Victoria,
My apologies for the delay in getting this review out. Due to moving, we’re a bit backlogged. Fear not, however, new posts are coming! And, per Daniel Dawson’s request, we’re moving out of the box to review one of my favorite movies so far this year, The Lego Movie.
When I first heard a Lego movie was in the works, I had two thoughts: A. This will undoubtedly be terrible, and B. I don’t care. Let this be a cautionary tale for pre-judging a work of art based on concept or title, though, because despite external appearances The Lego Movie is the smartest thing to hit your local Redbox in quite some time. Masquerading as a children’s film, directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have crafted what is, in my opinion, the quintessential postmodern film.
Let me make my case, lest any fans of the The Matrix reading this choke in disgust. Postmodernity is, at its heart, a philosophy interested in examining the ways people tell stories to and about themselves. One of the central ideas in postmodernity is that humans buy into meta-narratives, overarching stories that tell people who they are, what they are about, and where they are going. Postmodernity often emphasizes that there are multiple cultural narratives, but that these fit under the umbrella of larger, more totalizing meta-narratives. Postmodernists also point out that multiple cultural narratives, and meta-narratives, can coexist alongside each other. For a real world example of all this, I would point to the traditional work narrative most Americans have. Typically it looks something like this: high school->college->job->retirement. This coincides with the narratives people accept about certain professions, such as, say, a doctor, which looks something like this: college->med school->residency->practice->retirement. This fits into the narrative of the American Dream (work hard, make money, have a family), as well as other political (democracy) and economic (capitalism) narratives that many people implicitly accept.
The Lego Movie demonstrates these ideas perfectly. Emmett, our hero, begins the film as an instruction-following drone. He has accepted without hesitation the narrative that has been given to him (by Lord Business, it turns out), and lives each day so that it follows along step by step towards its eventual conclusion. He soon learns that his world, “Bricksburg,” coincides with many others, such as “The Old West” and “Middle Zealand.” Each of these worlds contains its own set of narratives for its citizens to follow. All of these worlds, he also discovers, are under the direction of Lord Business, who creates the narratives these people follow. In the terms of postmodernism, each world functions as a different cultural narrative under the umbrella of the over-arching meta-narrative of Lord Business’ plans. Plans, it turns out, for the end of these worlds.
This is where things get really interesting. Another important aspect of postmodernity is that these narratives and meta-narratives should be open to critique. These narratives could, after all, end in ways people wouldn’t suspect, and might not actually want. In the movie, this is represented in “Taco Tuesday.” The denizens of Bricksburg work diligently so that they can enjoy a taco-filled day in the middle of the week. Little do they know that what they are actually doing is working towards “TAKOS Tuesday,” the day Lord Business sprays the world with crazy glue, effectively ending all Lego life. Only by joining up with people aware of the existence of these narratives is Emmett able to eventually foil Lord Business’ plan. Through Emmett’s story, the movie emphasizes the importance of criticizing, and possibly even working outside of or against, the narratives people are constantly asked to tacitly accept.
Pause for a moment and remember that this story is taking place inside a trademarked brand-logo of a film. Product placement was developed decades ago to quietly convince people to buy something by inserting it into various film scenes. After all, who wouldn’t want to eat Cheerios cereal if you knew that this was the brand Superman preferred? The Lego Movie was ostensibly developed primarily to sell Legos. This fits a certain consumer narrative: watch movie about toys->buy more toys. That the film bluntly encourages the questioning of these sorts of narratives is a stroke of genius on the parts of the filmmakers (and insanely good luck - how in the world did they pitch this to Warner Bros.?)
It’s worth noting that questioning these narratives doesn’t necessarily mean you have to reject them. After all, what did we do after watching The Lego Movie back in February? Go out and buy Legos.
The movie works post-modernly in a variety of other cool ways too, such as by nesting the Lego story in a real-world story, and by following along the tried-and-true epic hero story trajectory (only to subvert it by having the hero-producing prophecy be made up). I’ll leave the playing out of this theory up to you, though, as we think about this upon subsequent viewings. I definitely want to watch this again. A movie this smart - and, I should mention, this funny - deserves it.
Love,
Adam
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