8. “Everything is Awesome:”
Spreadability and The LEGO Movie
Joyce Goggin
Abstract
This essay addresses The LEGO Movie as a transmedia text that references
or includes a remarkable collection of characters and “bits” from other
films and TV series. As I argue, the movie is assembled with a kind of
cynical humour reminiscent of the exhausted irony described by David
Foster Wallace, and effectively short-circuits possible critiques of the
LEGO company itself, while presenting a Trumpian dictator who is plotting
the end of the minifigures’ world. The essay also discusses the economy
of transmedia storytelling and its characteristic diversification which
mirrors LEGO’s own corporate strategy, thus making the LEGO business
model cute and entertaining.
Key words: LEGO; money; finance; irony; transmedia storytelling
A Nobel prize, a piece of string
You know what’s awesome? Everything
[…]
Rocks, clocks, and socks, they’re awesome
Figs, and wigs, and twigs, that’s awesome
Everything you see or think or say is awesome
Introduction
The high-spirited affirmation that “everything is awesome” – the hook from the
LEGO Movie’s (2014) academy-award-winning theme song – is a message that
itself could mean just about “everything” and anything. From “rocks, clocks
and socks” to “wigs and twigs,” the lyrics express not only one minifigure’s
Fehrle, J. and W. Schäfke, Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence, Amsterdam University
Press, 2019
doi 10.5117/9789462983663_ch08
Spreadability and The LEGO Movie
Joyce Goggin
Abstract
This essay addresses The LEGO Movie as a transmedia text that references
or includes a remarkable collection of characters and “bits” from other
films and TV series. As I argue, the movie is assembled with a kind of
cynical humour reminiscent of the exhausted irony described by David
Foster Wallace, and effectively short-circuits possible critiques of the
LEGO company itself, while presenting a Trumpian dictator who is plotting
the end of the minifigures’ world. The essay also discusses the economy
of transmedia storytelling and its characteristic diversification which
mirrors LEGO’s own corporate strategy, thus making the LEGO business
model cute and entertaining.
Key words: LEGO; money; finance; irony; transmedia storytelling
A Nobel prize, a piece of string
You know what’s awesome? Everything
[…]
Rocks, clocks, and socks, they’re awesome
Figs, and wigs, and twigs, that’s awesome
Everything you see or think or say is awesome
Introduction
The high-spirited affirmation that “everything is awesome” – the hook from the
LEGO Movie’s (2014) academy-award-winning theme song – is a message that
itself could mean just about “everything” and anything. From “rocks, clocks
and socks” to “wigs and twigs,” the lyrics express not only one minifigure’s
Fehrle, J. and W. Schäfke, Adaptation in the Age of Media Convergence, Amsterdam University
Press, 2019
doi 10.5117/9789462983663_ch08