Lego And Women Of Color

[woodwardiocom]

I just took a few minutes to browse Brickset's database of Lego minifigure heads. I was looking for heads that:

1. Are identifiably feminine. This means teritary characteristics like lipstick and eyelashes. (Many heads could be male or female, of course.)
2. Are not bright yellow or "light nougat" (the default fleshtone for Caucasian people).
3. Are some other color found in humanity (not green or red). I stretched this to include orange-brown (a fake-tan color) and brick yellow (a pale yellow-gray).

The results?

• Two Ahsoka Tano heads from Star Wars, both very orange.
• Two Barriss Offee heads and one Luminara Unduli head, all from Star Wars, all brick yellow.
• Two heads from the Friends line, used for at least six different characters. (The heads are different shapes from the normal minifig head.)
• And, finally, one head each for Storm of the X-Men, and Stass Allie of the Jedi. These last are the only two brown female classic minifigure heads.

Not all the responsibility for this can be laid at The Lego Group's feet. They mostly only use non-bright-yellow skin tones for licensed characters, like Star Wars (obviously) and Marvel Superheroes. So, all the women of color have to appear in someone else's universe before Lego can make minifigs of them. Still, we can hope for a minifig of Lupita Nyong’o in the next few years (or she might end up green, like Femi Taylor). And the superhero licenses could give us Vixen, Thunder, XS, Bumblebee, Question, Rocket, Photon, Silverclaw, Silhouette, Misty Knight, Moonstar, or Sasquatch*. One can hope.

* The alternate Sasquatch of the Exiles, obviously. Though, since her Lego representation would probably be a huge white hairy beast, it might not count for our purposes.