The American dream: a husband-the breadwinner, a wife-the homemaker, two point five kids, and a house with a white picket fence. The wife is never pictured as the successful one, she is always dependent on the husband. A woman who earns more than her husband is seen as a threat to his masculinity. Thankfully, this notion is changing in today’s society. What is not changing however, is the lack of smart and womanly as coexisting descriptors. This is seen through multiple platforms, most notably media, such as advertisements. The 1981 Lego ad is more successful in showcasing young girls as inventors than the modern Heartlake City Lego ad, but neither is truly able to address the stigma that femininity cannot equate intelligence which the recent …show more content…
They do so by beginning the ad with two older girls, probably around 13 or 14 years old, which is the appropriate age for the product’s intended audience to see as role models. The video then moves onto a speed-lapse of the set being built and eventually zooms into two lego girls identical to the actresses shown earlier. Building the set in a speed-lapse style demonstrates how Lego is targeting girls with less interest in creativity. They do not care how the set was built, nor is it important to them to be able to manipulate the parts and create a new set. The lego girls go to various shops and spend lots of money, the blonde doll pays using a 100 dollar bill in one scene (Heartlake Shopping Mall-LEGO Friends). This frivolous spending appeals more to middle to upper class families who have the extra income to spend in such a manner. The commercial and the product both have a predominantly pink, purple, and yellow color scheme which are all seen as traditionally feminine colors. Thus, Lego is now reinforcing the stereotype that women who are interested in traditionally female ideas are only capable of spending money and going to salons, instead of creating new technology or being productive citizens. This idea is reinforced on their target audience who are young girls and very