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@erunaamo’s comments got me thinking about this…
Do we, as a LUG, have a duty / imperative to try and depict diversity? LEGO has done a lot better in recent years (way more female minifigs, and not just for Friends or Belleville…) but also has opened a can of worms, in a sense, with the licensed sets deviating from the “one color fits all” yellow skin tone. While it’s great to have brown minifig heads for various Star Wars / Marvel / NBA characters, the selection is still not very good for expressions and faces, and they’re still quite rare in relation to yellow (and “white people flesh tones,” whatever LEGO’s name for that color is…) This is partly because in the movies most of the sets represent, the dominant ethnicity is still Caucasian, ergo the licensed minifigs are predominantly white (well, a lot of SW aliens are green or purple or whatever, but still.) And many of those faces are recognizable as the character (Nick Fury’s head, for example…) so they’re not super useful for a non-proprietary character.
Yeah, I guess plain yellow is still sufficiently neutral. (Personally I find “it’s colorblind because everyone is the same (light) color” a bit unsatisfying. My Space crews these days usually have that one black guy, Ghostbusters style. Maybe that’s not really better.)
I agree, it almost feels worse to have a “token black guy.” Especially if said character is “from the streets” (vs. the three white scientists) and hired to be the muscle. Oddly enough, while people are celebrating the Ghostbusters remake for the all-female crew, they still have 75% white people in said crew… too bad there’s only one black female comedienne, and no other minority comediennes… :/
Aside: there are some examples in pop culture of real attempts to portray diversity rather than make a token nod with one character. Community comes to mind. Community’s seven leads include 4 males, 3 females, and 4 Caucasians, 2 African Americans, and one… well, one source says Abed is Palestinian, and the actor’s dad is Indian, so some kind of Middle Eastern / Asian, at any rate. That’s a pretty realistic breakdown, although they’re all hetero (oops, no show is perfect, I guess…)
I don’t think it’s a simple or easily resolved issue (in this country / the world / the media.) And I don’t think we should feel obligated to worry too much about it in our builds, but I do think we could try at least once in a while to include minority minifigs in our builds. If we do, though, it’s probably better to avoid having “Token“, but rather to have several women / minorities in the same scene.
I don’t think we need to rewrite the club’s bylaws to include a mandate on this, but I do think it’s worth some healthy discussion if others care to weigh in…
Do we, as a LUG, have a duty / imperative to try and depict diversity?
Personally I try to keep an eye on who I’m depicting. As you say, LEGO doesn’t make it easy.
I doubt it’s something to have an official LUG policy about – I don’t want to tell anybody what to build. But it’s probably worth discussing.
Oddly enough, while people are celebrating the Ghostbusters remake for the all-female crew, they still have 75% white people in said crew
Yeah, I thought that was a weird choice for the remake. Oh well, as I said, I’ve done the same thing sometimes.
I don’t think we have any duty to depict diversity in any builds, but we do have a duty to accept diversity in our group. We are limited to what Lego creates and sells. If Lego begins adding ethnic heads into their sets, I am sure that we would all embrace that (at least I hope we would) and they would be incorporated more heavily in our displays. I see enough hate, racism, reverse-racism, sexism, elitism, or any other type of “ism” on Facebook, TV, and in the world, that I honestly don’t want to deal with it when I am building/displaying and having fun with the public. My apologies if I offended anyone by not including an -ism that is very near and dear to their heart. The majority of our builds are for kids (who are the least racist of anyone) and they don’t think about things like that. People are people. I don’t care what color you are, what your religion is, your beliefs, etc. Just don’t be a jerk. My apologies if I offended anyone by not including their specific identity identifier in my example. I wish Lego would move away from yellow heads and produce more skin tones. In the meantime, my train robbing gang will continue to be Friend’s themed women lead by Emma. Because we all know Emma is narcissistic and purely evil. Not all women are narcissistic and evil, that would be sexist. But Emma is. And that is a fact. My apologies if I offended anyone who thinks Emma is kind and loving. But she isn’t. She is evil. And she will rob your train without hesitation.
my train robbing gang will continue to be Friend’s themed women lead by Emma.
I would be very interested to see photos of this train robbing gang, as proof that it happened. Emma is most certainly trouble, though. Brunette, as usual.
But yeah, Dan and Dave (remember them from the ’92 Olympics?) speak truth. Nobody can adequately cover EVERY base, include EVERY -ism, avoid offending EVERY person seeking ways to be offended. But we can respect each other in real life, and build what suits us, and if opportunities arise to include minifigs of varying gender and skin tone (other identities, methinks, not being visible in ABS form) we should seize them if we feel like it adds to the build, rather than being a distraction.
In my builds, I don’t reflect diversity because it’s a cultural mandate. I do it because it’s cool to give uniqueness to the figs. It’s also fun for me to plan out “who goes where” and parse the heads out that I have. It’s like color blocking a starfighter per fig. Spread it around. Give people more coolness to look at.
As for skin tone, fleshies are a No for me, as they are too difficult to acquire in the variety I want, but I’d add brown heads if I had them. The bigger reason I won’t do fleshies overall is that I’d have to do ALL fleshies, and that’s waaaaaay too many heads to replace.
In summary, I work with what I’ve got and concentrate my figs on doing things rather than being yellow or fleshie or brown or whatever. I like to mix it up exactly so I don’t have to think about the diversity thing. To me, it’s far more about unique figs doing cool things and looking cool doing them.No. No no. No no no no no. This gets political and politics have no place in funtime.
It’s fine to include whatever kind of figs (or whatever else, minus porn) you want in what you personally build, but it’s NOT appropriate to imply club members should or shouldn’t have fun however they damn well please.
…politics have no place in funtime…
…minus porn…
…NOT appropriate to imply club members should or shouldn’t have fun however they damn well please.
Whoa. I think you’re the only one in this conversation who’s trying to proscribe how others have fun? You just did it twice right there! Not just “implying”, either – asserting.
Maybe you should take a few deep breaths and re-read the discussion so far. I should leave it at that, since I’m not seeing where you read a threat to your fun – can you quote it for me? – so I’m really not sure what, specifically, you’re saying “no” to.
But I get the impression you’re telling us not to have this conversation at all. Or to only use yellow figs? Can’t agree to either, so I’ll respond in a bit more detail.
I’m pretty sure we were not talking about prescribing or proscribing how to have fun – at least, I wasn’t – but rather about the message(s) presented by our art, and in particular by the club’s public-facing displays. A display may be sending “political” messages whether we build them in deliberately or not; our community is multiracial whether or not you care to discuss the politics of that. Minifigs may be 99.9% “yellow” but it’s not 100% and that creates possibilities art can explore. Personally I don’t do much “political” art, or talk about politics much, but I think a certain amount of mindful inquiry and discussion around such issues is appropriate for us as responsible public artists.
I would certainly hope it’s possible for a build to include multiple colors of minifigs without that being a “political” statement so extreme that it “has no place” in what we do. And I believe that we can have a mature discussion about the cultural impact of minifig colors without it devolving into some kind of hurtful political argument that would, indeed, have no place here. I intend to continue having fun in both these ways.
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