‘Everything is awesome’: The LEGO movie and the affective politics of security

Abstract

Scholarship on the finance-security nexus has typically been concerned with ‘first order’ phenomena, such as the interpenetration of the finance and security sectors. This article contributes to the debate by turning to an apparent epiphenomenon, namely The LEGO Movie, and using it to address some overlooked intersections between popular culture and the finance-security complex. The analysis first focuses on how finance and security are represented in the film, through the plot and the fictional company at the centre of the film’s conflict, to its LEGO minifigure characters and the playsets featured therein. The focus then shifts to how the LEGO Group’s business model informs the film in significant ways, from the plot’s motivation and structure, and the mise-en-scène, to how the film was produced. My argument throughout is that a seemingly innocent or insignificant film in fact participates in the financialization and securitization of daily life through its very style and status as a cultural product. Key here is how The LEGO Movie does this in ways that confound possible critique through the use of irony and cute aesthetics, as well as through its own supposed triviality.

“Polluting our kids’ imagination”? Exploring the power of Lego in the discourse on sustainable mobility

“…16. These dynamics come close to what Goggin (2017) describes with regard to the "irony" of playing with or watching Lego media. While someone might want to build something "transformative" they rely on systemic logics and lock-ins to do so (and vice versa).…”

“…7. The question how Lego, through its corporate business and the design of its toys, is reproducing established inequalities and dependencies of the global economic system is likewise interesting (see for instance Goggin (2017) on the reproduction of financial security; also Baltodano (2017)). Though we are aware of this aspect (and thank the reviewers for strengthening this aspect) we are unable to include it in our analysis at this point.…”

Instruments of securitization and resisting subjects: For-profit professionals in the finance–security nexus

“…In international relations, recent work has discussed how humour and irony can be used by actors to bring forth affects that enable debate and consensus-building (Dittmer, 2013). It has further been shown how humour can be instrumental in the politics of security by promoting affects among market subjects that render the expansion of the finance–security nexus innocuous or even entertaining (Goggin, 2017). In the critical change management literature, however, humour and irony are more explicitly linked to forms of resistance.…”