearctic-20141009">the charity argues</a> that its grassroots campaign and direct-action pranks were crucial, one might also say that “wot won it” was a couple of ingenious videos.</p>
<p>The first and most popular took music, words, images, and logos from one of the most successful films of the year, [The Lego Movie](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lego.htm](http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=lego.htm), to create a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhbliUq0_r4&list=UUTDTSx8kbxGECZJxOa9mIKA">post-modern pastiche</a> aimed at the heartstrings. The second, artier and less direct, was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci4I-VK9jew&list=UUTDTSx8kbxGECZJxOa9mIKA">targeted at parents</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qhbliUq0_r4?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Everything: not awesome.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The first, a brilliant video trope, worked magnificently and has become a case study for ad agencies. As the <a href="http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/even-if-you-hate-greenpeace-and-love-lego-you-have-admire-gorgeous-attack-ad-158809">industry bible AdWeek put it</a>, Greenpeace took “a page from <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/ad-day-chipotle-makes-magic-again-fiona-apple-and-dark-animated-film-152380">Chipotle’s marketing playbook</a> – haunting animation plus a distressing cover of a well-known song”.</p>
<p>Other actions, such as a few children building anti-oil Lego figures in central London, some adults climbing models at a theme park and fun Lego figures placed in protests across major world cities, were minor irritants at best, drawing predictably minimal press coverage but incarnating a grassroots legitimacy that appeals to donors and old-fashioned activists from pre-social media eras.</p>
<p>But even as the triumph occurred, Shell was luxuriating in <a href="http://www.thedrum.com/news/2014/09/11/shell-enlists-pele-open-kinetic-energy-favella-football-field">Pele’s endorsement</a> of it for providing “the world’s first player-powered community football pitch in the centre of Rio Di Janeiro’s favela”.</p>
<p>It will take more than a sophisticated stunt by vanguardist apparatchiks to answer Pele. And it won’t be the action of a brave wee David against a big nasty Goliath – more a contest between rivals for multinational space and control. Greenpeace is well-placed to participate, thanks to its vast resources and smart links to ad agencies. But is people power one more marketing tool in this admittedly worthy struggle?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32761/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby Miller is married to a Greenpeace campaigner and donates to the organization</span></em></p>October 9 2014 was a big day in eco-activism: Lego announced that it would not renew a product-placement deal with Shell, following concerted pressure from Greenpeace as part of a campaign to ban Arctic…Toby Miller, Professor of Media & Cultural Studies, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/270182014-06-08T21:12:00Z2014-06-08T21:12:00ZSublime design: Lego<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50357/original/9fd86gpy-1401949764.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Lego brick has now become a basic module of virtual “brickworlds”. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andreas</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Danish design” usually conjures up images of mid-century modern furniture – functional yet sculptural – but Denmark’s most successful “design icon” is a humble plastic brick: Lego. </p>
<p>In 2013, the <a href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/lego-group/company-profile">Lego Group</a> manufactured more than 55 billion Lego pieces. By the time you have finished reading this article, another half a million plastic bricks will leave Lego factories in Denmark, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Mexico for export to more than 130 countries. </p>
<p>But the plastic bricks now comprise only part of the story, and Lego’s recent success in licensing, video games <a href="https://theconversation.com/brand-connection-and-the-lego-movie-whats-going-on-22936">and films</a> means the physical bricks are now inseparable from their (and our) interactions with virtual media. </p>
<p>Once a basic module of a construction system for children’s play, the Lego brick has now become a basic module of virtual “brickworlds”. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50310/original/bfyxq5zk-1401933195.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lego HQ: the inside of the building in Billund, Denmark where 150 Lego designers develop new products.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lego Group</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Play well</h2>
<p>Lego’s story begins in 1932 in Billund, Denmark, when carpenter <a href="http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Ole_Kirk_Christiansen">Ole Kirk Kristiansen</a> founded a wooden toy business. Still based in Billund and still owned by the Kristiansen family, the Lego Group is currently the world’s largest toy manufacturer, with <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/feb/21/lego-builds-profits-new-products">profits measured</a> in the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/27/lego-builds-record-profit">hundreds of millions</a> of dollars. </p>
<p>The name Lego is a conjunction of the Danish words “leg godt”, meaning “play well”. The initial focus was wooden toys but, following the second world war, Ole’s son <a href="http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Godtfred_Kirk_Christiansen">Godtfred</a> took over the business and bought their first plastic moulding machine. By 1949, Lego was designing and manufacturing around 200 different toys, including a forerunner of the plastic brick. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50304/original/nyfqvms5-1401932497.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=580&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 1953 Lego Mursten set.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/media-assets-library/images">Lego Group</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A major turning point came in 1958, with the patent of Lego’s “stud-and-tube” coupling system. The simple construction system comprised interchangeable plastic bricks designed to interlock in various combinations. A play system that was non-violent, non-gender specific and stimulated children’s creativity and imagination proved so successful that by the late 1960s, Lego’s expanding range of plastic brick sets was a rapidly growing global export.</p>
<h2>Mediatisation</h2>
<p>The intersection of advertising, children’s television and toy manufacturers in the 1960s and 1970s meant children were increasingly associating toys with characters and narratives derived from television. </p>
<p>For Lego, the launch of minifigures (minifigs) in 1975 was a significant turning point in the progression towards more narrative play sets, with <a href="http://brickset.com/sets/theme-Space">Space</a> and <a href="http://www.mocpages.com/directory.php/10">Town and Castle</a> sets creating a new dimension for the bricks. No longer limited to building anonymous structures, children could now construct homes for knights and spaceships for astronauts. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50306/original/qstwqcwg-1401932829.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lego minifigure heads in the processing facility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://aboutus.lego.com/en-us/news-room/media-assets-library/images">Lego Group</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1998, a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB893892521217187000">Star Wars licensing agreement</a> meant that children were playing with not simply generic astronauts or cowboys but specific characters from popular films. <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/E/bo5530575.html">Described by film and media studies professor Stig Hjarvard</a> as <a href="http://www.sfu.ca/media-lab/cmns320_06/readings/hjarvard_bricks_to_bytes.pdf">mediatisation</a>, this process began Lego’s shift in emphasis from designing physical toys to designing media entertainment. </p>
<p>The plastic bricks remained, but became inseparable from their virtual “brickworlds” – from Harry Potter to Lego’s own fantasy world of <a href="http://bionicle.wikia.com/wiki/BIONICLE">Bionicles</a>. </p>
<p>While the shift from a simple construction system to integrated cross marketing with popular films, videogames and associated merchandising has caused <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/02/10/why-i-wont-see-the-lego-movie/">some concern</a> among parents, it has proven enormously profitable for the Lego Group. </p>
<p>Did the shift from an open construction system of bricks without a script, to a “mediatised” set with instructions and narrative represent a limiting of children’s imaginations and a narrowing of possibilities? Has integration into a wider commercial media culture meant that Lego is now, as one <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/02/10/why-i-wont-see-the-lego-movie/">media critic Philip Kennicot</a> recently put it, “commercialised play that encourages a nexus of pre-packaged narrative and consumerist desire in kids”?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50359/original/34sj4cqy-1401949890.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tara Faul</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lego mash-ups</h2>
<p>As I was unsure of how Lego is perceived by its users, I asked a six-year-old expert (my son) why he liked Lego. “Because you can make anything you want, smash it up, and then make something different,” he replied. After a lengthy conversation about Lego, I realised he didn’t mention Star Wars, Harry Potter or <a href="https://theconversation.com/brand-connection-and-the-lego-movie-whats-going-on-22936">The Lego Movie</a> (even though he has Lego sets from all of these) but kept returning to the process of making and remaking. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/50312/original/j25q3ss7-1401933354.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">See the movie. Buy the lego.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://cache.lego.com/r/aboutus/-/media/about%20us/media%20assets%20library/products/the%20lego%20movie/highres_super_xcycle_chase_package.jpg?l.r=359300910">Lego Group</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unlikely to keep the original instructions and recreate exact movie scenes, children still create their own structures and stories using Lego bricks. </p>
<p>Lego’s original construction system of interchangeable units has been cleverly adapted to the new media culture in the past two decades. Just as children recycle and remix Lego bricks and minifigs into new constructions and personal narratives, so too <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2014/02/lego-the-other-movies-10-great-brickfilm-shorts.html">Lego’s video games and films</a> mash up pieces of popular culture. </p>
<p>In The Lego Movie, for example, Batman, Abraham Lincoln, Dumbledore and Wonder Woman inhabit the same Lego brickworld. </p>
<p>Constructing, deconstructing and appropriating characters and scenes from popular culture are also evident in the popularity of Lego stop-motion animations. With these, children can create their own versions of Star Wars or Harry Potter stories and share them <a href="http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2014/02/lego-the-other-movies-10-great-brickfilm-shorts.html">online</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, the <a href="http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html">Brick Testament</a>, a lego-isation of The Bible, and The Guardian’s Lego adaptations of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/sport/series/brick-by-brick">great moments in sport</a> recreate adult stories with Lego. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Lego’s ongoing success lies beyond bricks for construction and deconstruction: Lego bricks have also become basic units for popular storytelling. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sublime-design">Read more articles in the Sublime Design series</a>.</strong></em>
<br></p>
<p><strong><em>Is there a design classic – industrial, graphic, urban, architectural, interior or landscape – you would like to write about? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></strong></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27018/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>DJ Huppatz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>“Danish design” usually conjures up images of mid-century modern furniture – functional yet sculptural – but Denmark’s most successful “design icon” is a humble plastic brick: Lego. In 2013, the Lego Group…DJ Huppatz, Senior Lecturer, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/253142014-04-07T19:58:52Z2014-04-07T19:58:52ZThe Lego Movie understands what separates kids and adults<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45725/original/5f6snsq4-1396836536.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Lego Movie demonstrates a surprisingly acute understanding of the boundaries between childhood and adulthood.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nick D.M.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I’m sitting here in my office, having made several false starts on this piece, and my phone has just buzzed. My five year old son – who an hour ago accompanied me to a packed screening of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1490017/">The Lego Movie</a> – has gotten hold of my wife’s mobile and is using it to text me pictures. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45720/original/yjxj73y3-1396834694.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45720/original/yjxj73y3-1396834694.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45720/original/yjxj73y3-1396834694.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45720/original/yjxj73y3-1396834694.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45720/original/yjxj73y3-1396834694.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45720/original/yjxj73y3-1396834694.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45720/original/yjxj73y3-1396834694.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lego carnage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony Eaton</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The photo I just received shows a random assortment of violently scattered Lego pieces, clearly the immediate aftermath of a drop from some height onto a hard floor. An unhappy, helmet-clad <a href="http://minifigworld.com/">minifig</a> lies face-down in the middle of the carnage. The accompanying message informs me that this is “the bad guy bit”.</p>
<p>And I’m laughing. But it’s also got me thinking. If he’d sent me this yesterday, I’d most likely end up telling him off for not looking after his Lego properly. (I’d also be more than a little worried about the probability of this kind of play ending with a single 4x2 standard brick waiting patiently for me to step on it with my bare feet in the middle of the night.)</p>
<p>But not today.</p>
<h2>A kids’ world free of adults?</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45726/original/5qfv88ds-1396836721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45726/original/5qfv88ds-1396836721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45726/original/5qfv88ds-1396836721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45726/original/5qfv88ds-1396836721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=251&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45726/original/5qfv88ds-1396836721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45726/original/5qfv88ds-1396836721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45726/original/5qfv88ds-1396836721.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cast of The Lego Movie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Village Roadshow</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I’ll be honest and admit that I went into The Lego Movie without high expectations. Having watched the previews, I’d put it firmly into the “triumph of commercialism over childhood” category and resolved myself not to see it. One of the longest-running discussions in children’s literature studies, and a conundrum that most children’s writers wrestle with on an ongoing basis, is the degree to which adulthood imposes itself and its values upon the lived experience of childhood. </p>
<p>I couldn’t imagine a film that, at first glance, appeared to serve as little else than an extension of merchandising being able to contribute much of benefit to the discussion.</p>
<p>And it’s an important discussion; one that has polarised opinions for decades. From British academic <a href="http://www.sed.qmul.ac.uk/staff/rosej.html">Jacqueline Rose</a> who, in 1984, declared that the role played by adults in the mediation and creation of “children’s literature” meant that it was impossible, through to <a href="http://crytc.uwinnipeg.ca/nodelman.php">Perry Nodelman</a>, the Canadian scholar who argued in 2008 that the inescapable presence of “<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Hidden-Adult-Childrens-Literature/dp/0801889804">the Hidden Adult</a>” doesn’t so much negate the possibility of “children’s fiction” as define it. </p>
<p>In all the debate, one of the few common ideas that emerges is that the contemporary notion of childhood is very closely tied to the adult expectations and desires that construct and manage it.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fZ_JOBCLF-I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Lego Movie trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Which is why, upon viewing the trailer for The Lego Movie, I couldn’t see the point of the film, other than as a vehicle to promote as many iterations of the toy as possible. Rather like the “Lego-ised” computer games one can buy (Lego Star Wars is a good example) where the Lego world and characters seem to serve no purpose other than as avatars for the characters and world of the original text.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45721/original/cm6jrxcs-1396835470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45721/original/cm6jrxcs-1396835470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45721/original/cm6jrxcs-1396835470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45721/original/cm6jrxcs-1396835470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45721/original/cm6jrxcs-1396835470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45721/original/cm6jrxcs-1396835470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/45721/original/cm6jrxcs-1396835470.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Emmet, the average star of The Lego Movie.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Nina Prommer</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Surprisingly, the film defied my expectations.</p>
<p>Yes – it’s about Lego. And no, it won’t do any harm to the Lego Corporation’s bottom line.</p>
<p>But it’s about a whole lot more than that. It’s a film of surprising complexity, and one that engages in a particularly liminal way with the boundaries of adulthood and childhood. </p>
<p>Emmet, the protagonist, functions not just as a vehicle for the plot, but also as a metaphor for the tabula rasa of childhood. In the course of his journey from “average” to being “The Special”, the film carefully and precisely teases apart the binaries of childhood and adulthood that are so clearly evident in the nature of Lego itself; a children’s toy that is nowadays just as prized and nostalgically glorified by adults.</p>
<p>During the first half, the movie rolls along with enough action and laughs to give the impression that, like most good family films, it has been deliberately packed with enough adult-access cultural references and in-jokes to make it fun (or at least bearable) for all concerned. </p>
<p>When, however, the plot takes on a particularly metafictive and postmodern twist in the final act, then the binary of children’s film/adult film unravels completely and the result is a film that will speak equally effectively, if differently, to both adult and child audiences, and which offers some serious food for thought on the issue of adulthood as a colonising force over childhood.</p>
<p><br>
<em>The Lego Movie is screening now.</em></p>
<p><em><strong>If you are an academic or researcher working on film and would like to write for The Conversation please contact <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">the Arts + Culture editor</a>.</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>See also:</strong><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/brand-connection-and-the-lego-movie-whats-going-on-22936">Brand connection and The Lego Movie – what’s going on?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lego-movie-builds-the-case-for-australian-know-how-22945">The Lego Movie builds the case for Australian know-how</a></p>
<p><br></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25314/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anthony Eaton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>I’m sitting here in my office, having made several false starts on this piece, and my phone has just buzzed. My five year old son – who an hour ago accompanied me to a packed screening of The Lego Movie…Anthony Eaton, Associate Professor of Writing and Literary Studies, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/236292014-02-24T15:19:15Z2014-02-24T15:19:15ZLego Movie CEO is evil because bad bosses sell cinema tickets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42379/original/qs76tjgj-1393246333.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The tie-in merchandising costs HOW much?!</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/julochka/12205019874/sizes/h/">julochka</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Business is a bad guy. We know that because he is the chief executive of the Octan Corporation. He also has bad hair, control issues, and transforms into the evil tyrant Lord Business who – together with his robot army – plans world domination. Sound familiar? That’s because the idea of a corporate boss being an evil genius is a staple of popular culture, so no surprise to see it in The Lego Movie too.</p>
<p>The evil CEO is a standard piece of character furniture in film, comics and cartoons. This is now a genre-crossing cliché, whether Henry J Waternoose III in Monsters Inc; Norman Osborne, the CEO of Oscorp who becomes the Green Goblin in Spiderman; or Mr Potter the banker from It’s a Wonderful Life. Indeed, it’s rare to find fictional bosses who have any redeeming characteristics, most being selfish, lying, power crazed, and determined to smash all opposition to their evil plans. If a scriptwriter wants to establish that someone is a bad guy, put him in a suit and behind a desk. Then add a sneer. That usually does it.</p>
<p>The paradox is that The Lego Movie is funded by people in suits who sit behind desks. It’s made by Warner Brothers and The Lego Group, both big companies that sell their wares into global marketplaces. In order to make the movie, they <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/01/28/the-lego-movie-can-revive-warner-bros-animation/">spent about US$60m</a>, much of that with a host of other smaller companies. </p>
<p>And that’s just the film, which is basically an extended advert that people will pay to go and watch. If you add to that the global merchandising of products such as “Lord Business’ Evil Lair” (£59.99) or the THE LEGO®MOVIE™ Stationery Set (£10.99) then it is difficult not to see this as big business lampooning big business in order to make big money.</p>
<p>So what is going on here? Why do the culture industries so often produce work which appears to be critical of capitalism? What’s more, why are so many of our heroes characters who oppose big business, such as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean films, who ends up taking on the bewigged evil of the East India Company? Or Kermit the frog fighting the greedy oil baron Tex Richman in The Muppets film? In The Lego Movie, protagonist Emmet Brickowski’s struggle against Lord Business is just another example of the little people fighting power, even if power in this case is made from plastic bricks.</p>
<p>If we discount the “left-wing bias” theories beloved of the Fox News Channel, there’s only one convincing explanation. Big business tries to sell things that people will buy, and that includes ideas about character and plot. If Lego had tried to sell the idea that big business cares about the common people, or that managers are heroic, the audience would have not believed them.</p>
<p>Most people, most of the time, believe that corporations routinely lie, cheat, steal and bend whatever laws they can. Most people also believe that managers are two-faced and that business is populated by sociopaths with MBAs. Only in the pages of business school textbooks and <a href="http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/">Management Today</a> do we see anything different.</p>
<p>In fact, the marketed animation of The Lego Movie is a rare example of corporations telling a sort of truth. It’s one of the few times that we might believe what business says about itself and about the Gordon Gekkos and Scrooges that run them. Our cynicism is understandable, with companies routinely telling us that they care as they squirt their marketing campaigns and social responsibility statements into our eyes. Hoping, perhaps, that we won’t notice how much they are paid, or how much tax they evade. So when we see an evil boss, we see an echo of truth, and that’s a rare commodity in the plastic world of President Business.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23629/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>President Business is a bad guy. We know that because he is the chief executive of the Octan Corporation. He also has bad hair, control issues, and transforms into the evil tyrant Lord Business who – together…Martin Parker, Professor of Organisation and Culture, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/229362014-02-18T01:35:44Z2014-02-18T01:35:44ZBrand connection and The Lego Movie – what’s going on?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41675/original/9ncy5dn7-1392610451.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lego is fighting back against a virtual onslaught.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Village Roadshow</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Thanks to <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lego-movie-builds-the-case-for-australian-know-how-22945">the release</a> of The Lego Movie – which opened in the US to huge acclaim on February 7 – the Danish toy company looks set to extend its “brand connection” to generations of families, even further than it had before.</p>
<p>But Lego is not the only brand that will be keen to maintain its currency by connecting with new and ever younger audiences across multi-channels. The much maligned Barbie Doll is <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/barbie-doll-features-in-sports-illustrateds-50th-anniversary-swimsuit-issue/story-e6frg6n6-1226825804094">still going strong</a> in and out of the home, as is <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2553205/Happy-birthday-G-I-Joe-As-classic-action-figure-celebrates-50th-anniversary-toy-collectors-reveal-worth-fighting-for.html">GI Joe</a>. </p>
<p>But how times change. Children are now <a href="http://www.indiatimes.com/technology/pc-and-laptop/tablets-topping-childrens-wishlist-in-uk-125586.html">connecting with virtual toys, apps and games</a>, leaving many of these more tangible toys <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXvR6yxUVSw">consigned to the attic</a>.</p>
<h2>Emotional connection</h2>
<p>Any self-respecting marketer will tell you building a relationship with the customer establishes brand loyalty. For young consumers, including children, doing this through a movie helps establish a positive emotional connection between the brand and themselves. </p>
<p>Two hours of brand advertising and product placement will hopefully lead to long-term brand recall, awareness and liking, so when parents ask their little ones if they want Lego, the answer will hopefully be a “yes!” and not a “no, I want a tablet!” </p>
<p>This <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10641734.1998.10505081#.UwFXffmSx8E">emotional connection is important</a>. The more positive the connection, the more likely that an adult consumer will recall that memory in connection to the brand, resulting in the sale of an item, hopefully restarting the cycle all over again with the next generation.</p>
<h2>Physical vs virtual</h2>
<p>Showing how a product can be used is important. None more so than for kids who are looking at your physical product versus a virtual game that is increasingly becoming more life-like with multiple layers. </p>
<p>The rapid success of bird games for mobile phones such as <a href="http://www.angrybirdsgames.com/">Angry Birds</a> and <a href="http://www.flappybird.com/play/">Flappy Bird</a> shows exactly what Lego is up against. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41679/original/y53zhn74-1392611168.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41679/original/y53zhn74-1392611168.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41679/original/y53zhn74-1392611168.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41679/original/y53zhn74-1392611168.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41679/original/y53zhn74-1392611168.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41679/original/y53zhn74-1392611168.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41679/original/y53zhn74-1392611168.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41679/original/y53zhn74-1392611168.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Transformer Bumblebee.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">邪恶的正太</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Competing against this, by showing young consumers how they can use their own imagination in a variety of scenarios to create their own adventures is important to the success of brands such as Lego against the virtual onslaught.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.hasbro.com/transformers/loc_selector.cfm">Transformers</a> is one such brand to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418279/">leverage off movies</a> to reinvigorate interest in the brand, with the release of four films since 2007. Disney is also constantly <a href="http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/2013/Disney">introducing new brands</a> to keep the next generation of consumers happy and engaged with the brand.</p>
<h2>Movies as a way around brand restrictions</h2>
<p>Movies, from a brand perspective, have the ability to expand a product into new markets and cultures where traditional forms of promotion are restricted, regulated or at risk of being lost in translation – just think of emerging markets such as China and India. </p>
<p>Movies can get around these barriers more easily as they aren’t so heavily restricted or regulated as advertising or sales promotions, and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10641734.1998.10505076#.UwFYlvmSx8E">can be just as successful at consumer recall</a> as any advertisement. </p>
<p>But in this cynical age, where <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjB6r-HDDI0">product placement is more easily spotted</a> than it was years ago, some movies are more subtle than others. It can in fact kill the entire movie experience by having more ad than plot – just ask director <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Ng2P3zxfM">Morgan Spurlock</a> who released <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1743720/">The Greatest Movie Ever Sold</a>, a documentary about branding, advertising and product placement that is financed and made possible by brands, advertising and product placement.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T4Ng2P3zxfM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, offical trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Brands need to be very careful with young consumers. Lay it on <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10551-007-9421-5#page-1">too heavy and parent groups</a> everywhere will inflict more pain on the brand than stepping on a Lego brick at 3am. Too soft and the whole effort goes to waste. </p>
<p>Brands have huge power over us as consumers, but <a href="http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/UK-Booze-Product-Placement-Study-030512.aspx">even more so over children</a>. This area of product placement is one that regulators need to keep a close eye on because of the potential harm that can be caused to children who might be exposed to products that are inappropriate for their age.</p>
<p>And then there are products that may harm children in the long term <a href="http://www.acrwebsite.org/search/view-conference-proceedings.aspx?Id=9318">through their ability to recall images</a> about brands that may be unhealthy or inappropriate for them in different contexts, such as alcohol, tobacco or even encouraging poor driver behaviour, such as speeding in cars. </p>
<p>The insatiable need of brands to keep on building themselves up, brick by brick, will see their current expansion across all media channels continuing well into the future. </p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-lego-movie-builds-the-case-for-australian-know-how-22945">The Lego Movie builds the case for Australian know-how</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Hughes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Thanks to the release of The Lego Movie – which opened in the US to huge acclaim on February 7 – the Danish toy company looks set to extend its “brand connection” to generations of families, even further…Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/229452014-02-12T23:37:42Z2014-02-12T23:37:42ZThe Lego Movie builds the case for Australian know-how<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41331/original/3gpkd993-1392180501.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A film industry is an ecosystem and needs all its parts.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Village Roadshow</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1490017/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Lego Movie</a> was released to a legion of fans in the US last Friday and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/movies/at-the-box-office-little-plastic-bricks-have-legs.html">massive box office success</a>. So what do a Hollywood movie and a Danish toy company have to do with Australia? Well, quite a lot as it happens…</p>
<p>Sitting high in the credits for the film are Sydney-based visual-effects company <a href="http://www.animallogic.com/">Animal Logic</a> and co-producer and co-financier <a href="http://www.vreg.com">Village Roadshow Pictures</a>.</p>
<h2>Background components</h2>
<p>The two companies played entrepreneurial roles in the film’s creation, with Village Roadshow co-financing the US$60 million production and Animal Logic creating the film’s animation in a marathon two-and-a-half year production employing some 250 animators and visual-effects artists at its Sydney headquarters. </p>
<p>When people think about Australian films they probably don’t think of production on this scale. We have become used to thinking of the Australian film industry as small and essentially marginal. But 50 years of sustained effort has yielded more than a subsidised enclave of filmmakers and its extraordinary catalogue of films.</p>
<p>It has allowed the accumulation of deep expertise in filmmaking which has brought a number of Australian companies to the heart of the global movie business. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fZ_JOBCLF-I?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Lego Movie official trailer.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Persistence has been key. Village Roadshow Pictures was formed in 1997 as an offshoot of the Village Roadshow Entertainment Group and has weathered its share of misses. But its longevity has been rewarded with numerous hits among the 70-plus movies it has co-financed with Warner Bros, among them <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4">The Matrix</a> trilogy, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240772/?ref_=nv_sr_1">Ocean’s Eleven</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0349903/?ref_=nv_sr_2">Twelve</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0496806/?ref_=nv_sr_3">Thirteen</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0366548/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Happy Feet</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343092/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Great Gatsby</a>. </p>
<p>Upcoming films include <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1837709/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Winter’s Tale</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1872194/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Judge</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392190/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Mad Max: Fury Road</a>.</p>
<p>It says a lot about the company that it has succeeded in a business notorious for exploiting <a href="http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/07/when-your-money-is-the-dumb-money/">“dumb money”</a> (Hollywood’s term for investors seduced by the glamour of movie-making). A story in the <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2004/feb/29/magazine/tm-spanked09">Los Angeles Times</a> about the never-ending parade of wannabe Hollywood investors – from Belgian dentists to Wall Street titans – was famously headlined “Chew. Spit. Repeat.”</p>
<p>Village Roadshow has not been spat out.</p>
<p>Similarly, Animal Logic, formed in 1991 in the very early days of digital, has weathered the tough business conditions that last year sent visual-effects company <a href="http://www.rhythm.com/home/">Rhythm & Hues</a> into <a href="http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/chapter-11-bankruptcy-small-business-owners.html">chapter 11 bankruptcy</a> right after it won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects on <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454876/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Life of Pi</a> in 2013. </p>
<p>Animal Logic’s credits include <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112431/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Babe</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0203009/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Moulin Rouge</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120737/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">Lord of the Rings</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0385004/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">House of Flying Daggers</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0463854/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">28 Weeks Later</a> and it has moved into a more active producing role with <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219342/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole</a>, and now The Lego Movie. </p>
<h2>Building a complex industry ecosystem</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41339/original/mmtyb8zw-1392181672.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41339/original/mmtyb8zw-1392181672.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41339/original/mmtyb8zw-1392181672.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41339/original/mmtyb8zw-1392181672.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41339/original/mmtyb8zw-1392181672.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=892&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41339/original/mmtyb8zw-1392181672.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41339/original/mmtyb8zw-1392181672.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41339/original/mmtyb8zw-1392181672.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1121&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Lego Movie teaser poster.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">vynsane</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is of course a tension in the conjunction of the global movie business and domestic filmmaking. </p>
<p>It was played out <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-make-films-is-human-to-baz-luhrmann-divine-22898">recently at the AACTA Awards</a> when Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby beat out Kim Mordaunt’s <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2178256/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">The Rocket</a> for Best Film and scooped up 13 awards against its tiny competitor’s one (for Best Original Screenplay). </p>
<p>The outcome was <a href="http://if.com.au/2014/01/30/article/AACTA-Awards-Goliath-slays-David/TUDWNLEHLY.html">billed</a> as “Goliath Slays David” in IF magazine and there was <a href="http://eyeswiredopen.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/whats-wrong-with-aacta-awards_31.html">commentary</a> to match, notably from Australian documentary filmmaker <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0650321/?ref_=tt_ov_dr">Eva Orner</a>, who described the competition between “an overblown, weak, poorly reviewed, massively budgeted studio film” (Gatsby) and “solid, tiny budgeted, meaningful” local films (The Rocket) as “nonsensical and damaging” to the Australian industry.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with Orner’s description of Gatsby. Personally, I found Luhrmann’s swaggering appropriation of a core work of the American canon rather thrilling. But she is right that the competition is damaging. We should not be setting big against small and taking sides. Rather we should be thickening the interplay between them, the sharing of skills, resources and ideas.</p>
<p>A film industry is an ecosystem and needs all its parts, big and small. It needs tough financiers and top-end visual artists. It needs filmmakers with strong creative ideas. And it needs swaggering impresarios.</p>
<p>It also needs the kind of persistence that allowed Village Roadshow to grow from a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_Cinemas#History">single drive-in cinema</a> 60 years ago and Animal Logic to morph from a tiny digital start-up.</p>
<p>Most of all, it needs the parts to fit together … a little bit like Lego.</p>
<p><br>
<em>The Lego Movie is released in Australia on April 3.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Court does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Lego Movie was released to a legion of fans in the US last Friday and massive box office success. So what do a Hollywood movie and a Danish toy company have to do with Australia? Well, quite a lot…David Court, Head of Screen Business, Australian Film, Television and Radio SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.