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The Little Girl from the 1981 LEGO Ad is All Grown Up, and She’s Got Something
to Say
February 11, 2014
By Lori Day
In mid-January,
this
article on The Huffington Post hit my Facebook newsfeed like a Justin Bieber
deportation petition - it was everywhere. In it, HuffPost Family News Editor
Jessica Samakow writes:
Pay attention, 2014 Mad Men: This little girl is holding a LEGO set. The LEGOs
are not pink or “made for girls.” She isn’t even wearing pink. The copy is about
“younger children” who “build for fun.” Not just “girls” who build. ALL KIDS. In
an age when little girls and boys are treated as though they are two entirely
different species by toy marketers, this 1981 ad for LEGO — one of our favorite
images ever — issues an important reminder.
Something about this piece with the iconic 1981 ad tapped the zeitgeist and it
became one of HuffPo’s more viral articles in recent memory, receiving over
60,000 shares. And along the way, the small world of Facebook led to a comment
thread on my wall where someone, upon seeing the little red-haired girl holding
her LEGOs, wrote, “Hey, I know her!” And now I do too, because that’s the
serendipity of social media. Her name is Rachel Giordano, she is 37 years old,
and she’s a practicing naturopathic doctor in
Seattle, Washington. Giordano agreed to talk to me about her childhood and the
ad, and to pose for a new Then & Now photo meme, which you see above in the lead
image.
As I was planning my interview with Rachel Giordano, I saw
this blog post by Achilles Effect, and knew immediately what Giordano should be
holding in the new version of the photo. Enter the Heartlake City rolling beauty
salon TV news van, one of the latest additions to the LEGO Friends line.
Advertising copy lets us know what being a news anchor involves for minifig
Emma:
“Break the big story of the world’s best cake with the Heartlake News Van! Find
the cake and film it with the camera and then climb into the editing suite and
get it ready for broadcast. Get Emma ready at the makeup table so she looks her
best for the camera. Sit her at the news desk as Andrew films her talking about
the cake story and then present the weather to the viewers.”
Cake? Seriously? And what-the-what is that when you look inside the news van?
Where is the equipment? Is it behind the gigantic makeup vanity? As Achilles
Effect blogger Crystal Smith notes, “This toy had so much potential to inspire
young girls who think journalism would be a cool career. Instead, they get the
same message delivered just about everywhere else in the culture that surrounds
them: look pretty and smile for the camera.”
Children haven’t changed, but adults who market to them have… What do we have
to lose, besides stereotypes?
So what did Rachel Giordano have to say about the LEGO news van when it pulled
up to her medical office in Seattle via Amazon and UPS? First things first: she
told me what it was like to be a child model for the Ford Agency in New York
City, posing for print ads and performing in commercials. On the day she went
into the studio to make the 1981 LEGO ad, she was given a set of original LEGOs
and an hour to play with them and make her own creation—it is what you see in
the ad. (And those were her own clothes—the comfy jeans and blue striped t-shirt
and sneakers without a hint of pink that she wore in off the street.)
The news van kit struck her as really quite different. She does not have
children, so the change in LEGO represented by the Friends line was startling:
“In 1981,” explains Giordano, “LEGO were ‘Universal Building Sets’ and that’s
exactly what they were…for boys and girls. Toys are supposed to foster
creativity. But nowadays, it seems that a lot more toys already have messages
built into them before a child even opens the pink or blue package. In 1981,
LEGO were simple and gender-neutral, and the creativity of the child produced
the message. In 2014, it’s the reverse: the toy delivers a message to the child,
and this message is weirdly about gender.”
The original 1981 ad has been making the rounds in my girl empowerment blogging
circles for the past few years now, symbolic of the nostalgia that ain’t what it
used to be when it comes to children’s toys. The stereotyping of girls in their
world of play is an issue close to my heart and one that I address in my book
Her Next Chapter, because, as Maria Montessori notably said, play is the work of
the child.
Editor’s Note: What most recent articles about this inspiring ad have left
out, is the equally inspiring woman who created it. According to a January 21,
2014 Mashable piece, “The ‘What is Beautiful’ ad was created by Judy Lotas, who
was the creative director at SSC&B, a now-defunct ad agency… She had two young
daughters at the time, and gender equality was a big topic.”
Over at Princess Free Zone, Michele Yulo has been writing about the change in
LEGO since the new LEGO Friends line dropped anchor in girls’ toy aisles all
around the world. “Last year,” says Yulo, “I did my own homemade version of the
ad to show that it is not that kids have changed, forcing companies to adopt
‘separate but equal’ and ‘pink marketing’ strategies—in fact, it is the other
way around. I didn’t change the tagline except to say that ‘What it is is still
beautiful.’ Because it is.”
That’s Yulo’s daughter on the right side of the meme, holding her own unique
LEGO structure built with regular—I mean boys’—LEGO.
What’s the problem with girl LEGO? Why is everyone against pink?, ask many
parents. I’ll let Rachel Giordano answer that question: “Because gender
segmenting toys interferes with a child’s own creative expression. I know that
how I played as a girl shaped who I am today. It contributed to me becoming a
physician and inspired me to want to help others achieve health and wellness. I
co-own two medical centers in
Seattle. Doctor kits used to be for all children, but now they are on the boys’
aisle. I simply believe that they should be marketed to all children again, and
the same with LEGO and other toys.”
I couldn’t help being curious about how Giordano’s renewed fame first came to
her attention and how it was affecting her. “I did so many advertisements as a
kid that this LEGO ad did not stand out in my memory,” says Giordano. “When it
resurfaced on the Internet all these years later, I was totally surprised, and
some of my friends asked, ‘Is that you?’ I’m super excited to tell my story!”
Giordano has grown up, but she’s still the same cheerful and creative person you
see in the original ad. As Yulo’s meme suggests, children haven’t changed, but
adults who market to them have. And LEGO? They sure are different. How about
this? Let’s give all children a world of play that includes all colors and all
possibilities, and let’s market it that way. What do we have to lose, besides
stereotypes? Gender-segmented toys may double corporate profits, but always seem
to result in for-girls versions that are somehow just a little bit less. I say,
let’s give girls more. Any reason not to??
About This Contributor:
Lori Day is an educational psychologist, consultant, and parenting coach with
Lori Day Consulting in Newburyport, MA.
From:
WomenYouShouldKnow.net
HuffingtonPost.com
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