All Sorted Ep 35: LEGO & Race
|On a diverse episode of All Sorted Jeff and James:
Ask if all LEGO people are yellow
- LEGO minifigs are yellow because, (according to LEGO via Gizmodo.com)
- “When the minifigure was first introduced 30 years ago, it was given the iconic yellow skin tone to reflect the non-specific and transcendental quality of a child’s imagination.”
- The first LEGO humans were white:
- Bicyclists and Motorcyclists released in 1956
Find the first yellow “skinned” LEGO people
- The first yellow “skinned” LEGO people were brick built:
- With only grey, black, red, yellow, green, blue, and white available, LEGO designers chose yellow to represent the skin tone:
- Samsonite makes a set that utilizes a colour other than yellow for skin:
- 3 Little Indians (1964)
- Three brick-built figures with yellow outfits and red skin.
- This set was manufactured by Samsonite and only available in the USA
- 3 Little Indians (1964)
Look at the first moulded LEGO parts specifically made to build people
- LEGO introduces the Maxifigures in 1974
- LEGO breaks away from their now established use of the yellow skin tone with the release of:
- Red Indians (1977)
Rely on our non-specific and transcendental quality of imagination
- The modern minifig makes its debut in 1978 and everyone is yellow again
- By this poin LEGO had the capacity to make minifigures any skin town, but intentionally chose yellow.
- Just look at the array of colours LEGO Fabuland minifigures came in. (Released in 1979)
Watch LEGO make dolls with (very limited) racial diversity
- Belville (1994-2008)
- Of the 210 Belville figures listed on Bricklink, I could only find 33 that were non-white
- 18 of those were Fairies! (Pink, Yellow, Blue, Green, Purple, White skin)
- Scala (1997-2001) – http://brickset.com/sets/
theme-Scala
Put the idea that yellow minifigs can represent any race to the test
- In 1999 LEGO signed a licensing agreement with Lucasfilm and Star Wars
- Harry Potter followed in 2001
- Yellow skinned minifigs versions of:
- In 2003 LEGO signed the NBA, and now, suddenly, using a universal yellow skin tone wasn’t good enough anymore:
- While LEGO did produce yellow skinned generic players, all the licensed players used “natural” skin tone
- Once LEGO started using the “natural” skin tones for the NBA players, they started to incorporate them into the other licensed lines.
- Set 10123: Cloud City
- This set, in my mind, proves that LEGO never saw the yellow skin tone as representing any race other than white as all the white characters have a yellow skin tone, and the lone black character is in a “natural” skin tone
- LEGO had many opportunities to make a Lando minifig before this set, but chose to make the following sets without including a Lando:
- Set 10123: Cloud City
See LEGO give us a wide range of Friends to play with
- Friends (2012-Ongoing)
Finally, we ask
- Is LEGO doing enough to promote ethnic diversity?
- Would you like to see more skin tones in your LEGO sets?
- Do you wish LEGO stuck to yellow minifigures only?
- Do you even see this as an issue?
- Let us know. Please leave a comment, or hit me up on twitter, I’m @StillSorting.