Is it time for LEGO to stop being colorblind?

[Still Raindrop]

This is a fascinating topic, and it's one that I've actually been thinking about quite a bit lately. I recently changed all the minifigures in my growing town to be various flesh shades. I first attempted to make more explicit Black inclusion by using the more highly textured hair pieces, but something about it just didn't look quite right. When I switched it out with a more accurate skin tone, the minifigure looked much better. For me, I do this because I want my Lego town to be sort of an ideal place, and that includes harmonious relations between people of all races. Honestly, I would kind of like it if Lego were to change its non-licensed minifigures to being flesh-tones. That being said, it would receive massive backlash from some of the more fragile white folks, I think.

That being said, I do feel like Lego needs to add at least one more skin tone for East Asian people. They've used both medium nougat (Cho Chang, Dr. Wu, Baze Malbus) and light nougat (Rose Tico, Chirrut Îmwe, Mulan), but I don't think that either is quite right. Actually, come to think of it, I'd also like to see more consistency when it comes to skin tones. Lego is finally using medium nougat for Jango Fett, but it's even used different skin tones for different versions of the same actor. Look at Jeff Goldblum. For his appearance in Thor: Ragnarok, he has light nougat skin. For Jurassic Park, he has medium nougat. It does make things a little tricky.

[jxu]

When you look at a yellow minifig face, do you see a white person? I don't. Maybe they should've made all minifigs purple or blue so that it wouldn't be remotely any race. (Except for maybe the species from Avatar).

Perhaps TLG should ask a bunch of kids of all different skin tones, "when you see a yellow minifig face, what race is that minifig?" or "Does that minifig look like your race?" I think most kids won't even understand the question. Then they can interrogate the kids on their subconscious biases.

[koalayummies]

13 hours ago, Still Raindrop said:

Honestly, I would kind of like it if Lego were to change its non-licensed minifigures to being flesh-tones. That being said, it would receive massive backlash from some of the more fragile white folks, I think.

So if a builder simply prefers the non-biological-pigment yellow figures then they're fragile?

[Still Raindrop]

5 hours ago, koalayummies said:

So if a builder simply prefers the non-biological-pigment yellow figures then they're fragile?

Nope, and I didn’t say that. But the people who say that bringing race into something automatically makes you racist are. I probably stated my point poorly. I think many fans would be disappointed or upset, but the more fragile ones would be those calling for boycotts or saying that Lego has lost their business by being “too pc.”

[Vindicare]

3 hours ago, Still Raindrop said:

Nope, and I didn’t say that. But the people who say that bringing race into something automatically makes you racist are. I probably stated my point poorly. I think many fans would be disappointed or upset, but the more fragile ones would be those calling for boycotts or saying that Lego has lost their business by being “too pc.”

But you specified white folks... boycotts...aren’t exclusive to white people. But I digress.

Switching away from yellow would indeed make a lot of people, regardless, upset. Because if someone sees X race in a yellow minifig, that’s on them. As an adult, I just see people...as a kid, I probably didn’t care...but that was in the 80’s, when people were less visibly whiny than they are now. 

[TeriXeri]

Flesh tones were introduced to portray the real-life actors or non-LEGO source material (like Comic) characters.

Looking at the first Star Wars or Harry Potter years, those were still yellow, until eventually there were people of color based on real people/actors (Lando/NBA etc)

Different flesh tones have different torso prints, hand color and head color, so it's not as simple as swapping 1 piece (unless its a figure with gloves and generic torso of course).

Minidolls are flesh tones as the only exception when it comes to LEGO in-house themes but minidolls aren't compatible with minifigs anyway, outside of hair pieces and accesoires.

Duplo could be seen as an exception as well but Duplo has a lot less figures each year compared to minifigs, so flesh tones makes sense because a fair amount of Duplo sets nowadays are Licensed as well, very few Duplo figures were even yellow to begin with. 

Duplo also has been using skin tones for a lot longer, can see sets going back all the way to 1983.

Differences can certainly be seen in something like CMF, Licensed figures have skin tones, as had the german football players, but generic London Olympics sports figures used yellow as they were not named characters.

 

I still prefer yellow figures as that's what my collection has the majority of, the rest being monsters/ghosts/aliens etc, or some minidolls.

Also , so far, no license really has been must-have for me since I came back into LEGO in 2016. and started exploring more and more themes since about mid-2018.

Edited September 5, 2020 by TeriXeri

[The Brick Boss]

On 9/4/2020 at 12:05 PM, Still Raindrop said:

Honestly, I would kind of like it if Lego were to change its non-licensed minifigures to being flesh-tones.

Nooooooooooo! Yellow better. 

Edited September 5, 2020 by Brandon Pea

[Still Raindrop]

4 hours ago, Brandon Pea said:

Nooooooooooo! Yellow better. 

Yeah, I realize that mine is definitely a minority opinion. I just prefer to have my city be a multicultural one with many races and ethnicities, rather than one with one/none. Others have Different preferences, and that’s fine. It’s definitely a personal thing, and I don’t think we’re in any danger of it happening. I probably didn’t explain myself well—it was a late-night post, and I’m not known for coherence then.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Still Raindrop

[Still Raindrop]

10 hours ago, Vindicare said:

But you specified white folks... boycotts...aren’t exclusive to white people.

I never said that boycotts were exclusive to white people....

[Vindicare]

3 hours ago, Still Raindrop said:

I never said that boycotts were exclusive to white people....

Heavily implied. Your first comment said fragile white folks while your second the more fragile ones would be calling for boycotts. As you said though, probably didn’t explain yourself well...happens to the best of us. 

Optics wise, and to outsiders, I see how flesh tones could be better. If you deem a yellow minifig X race, an unknowing person can’t really know that(if you show friends or take it to conventions or what have you). But that’s the beauty of the classic LEGO yellow, it can be anyone...or no one. It could be open to the viewer. 

[Gorilla94]

8 hours ago, Still Raindrop said:

Yeah, I realize that mine is definitely a minority opinion. I just prefer to have my city be a multicultural one with many races and ethnicities, rather than one with one/none. Others have Different preferences, and that’s fine. It’s definitely a personal thing, and I don’t think we’re in any danger of it happening. I probably didn’t explain myself well—it was a late-night post, and I’m not known for coherence then.

Wanting a multicultural Lego city is no minority opinion. The concept of "mulicultural = different races" is. Culture is a social construct. It shows in language, traditions and so on. If you take the dark skinned minifigure from the second Harry Potter series and switch hands and face to yellow 99% will still see the clothing style mostly people from africa or with african heritage wear.

Personally I like fleshies when it comes to darker licence themes. Batman with a yellow face in his Black and yellow suit would look stupid. With the colour scheme of lotr yellow faces would be too bright in contrast. In-house characters can be designed to be cartoonish and that style is what i love most about Lego. I'd not boykott Lego for changing that. I'd just loose interest in most figures if the cute little guys aren't yellow anymore.

Edited September 6, 2020 by Gorilla94

[Karalora]

I want to challenge the notion that having all-yellow minifigs means your characters are all of the same race, or no race at all. When I say yellow is race-neutral, I mean that any face can potentially belong to a member of any race or ethnicity. There is more to racial identity than just skin color, of course--earlier in the thread we were discussing the recent proliferation of highly textured black wigs that represent natural Black hair more effectively than the smooth and/or straight wigs that were introduced earlier in LEGO history. With or without naturalistic skin tones, LEGO is of course a highly simplified cartoon medium and it can be difficult to depict nuances of ethnicity without resorting to stereotypical costumes or activities, but I think it's important that we have as many options as possible so we can depict diversity in our brick cities if we want to. (And we should want to.)

[JintaiZ]

Yellow works fine with generic characters. In fact, I actually feel like yellow makes everyone feel equal. Colored licensed figures are fine, but that's about it...

Edited February 7, 2021 by JintaiZ