a caucasian wonderland
Take a look at this collection of 90 lego people. Notice something funny about it? If you look carefully, you might notice 9 or 10 women, but no matter how closely you might look you won't find anyone who has any skin swarthier than Lego yellow. That's ridiculous on both parts; first, women are a little bit more than 50% of the population, but this random population of lego people can only get a little over 10% female (and to add insult to injury, we've got as many robots and skeletons as female minifigs)? And secondly, even a pasty white town like Portland has a 3-4% black population (and lemme tell you that this low percentage is something I notice after living in Chicago, NYC, New Orleans, and That Paradise That Is California™)
If it wasn't for the Lego Star Wars®™© sets, the black population of the lego world would be a few robot heads and three basketball players. This just isn't right. Fortunately for me there is a flourishing aftermarket in Lego parts, so I can get the /Lando/Mace/Bespin/ heads in bulk and go on a massive campaign of integration to bring the black population of legoland up to a more satisfying 30-50% (with a similar campaign to bring the female population up to 50%; this might cost me a small fortune in lego heads and/or hairpieces [yes, it's a stereotype to use "women-styled" hair and headpieces with red lips to represent women, but these are lego minifigs and until I get the sex ratio up to something decent the bears and, sigh, I will continue to assume that unadorned heads with butch haircuts are all men. Yes, it sucks, and that's why I'm engaging in stereotyping] but a 10% woman/0% black population is unacceptable.)
Comments
Comments are closed
A thoughts: if you’re gonna try to diversify Portland, you might as well tart with Legos :)
Other thought: I wonder about the racial/gender makeup of the average Lego toy consumer…