TOADY for short, get it?
And the TOADY Award is “bestowed upon the year’s most exploitative (and downright worst) toy as determined by public vote.”
The year’s top worst?
A LEGO set.
Pirates of the Caribbean? Harry Potter? Star Wars? Nope.
A beauty shop.
Topping this year’s shortlist of five unfortunate nominees is the Lego Friends Butterfly Beauty Shop, part of a range of girl-targeted Lego building toys that’s no stranger to controversy. Perceived by some as reinforcing sexual stereotypes with its pink blocks, gendered minifigures, and explicitly girly themes, Friends incurred widespread criticism from pressure groups at its January launch.
[…]
(To be fair, criticism of the range is hardly universal. Lego Friends is also a nominee for the regular, honest-to-goodness Toy of the Year awards in several categories.)
Look, I wouldn’t want my daughters to have such toys, OK?
But are these folks objecting to this set because it’s overtly feminine? Sexist, you know, in that the colors are feminine (apparently) and what they’re doing is feminine (apparently). Sexist, you know, in that the girls aren’t road crew flaggers (maybe) and fighter pilots (perhaps).
Whatever their TOADY case, I say stick with conventional LEGO sets and minifigures. Forget the fancy sets, although the LEGO City 4201 Loader and Tipper
Personally, I could have a lot of fun playing with the LEGO Ultimate Building Set
PS: No, don’t buy me a LEGO set for Christmas. 😯 Thanks!
Disclaimer: I wrote this post because the possible story-behind-the-story intrigues me. But more so, I took the time to scribble this because I wanted to seed it with some affiliate links to Amazon products. Really. No, I’m not suggesting you buy any of those three LEGO sets. But if you click any of those links, I’ll get about a 4% commission on anything you buy on Amazon during that visit. 