‘Lego Movie 2’ Celebrates Toxic Femininity

Why the sequel flounders in the shadow of its predecessor

So a few days ago, while on a stroll through town, I noticed The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part was playing at the Varsity Theater in Chapel Hill. On my way back, I decided to catch the 7:10 show. It is worth noting that I was generally caught off guard by this and was watching the film purely on impulse and with little knowledge about it in advance. Advertisements for this sequel had completely eluded me, but the brilliance of The Lego Movie in 2014 and the charm of The Lego Batman Movie in 2017 were advertisement enough. I had every reason to expect another excellent film, but soon I would find that I was getting the opposite.

Much of this comes from what you might expect. The writing is weaker. There is less use of the characters’ powerful personalities as source of the entertainment. The film feels like it is holding your hand all throughout the way. That said, these critiques are mostly only relevant in comparison to the two films that came before TLM2. This entry otherwise would have been acceptable and arguably worth the $7.00 I paid to see it, but what ultimately made a mediocre film unforgivably terrible was the political opportunism that crept into the art: TLM2 is a celebration of toxic femininity.

What is toxic femininity? Well, it is the counterpart to toxic masculinity. Think of any behavior that is traditionally or statistically common in women that could be described as mean, rude, or immoral. That is toxic femininity, for our purposes. Real as this kind of behavior is, there is unfortunately a culture of denialism about its existence or its extent, and this is clear in the propagandistic message of TLM2. Yes, my main gripe with this movie is that it is a work of leftist propaganda.

Some might try to argue that the first film was leftist propaganda too, so why should TLM2 be treated any differently? It is, after all, a film where the inner story (with the Lego characters) is about the tyrannical fusion of major corporations and the state, not so subtly manifested in the antagonist of President Business. Leftists would have a lot to like about that plot, but we would be kidding ourselves if we said that conservatives do not also share many of these concerns. A prime example is the bank bailouts during the financial crisis in 2008, which came without any prosecution of the banksters that caused the crash. This provoked the formation of Occupy Wall St on the left but also the Tea Party on the right. People on both sides were unhappy with a corporatism that only helped elites and came at the expense of the common man.

When The Lego Movie came out in 2014, it was on the heels of that economic mire, which (for many) still persists in 2019. Thus, TLM stood out more as a relatable form of social commentary than dishonest propaganda. The Great Recession simply happened. The bailouts funded by the taxpayers also simply happened, as did the displacement of millions of working-class Americans, liberal and conservative, Democrat and Republican. TLM2 does not come close to this same kind of resonance, but before we get into that, we need to look at the story.

Now, both TLMs consist of an inner story and an outer story. The inner story, as I mentioned, is what the Lego characters see and experience. It is an imaginary manifestation of the outer story. The outer story, meanwhile, is the events of the children’s lives, who are playing with the Legos. Where TLM made social commentary only in the inner story, with the outer story being about Finn’s strained relationship with his father, TLM2 sees the message of toxic femininity creeping into both the inner and outer stories.

In summary, the five years that follow the end of the first film consist of the sister not respecting her brother’s space and stealing his Legos. This results in Finn’s Lego world becoming a post-apocalyptic dystopia where none of the characters are very happy anymore. The events of the film follow Finn’s sister’s theft of more of his characters and his going up to her room to reclaim them. This is portrayed as five of the characters being abducted by aliens and Emmet (the main Lego character) going on a quest to rescue them. Finn’s younger sister merely wants to get her brother to play with her, however, and this is manifested by Queen Watevra Wa’nabi (ruler of the sister’s Lego world) trying to force and manipulate Batman into marrying her. Finn smashes his sister’s Lego setup as he reclaims his pieces, and they begin arguing. Their mother arrives and says that this is the last time (after five years) and takes away all their Legos, resulting in the destruction of both Lego worlds.

While the sister and her Legos are portrayed as the villains for most of the narrative, a twist at the end of the Second Act reveals that they are actually the good guys. Why? Well, because they said so. They just want to play with their brother/be with the other Legos. The real villain, we find, is none other than Finn himself and the Lego character of Rex. Did they still kidnap/steal the other Legos? Yes. Did they still do this over the course of five years? Yes. Did Finn or his characters ever do anything to them? As far as the plot tells us, no. Somehow, though, Finn is now the bad guy. So what is his crime? Apparently, it’s minding his own damn business.

The celebration of toxic femininity comes in the moral blindness of both the sister and the mother. Where Finn is portrayed as bad for being aloof and wanting space from his sister, and where Rex is treated as bad for being a tough guy, the sister is absolved because her intentions seem to come from a place of love. Similarly, the mother only sees that there is conflict and stamps it out, effectively blaming Finn for standing up for himself and asserting his rights. With no change in essential information, and under the duress of losing their Legos/world, Finn and his characters and magically change their minds and give the pre-twist bad guys everything they want.

The problem with this “happy ending” is that merely reversing the gender roles produces a platitudinously outrageous film. Had the inner story instead involved a king abducting a woman, in order to coerce her into marriage, and been treated as the good guy, there would be dozens of feminist reviews all over the Web right now, roaring about the TLM2’s endorsement of rape culture and the patriarchy. Had the brother been the one stealing from the sister again and again to get her attention, he would be decried as an entitled brat. Indeed, this confusion rather annoyingly reminds me of a girl in my kindergarten class who had a crush on me one week and followed me everywhere, only for our teacher to try and force me to play with her during recess. Yes, thank God the patriarchy was there to bail me out of that one.

This is why TLM2 left me walking out of the theatre with the rare desire to ask for a refund. In the wake of the MeToo movement and other anti-male media episodes such as the infamous Gillette ad, this films stinks of a bigoted hypocrisy that did not infect TLM or the Batman spinoff. This movie furthers the notion that the problem with toxic masculinity is the masculinity (not, you know, the toxicity). Basic concepts of respect and consent immediately fly out the window when the aggressor is female. Femininity, it seems, even the toxic sort, can only be good.

Where The Lego Movie 2 had a lot of potential to build on the goodwill of the first film, the makers appear to have been caught up in the recent moral panic of the left toward men, who are treated as villains even if they actually leave women alone. While there were a few enjoyable moments, this corrupted the final product too heavily and appears to be the most likely explanation for why the other aspects of the film were more lazily and carelessly executed. As such, I give the TLM2 a 2/10.