2011 City Advent Calendar Set - Is Anyone Else Troubled By The Police State theme?

Bubba

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.

dougts

im assuming they went with Police/robber theme because that was there big push this year in the City lineup. That said, it was a horrendously awful decision.

Cam_n_Stu

I was puzzled by this too and I'm not keen on buying it for a child.

MinifigsMe

I agree that it's very odd...I'm getting it anyway, as my first year out of my dark ages, I HAVE to ;-) But if I was a parent I think I'd go for a home made calendar of minifigs and small poly's rather than this.

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!

richo

lol. all this political correctness is crazy. I quite like it. Next you'll be asking for the Castle/Kingdoms themes to be doing away with the swords!!!
Police deal with bad people! Imagine how bad the sets would be if they focused only on police desk work.

prof1515

It's a horrible calendar and I won't be getting it. However, I do have to agree that Lego's emphasis on police is far too extreme. Another aspect that they frequently use in such context is disability or irregular appearance. Notice how the villains in many Lego themes are the ones with physical handicaps. You never saw a single soldier in the pirates theme who had a peg leg or hook for hand. Only the pirate captains had them. Same went for eyepatches. The Western theme had villains who were grizzled, unshaven, etc. yet the cavalry were all neatly groomed. The Adventurers line had hooks, eyepatches and scars on the villains as well.

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.

dougts

richo-
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.

richo

For goodness sake these are toys. I for one don't want Lego to be ruined by political correctness. There is nothing wrong or offensive about any recent set that I can remember, including this latest calendar. A pirate with a stripy top, eye patch and wooden lego is as best an example of an acceptable stereotype you might get (if that makes sense!), rather than an offensive one.
I guess next you'll be calling for a Star Wars Cantina set where Greedo shot first!

richo

doughts - I see what your saying, a fair point.
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.

MinifigsMe

I don't find the stereotypes a problem, but then again, I don't have a disability. But they just continue the ideas that have been in fairy tales etc for generations. Whether that makes it wrong or right I don't know.

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.

dougts

-richo
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.

Yellowcastle

While I also won't be buying the calendar, I'm not really offended by it. Then again, my favorite Christmas movies are Die Hard and Love Actually. :o)

prof1515

For goodness sake these are toys. I for one don't want Lego to be ruined by political correctness. There is nothing wrong or offensive about any recent set that I can remember, including this latest calendar.

Whether your remember or not is irrelevant. Whether you find it wrong or not is subject to your own sense of morals, or lack thereof. However, there is a clear pattern of Lego depicting mini-figures with disabilities as villains and never heroes.

A pirate with a stripy top, eye patch and wooden lego is as best an example of an acceptable stereotype you might get (if that makes sense!), rather than an offensive one.

The issue is that the "good guys" have no eyepatches or peg legs. None of the heroes in any of Lego's original themes have such characteristics. However, when you look at the villains in the Pirates, Adventurers, Wild West, Agents, Collectible Minifigures, etc. you see the exact opposite. The message that Lego conveys to children via such depictions ends up being that if you have a physical disability, you're not a hero. That's a particularly vile concept for products like toys which are marketed for children.

Yellowcastle

Another aspect that they frequently use in such context is disability or irregular appearance. Notice how the villains in many Lego themes are the ones with physical handicaps. You never saw a single soldier in the pirates theme who had a peg leg or hook for hand. Only the pirate captains had them. Same went for eyepatches. The Western theme had villains who were grizzled, unshaven, etc. yet the cavalry were all neatly groomed. The Adventurers line had hooks, eyepatches and scars on the villains as well.

. I don't think I see things this way but even if I did, I don't feel LEGO has a responsibility to accurately represent society, realistic or Utopian. Movies and books and TV have entrenched stereotypical if not cliche bad guy traits for years and it is this foundation that likely inspires the designers as well as the fans.

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)

dimefield

My girlfriends 9 year old loves Lego City Police and im sure he wont mind the Police/ Santa crossover. Im interested to see if he notices or comments though.

prof1515

I don't think I see things this way but even if I did, I don't feel LEGO has a responsibility to accurately represent society, realistic or Utopian. Movies and books and TV have entrenched stereotypical if not cliche bad guy traits for years and it is this foundation that likely inspires the designers as well as the fans.

Movies and books have also contained horrible examples of racism, ethnocentrism, anti-Semitism and a slew of hateful and intolerant stereotypes. However, while many of those stereotypes still exist that doesn't make them any less hateful and intolerant. This is the year 2011 and time that such stereotypes are abandoned or at least not accepted because they serve only to demean and demonize people based on physical attributes. That's hardly a decent example to convey to children and a manufacturer of childrens' toys should know that.

And the adventurers to me were just an extension of the pirate theme.

How could you possibly come to that conclusion?

I also don't think you can qualify a beard as a disability.

I didn't refer to the depiction of a beard but rather to the depiction of villains as being ruffled and scruffy-looking. It's a common element of demonization to depict people denoted as "bad" as disheveled in appearance. Ethnocentrists have long depicted people from other cultures as barbaric and one such element to that depiction has been a disheveled appearance (actually, this goes back to Roman times and was derived from the barbarian cultures wearing beards while the Romans traditionally did not). For example, look at anti-immigrant publications from the 19th and early 20th century which depicted Southern and Eastern Europeans as scruffy, bearded and demonic looking and then compare it to depictions of Hispanic immigrants by similar publications today. In both cases they sought to depict the objects of their hate the same way, hence my note of it with Lego.

dougts

this conversation can only end badly I fear...

Rainstorm26

^ no kidding

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.

prof1515

There are good and bad people in this world. Kids learn this at some point whether through toys or news or their parents.

While the perception of good and evil is relative to one's position, I'm not arguing that such distinctions do not exist. The question is whether or not Lego propagates specific discriminatory associations between good and bad via characteristics which are in no way reflective of such distinctions outside of groups best described as ignorant and hateful.

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.

You actually contradicted your argument via your example. "[P]ropagating the concept of people that are different [as] bad" is a "societal image that [has] been created through history". Such societal images are not the result of historical fact but of historical propagation of hate and ignorance.

How do you differentiate the good guys from the bad guys in a line of toys without stereotyping?

It's not hard. All that is required is different clothing or accessories. For example, the use of weapons by bad guys versus tools by good guys would be a far more accurate and demonstrative differentiation between the two groups (ie, the good guys dig up the artifacts while the bad guys steal them). Additionally, the use of some stereotypical imagery isn't necessarily offensive if it's emblematic rather than based on bigotry. For example, the pirate captain can be designated via the skull-and-crossbones adorning his hat. The heroic captain can be the one with the eyepatch, hook and pegleg. The characters are thus differentiated without employing disability as an equivalent of evil.

Is the use of the aliens as the bad guys in Space Police 3 offensive because the bad guys look like crazy aliens?

I'm reminded of a quote from Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek, who said that "To be different is not necessarily to be evil." The logo on their outfit should be enough to differentiate the Space Police from the criminals. In a sense it is reinforcing an attitude that to be different is to be bad. Hence the offensive quality is not that the bad guys look like crazy aliens but rather that the good guys all look alike. Appearances don't determine good and evil, actions and intent do.

romdam

I think the whole point is that it should have been more "Christmasy" to some. This one seemed to "themed". The first one I bought was the one 3 years back. Loved it. I went looking for older ones. Something about last years didn't make me want it and this years even more so. My opinions tho.

Rainstorm26

To make this more interesting we could always start a conversation about why TLG propagates Christmas versus any other religious holidays, but I digress. In the end it is about the leadership at TLG and what direction they want to take the company. For people who have issues with them, they can either stop buying their products and boycott or enjoy the products for what they are. Another option is to try to get a leadership job at the company and personally change the direction the company is going in (could be a tough road to take).

bricking

following up on prof's comments... I'm kinda surprised there's never been a minifigure wheelchair. I did find this http://www.bricklink.com/catalogItem.asp?B=9701b4 .
Maybe it's just as well; it would probably be a Dr Strangelove type evil genius.

higgins

In that Megafactories episode about LEGO you hear one of the employees mention that the 'robber' is unshaven and disheveled because that's what the kids told them in their marketing survey when asked what makes them think of a robber.

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!

MinifigsMe

Just for the record there is a wheelchair in the first hospital set, but I've not seen one since, oddly. http://www.brickset.com/detail/?Set=363-2

andhe

^ That's because her legs aren't attached to her body! (In the picture).

Redbullgivesuwind

I dont see any of that in the lego themes, and to avoid race issues dont forget thats why lego were made yellow in the first place. And to be honnest as Adults we are guilty of assuming that our children think as we do and they dont. To a child the guy with the skull and cross bones and wodden leg is a pirate and nothing else they dont associate then everyone with a wooden leg and an eye patch in normal life as a pirate and say they must be bad people because thats not how children view the world thats how we see it and assume thats what they see. But if my children start calling people with false legs pirates then i will eat my hat. And if we are to clense all the worlds wrong associations we had better start burning peter pan, treasure Island, Huckleberry fin, Lord of the rings.

Redbullgivesuwind

also there are no fat people in lego are we to have those?

bmwlego

Interesting conversation to say the least. My wife has gifted me the City Advent Calendar each year it has been produced. That being said, I think I'll pass on it this year. I am vwry disappointed by this year's offering. I have DOZENS of Police minifigs and I certainly don't need anymore. I have enough robbers as well. I've been happy to get the Santa fig each year but face it, it is just a plain red fig. I bought the Star Wars calendar this year. The Yoda Santa fig is the Santa fig I've been hoping for. He hs a printed Santa torso and I can just switch out the heads. Why did we have to wait for a Star Wars set to get a proper Saint Nick?

With regards to "fat people in LEGO"---couldn't they all be fat. Look at how wide they are at the waist!

StuBoy

I suppose the next line of Police sets should involve some white collar criminals in business suits committing fraud. I'm sure the kids will love that. Maybe the next line of Pirates should be themed off the coast of Somalia with a small motorboat holding hostage a container ship.

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.

bluelion3

I agree that the "Christmas feeling" is missing from this year's City Advent calendar. I don't want to think about robbers and theft and crime at Christmas! I want to think about peace and love and good will towards men. Crime is always bad, but crime at Christmastime just seems a bit worse. The Winter Village theme has the right Christmas feeling.

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!

prof1515

I suppose the next line of Police sets should involve some white collar criminals in business suits committing fraud. I'm sure the kids will love that. Maybe the next line of Pirates should be themed off the coast of Somalia with a small motorboat holding hostage a container ship.

How is this statement relevant to anything thus far discussed? Somalian pirates in police sets have nothing to do with stereotypes regarding physical disability or to this calendar.

...as Adults we are guilty of assuming that our children think as we do and they dont. To a child the guy with the skull and cross bones and wodden leg is a pirate and nothing else they dont associate then everyone with a wooden leg and an eye patch in normal life as a pirate and say they must be bad people because thats not how children view the world thats how we see it and assume thats what they see.

Children learn racism and stereotypes from the world around them including their parents' behavior and attitudes as well as the entertainment to which they're exposed. These attitudes and biases can and often do carry with a person throughout their life unless they actually take the time to examine, analyze, critique and willingly sacrifice their beliefs, attitudes and behavior. Sadly, very few people do these things leaving them with the sum of all the bigotry, misinformation and prejudice that they learned from childhood onward.

And if we are to clense all the worlds wrong associations we had better start burning peter pan, treasure Island, Huckleberry fin, Lord of the rings.

All of those things do contain stereotypes which can be definitely perceived as offensive. Sometimes self-censorship is done. For example, Disney no longer makes "Song of the South" available (and hasn't for a long time) because of racist imagery found therein. However in all of these cases we're talking about stereotypical depictions in existing works from the past. That's very different from perpetuating stereotypes via NEW sources.

madforLEGO

Sorry, I do not get the big deal... Do they show the Lego Police shooting civilians in the back or beating them with nightsticks?? No, Does the calendar show a Cop beating the fisherman or fining him for fishing without a license? No.
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)

Yellowcastle

@prof1515- I think you have made some interesting observations and given a point of view that many of us likely hadn't seen.

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.

whizzard

The theme of this year's troubles me greatly, but i think also the fact that some of the builds are over multiple days (The Police station being 4, the police car being 3 days).

dougts

yeah. nothing like building 1/3 of a car and having to wait two more days to play with it...

Redbullgivesuwind

I dunno i like the fact that they put "large sets" into the calander shows a new way of thinking about it. They should do a massive one for two hundred quid and put huge sets into it. day one a house....

legoDad

@Yellowcastle...thank you.

Lego missed the boat on this calendar. They shoud've made it a Nasa/space city themed one.

prof1515

Lego missed the boat on this calendar. They shoud've made it a Nasa/space city themed one.

Redundant given that they did a Star Wars calendar. It makes more sense to cover two vastly different themes so as not to leave those who have no interest in SF/Fantasy with no option.

pantenkind

I think the whole point of this entire post was missed. No one cares if LEGO are politically correct. And no one cares if there are police and bad guys in the calender. If its a holiday calender then the sets, whatever theme they take them from, should have a holiday theme of some sort. This thread shows exactly why our society cannot get anything done. One person makes an innocent comment and it immediately becomes an issue of race or politically correctness. We have to deal with this sad fact every day of our lives, can we just leave it out of our hobby please?

prof1515

I think the whole point of this entire post was missed. No one cares if LEGO are politically correct. And no one cares if there are police and bad guys in the calender.

Actually, the original poster did care that there was nothing but a police theme in the calendar.

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.

Rainstorm26

@yellowcastle Please close this thread. It's rather grating.

StuBoy

How is this statement relevant to anything thus far discussed? Somalian pirates in police sets have nothing to do with stereotypes regarding physical disability or to this calendar.

I was highlighting your original post about stereotypes and my interpretation of that was your desire to make the sets 'realistic' by not having stereotypical pirates with peg legs or criminals with stubble and a devious grin. Having sets with modern-day pirates and white-collar criminals achieves this, but somehow I don't think kids would have the same play experience.

PerryMakes

It makes more sense to cover two vastly different themes so as not to leave those who have no interest in SF/Fantasy with no option.

NASA is anything but SF/Fantasy. It's both non-fiction AND reality. Awesome idea legoDad - I think that would have made a perfect topic.

PerryMakes

Having sets with modern-day ... white-collar criminals achieves this, but somehow I don't think kids would have the same play experience.

In my play city, the smarmy investment bankers didn't get a bailout. I made the cops drop their doughnuts and gave them some real work to do! Unfortunately, non of them were smart enough to understand the derivatives market... :D

StuBoy

^ Hey you can't have cops with doughnuts, that reinforces the negative stereotype!!

dimefield

Is this the 5 minute arguement or the full half hour?

Yellowcastle

@rainstorm26 - Please note that we don't go around closing threads because they "grate on" people. If that were the case, then I'd be closing any topic that referenced spinning ninjas. :o) As long as the discussion here stays on topic and cordial, it will be what it will be.

legoDad

@PerryMakes...thx. I feel the same way. Not a S/F calendar but one showing various small scale Lunar Modules, rockets, space station...various astronaughts...lunar landscape mini vignettes to have a rover, etc. Would've been a nice teaching tool too. And the only fantasy aspect could've been a Santa Astronaught in a bubble helmet on a rocket sleigh...;)

prof1515

I was highlighting your original post about stereotypes and my interpretation of that was your desire to make the sets 'realistic' by not having stereotypical pirates with peg legs or criminals with stubble and a devious grin. Having sets with modern-day pirates and white-collar criminals achieves this, but somehow I don't think kids would have the same play experience.

That was not what I said. I said that Lego depicts people with disabilities as villains. This appears to be an extension of the belief that bad people are somehow less-than-perfect physically be it a scruffy appearance or a physical disability. In the case of the latter, I find their depiction disgusting and in very poor taste. Pirates was but one theme I mentioned. The fixation with the theme alone was the result of others, not me. I noted it as well as the Adventurers and Agents themes.

prof1515

NASA is anything but SF/Fantasy. It's both non-fiction AND reality. Awesome idea legoDad - I think that would have made a perfect topic.

NASA is far more similar to SF/Fantasy than the police theme or the castle theme of hte past, especially given Lego's depiction of fictional vehicles. While their most recent sets are closer to real vehicles they are not accurate depictions (save for the accuracy of the Shuttle Adventure/Expedition but even that does not represent an actual shuttle since there was never a shuttle named either).

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.

prof1515

The fixation with the theme alone was the result of others, not me. I noted it as well as the Adventurers and Agents themes.

Whups! I meant Western, not Agents. That reference was in a different post, not my first one. Either way, your interpretation was flawed and completely off-base as to my intent hence your response was as well.