Shopping at LEGO or Amazon?
Please use our links:
LEGO.com •
Amazon
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
2011 City Advent Calendar Set - Is Anyone Else Troubled By The Police State theme?
I just got thru checking out the 2011 City Advent Calendar set and I was shocked at what I saw. Please understand that for several years we have been purchasing the Advent (City) calendar set for our children and each year they have been a joy to have. But this year’s City set is very different. While it has the traditional Santa-Clause mini-fig, Christmas Tree and wrapped gift pieces there is little else to associate the set with the traditional Advent series let alone the Holiday it is supposed to represent.
The first reaction I got when seeing what the set consisted of was POLICE STATE. When you take away the Santa mini-fig, the tree and the wrapped gifts you are left with :
2 Police & 2 Robber mini-figs, a police dog, 2 snow mobiles (one of which is shown as being stolen by one of the robber min-fogs who's holding a tool he used to steal it), a fisherman and a large Police Station/Jail. Of these the only thing not associated with Police & Robbers is the fisherman. If I were looking at the CITY-POLICE line of sets this would be expected but this is the Advent Calendar set and that’s not right.
Is anyone else even somewhat bothered by this? I should note that these are not just my opinions. When my children saw me looking at the set online they asked why a police set had Santa clause and a Christmas tree in it.
0
Shopping at LEGO.com or Amazon?
Please use our links: LEGO.com • Amazon
Recent discussions •
Categories •
Privacy Policy •
Brickset.com
Comments
Weirdly I got one a couple of years ago for my husband, but somehow that didn't quite trigger this lego-lust I have now!
Police deal with bad people! Imagine how bad the sets would be if they focused only on police desk work.
It's an extremely shallow, bigoted view of people with disabilities that Lego has repeatedly demonstrated in their mini-figures. Coupled with the emphasis on police it presents an utterly fascist world and one has to at times wonder if there's a goose-stepping skeleton in the Lego family closet.
to be clear, the objection isn't that there are cops dealing with robbers in general, it's that they decided to build the basis of the Christmas advent calendar around it. I don't think anyone is complaining about police/robbers in any other general sets.
I guess next you'll be calling for a Star Wars Cantina set where Greedo shot first!
I just would hate to see every set super sanitised to the point of ruining them. If that was the case, you could kiss goodbye to sets like the recent Mill Village raid.
But I just don't like a christmas calendar being themed on police, and 'bad' things happening, it doesn't seem right. But I dont' feel that strongly. I suspect it will sell as well as any other, but will get some negative feedback to TLG and they'll not do it again.
agreed completely. believe me, I'm no fan of PC run amok. I have no issue with cops and robbers at all. I just agree with the OP that it's a poor choice for a set that is supposed to be holiday themed.
When I think of peglegs and eye patches, I can't Imagine I'm the only one who thinks of pirates. And the adventurers to me were just an extension of the pirate theme. I also don't think you can qualify a beard as a disability. :o)
There are good and bad people in this world. Kids learn this at some point whether through toys or news or their parents. Is TLG propagating the concept of people that are different are bad? I don't think so. I think they take societal images that have been created through history and use them to allow kids to imagine they are on a good side or a bad side.
I guess the question would be. How do you differentiate the good guys from the bad guys in a line of toys without stereotyping? Is the use of the aliens as the bad guys in Space Police 3 offensive because the bad guys look like crazy aliens? The gangster (bad guy) in the new CMF S5 actually looks very spiffy; however, the lumberjack (supposed good guy) looks rather disheveled.
Maybe it's just as well; it would probably be a Dr Strangelove type evil genius.
Most likely the pirate captain with an early prosthetic leg or damaged eye with protective cover that happened during some wild exciting misadventure at sea is also what kids identified with when asked about pirates and the like. Some clean cut dandy isn't associated with tales of swashbuckling pirates - at least not to a kids simple outlook on the world. You can hear the guy chuckle about it because it's obviously such a simple point of view and kids don't even know what PC is yet so I doubt they say it in their answers to the marketing dept. with much bias toward any color/class/creed/eye/leg/etc. They probably don't realize that soldiers had uniforms and dress code requirements and the 'pirates' or 'robbers' in general did not adhere to such strict governmental rules and regulations hence the reason they are 'pirates' or 'robbers' in the first place.
But I agree that the police station is really weird for an Advent calendar although it almost looks like left over parts from this years City sets and it's nothing more than being cheap. I don't see many kids being excited about completing the cop shop on Christmas Eve but that could be from the negative perception a large percentage of society has towards police but most likely I agree with the suggestion somewhere above about City being heavy on Cops and Robbers lately. I have zero interest in those sets as an adult but I remember loving cops and robbers as a kid!
With regards to "fat people in LEGO"---couldn't they all be fat. Look at how wide they are at the waist!
And about the calender - I think it is vey odd to have a Police theme, they've dropped the ball on this one I think.
This isn't the first advent calendar with robbers, but they were never as prominent as they are in this one.
My dark ages ended about a year ago and I have been looking at past City Advent calendars on brickset and bricklink. I was looking forward to getting this year's calendar at retail price until I saw it. The older City Advent calendars were just regular city folk going about their regular peaceful productive lives and were a neat collection of minifigs and accessories.
It seems that for years, LEGO has had Police sets but very few robbers. The police must have just patrolled around looking to help children cross the street, but that's OK. Hopefully, 99% of the time that kids see police, they are just driving in a car casually and not chasing robbers.
I do like the tree and Santa and the gift boxes in this year's calendar, but I don't like that a robber appears to be stealing the gift boxes!
Last I checked they show them CLEARLY going after 'bad guys' in prison stripes.... and the last I checked the dog is a dog, not a police dog.. in the set sure, but a kid is going to see a dog when he is looking at his parts 6 months down the road...
So does everyone here with an issue really just have an issue with the Police going after bad guys (that are clearly defined by the way) and protecting the town?
I know people are on this thread to argue about this, and I understand difference of opinion, but I also know that some really look for something to argue about and push buttons on something that is really not there....
Does this mean a whole calendar needs to be devoted to cops and robbers? No.. but I say this is still a better calendar than the bathing Santa one last season that Lego 'phoned' in....
With the cost of the calendars now, I would rather have a calendar in the vein of about 3 years ago with a variety of towns people and a small little accessory type set (like the mechanic/machinist and drill press, or chef and pizza oven)
That being said, you hijacked this thread and I initially (and mistakenly) let it slide. If you would like to continue exploring the attitude of TLG towards those with disabilities, then I request that you create a new topic and explore it there. Thanks.
Lego missed the boat on this calendar. They shoud've made it a Nasa/space city themed one.
Personally, I think the calendar is a failure and definitely demonstrates how shallow a police theme is because it was impossible to derive 24 different mini-sets for it. They had to combine several into what ends up as ugly and poorly-designed models. That's been a repetitive problem with police sets for the last thirty years. When it comes down to it, they're all alike and really lacking any distinguishing features that are good-looking; they're only marked by variation in ugliness of design.
I sometimes wonder if they use the police and fire themes as remedial design departments for designers who haven't yet gotten to the point where they're capable of better. I imagine someone looking at their work and saying, "No creativity? No skill? Set them on doing another police station for practice, then send them back to studying."
Hopefully this thing will be as big of a commercial failure as it is a design failure and will prompt Lego to think long and hard about offering something better next year.
In the end, a NASA calendar and a Star Wars calendar would both be space-related whether fiction versus reality or not. For someone not remotely interested in space, the differences are moot.