A license to diversify: Media franchising and the transformation of the “universal” LEGO minifigure

Abstract

In this chapter, author Derek Johnson explores how LEGO’s investment in media diversity discourses extends from its licensed themes to new proprietary endeavors that acknowledge consumers-and their play objects-as raced and gendered. By considering the bodies that can and cannot be built with LEGO products, as well as who The LEGO Group imagines as part of its branded culture of play, Johnson argues that LEGO has begun to challenge the politics of universality that it formerly embraced. These dynamics reveal both how the licensing practices of media franchising can catalyze more diverse and inclusive cultural commodities and how that capacity for change gets incorporated within the design, product differentiation and branding strategies of construction play.