Author Topic: Ethnic balance among klickies.  (Read 11290 times)

Offline playmofire

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #10 on: June 05, 2015, 16:05:37 »
I've found when visiting Malta that the blue-eyed blonde is as likely to be Maltese as the olive-skinned/swarthy/brown brown-eyed person. 

As regards increasing numbers of skin tones, Playmobil is almost certainly looking to expand outside Europe and into North Africa and the Near East and Middle East.
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Offline Ismene

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #11 on: June 05, 2015, 18:14:27 »
As long as it fits the theme I am fine with it.

I'd find black skinned knights and asian romans too politically correct for example, in that case it would break the immersion of the theme.
However they could make an entire pirate crew consist of black clickies.
And they did have a black gladiator in the roman theme. Yes gladiators are slaves, but in this case it was alongside white gladiators which showed accuratly that they enslaved everyone and it was not based on skincolor.
So that did allow for a black gladiator to be the hero. In fact I believe they did just that with the official animated little movie. He was captured, became gladiator, fought and found his freedom.

So what I'm saying is, go for diversity but dont impose it where it is out of place. Instead there can always be looked for plausible solutions instead.
In a medieval theme, black clickies could be traveling merchants dressed in middle eastern fasion, that could go well with a merchant ship.

Adding the occasional asian pirate in the pirate theme seems like a good move. Now we just need asian and black female pirates. Or maybe a female pirate with an eyepatch, hook or wooden leg. They never had that.

Ditto.

For historical themes, the ethnic diversity should be plausible. There were travelers in ancient times.

For modern and fantasy themes, there should be a decent diversity.

Offline cachalote

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2015, 15:18:08 »
maybe this topic could be better placed elsewhere instead of on the NEWS section.

this is such a complicated problem.
and, in my oppinion, very difficult to discuss.
what i think is that geobra could be a smarter company if they changed a little bit the balance between skin colors.
maybe they are a german company but they sell globally and, i'm sure, they are interested in selling everywhere they can.
this needs a new sensibility from them.
and children are not the ones who will complain - they can play with everything, with every shape, and every color.
and they are starting to prefer "virtual" playing to "reality" playing.
and this will be a problem to geobra.
and they need not to make any mistake if they want to survive - geobra, i mean.
a campaign started by anyone who decides to pick on playmobil as an example for lack of "ethnicity" could be disastrous.
remember how geobra was criticized because of the airport chek-in set?
this would be a little bit worse.
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Offline Rasputin

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #13 on: June 06, 2015, 15:28:05 »

positive discrimination sucks, like with the re launch of the western theme where the Indians were the good guys and the cowboys were the bad guys. it could and should have been more balanced than that, but as we can see, this kind of thing goes down well pr-wise nowadays.

Natives minding their own business on their own land being invaded by conquering foreigners, ya I think they got it right this time.

using toys to spread propaganda through children is even worse.  historical themes should represent the facts.

The use of black as the evil factions while the good Anglo blue/gold empire conquerors....  basically becomes ethnicism

The Roman theme was the best. Anglo Romans living the high life while the darkies were sword wielding robbers

In the Cavewoman theme again, the Anglo have a nice posh mountain top house while the darkies have to live in a rotting carcass of a hut


Maybe when the US 50's theme comes out they can have divided buses, separate bathrooms, the poor black neighborhood could look like slums and lots and lots of German Shepard's for the hard working cops, just please make the executioners hood in white  ;)

In my opinion there is lots of ethnic diversity...it is just portrayed poorly
Grow up Geobra  ::)
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Offline cachalote

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #14 on: June 06, 2015, 15:45:58 »
just a few historical examples.

cavemen theme - why should they all be tanned?
are they primitive humans (as the saber-toothed tger suggests) or more modern homo sapiens or neanderthal.
in the last option, they could have a lighter skin color and red hair.
in the second one, they could have all skin and hair colors.
in the first one, maybe playmo-chimps would be easily modified to do the trick.

roman theme - why are they all light pink
the roman empire extended from scotland to turkey and morocco.
i doubt there were enough light pink romans to populate this vast territory.
from berbers to huns, there are a lot of "ethnic" groups that could add a little more variety and historic "trueness" to this theme.

medieval theme.
this is problem the most "ethnic"-closed theme.
again, th medieval times (considering only europe as an example) were filled with nomadic moves and invasions specially from north africa and central asia.
i seem to recall arabs being the rulers of portugal and spain and the mongols having an empire that reached - guess where? - germany's borders.
another good "excuse" to introduce different "ethnicities" to keep company with teutonic kinghts.

:) and i am sure children, as i've said before, regardless of their skin color, age, gender, religion, etc., would love all of these new figures.


p.s. rasputin wrote a new message before i ahd any time to read it.
you are so right ras: GROW UP is the right advice.
children are small and only grown-ups and their businesses, in a way, can/need really to grow-up.
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Offline tahra

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #15 on: June 06, 2015, 16:19:05 »
To me, I still think the stupid gender thing is a LOT worse.

using toys to spread propaganda through children is even worse. 

Well, and there's that. Religious propaganda disguised in smiling klickys is the worse. At least they seemed to have toned it down - a BIT.

Offline Rhalius

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #16 on: June 06, 2015, 16:52:06 »
Egyptian theme was its own thing though and had both Egyptian soldiers and egyptian thieves. While the theme could be combined with Romans, they where seperate themes.

If they would release more romans, then the new slightly tanned skin would be perfect for them but they didnt have that skintone yet back then.

I do think that generally they are handling the ethnic balance quite well and they improve on it through the years. Its really mostly the gender issues that they need to get over.

It's especially black clicky women who are underrepresented. They do appear in the girl themes and I give them credit for including a black fairy, but have they ever been in an action role? Black female cops, firewomen, pirates, etc?


Offline cachalote

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #17 on: June 06, 2015, 21:17:47 »
come on tahra - you are being very unfair.

just as people with brown skin color should only be present in sets where they don't compromise historical or geographical accuracy, geobra is very aware of where and how women should be,
... or maybe i should say to stay instead of to be.
and, as everybody knows, this is the right way to explain basic things to the grown-ups of the future.
just in case they have any doubts,
this is not being sexist - on the contrary - this is bein realist.
everyone recognizes the special role women should exclusively have in some situations and geobra celebrates this with the outmost care.

women, and not men (not even one) should thake care of small children:
- whether at the playground, keeping company to pregnant women or taking a bunch of kids (even twins) for a walk or a ride, women should be the only one present;
- a man in these surroundings is, of course, someone to watch carefully, specially if he is wearing a rain-coat;

but this is not the only things women are good at - far from it:
- they are the only customers at shopping centers and at the clothing stores (no men should even be allowed);
- they work-out alone at the gymn (i bet she needs to loose a few kilos);
- only women are getting ready for photo-shoot sessions and (of course) for modeling try-outs;
- they are the ones who exclusively need a hairdresser (men's hair, everyone knows, doesn't grow);
- and they simply are the best decorating strange clothing-sculptures somewhere;

this is how thing are - the natural way to go.
more than this, this is the way things should be.
expecting toys to change the way children see things could be conseidered as a rude interference in the parents education.
when i say parents i mean, of course, only mothers.

in other fields of expertise, for example, you only see men.
and this is the way things are and should be.
- can you imagine how odd it would be if it was a woman driving the new porsche 911.
- i bet they would't even know how to do it.
- they should stick to white and pink convertibles and mini cars;
- and even if they insist on doing it (the fools) they should never be seen at the wheel - near to the door in the company of a child or of a small dog is close enough.

and, the pièce de resistance - the way women suddenly change when they are sunbathing.
- they just stop to care about anything else, even if there's a child on the verge of getting drowned in the pool;
- this is, of course, common knowledge.

and geobra couldn't have done it better.
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Offline Birdie

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2015, 08:43:51 »
 :lol:  I was so relieved when I noticed the sarcasm.

Offline Bolingbroke

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Re: Ethnic balance among klickies.
« Reply #19 on: June 07, 2015, 13:50:30 »
you guys carry the guilt of your forefathers ... the british, the portuguese, the spanish, the germans ... that's why you are so touchy about this subject. us, the maltese, we've always been a colonized nation, we have been passed from one colonizer to the other, we have always been downtrodden, that's why we tend to feel less guilty and hung up about such things  ;)

because let's face it, the people who are most sensitive to these issues, ironically, are not the downtrodden themselves, but rather the ones frantz fanon would call 'the other'.

(and often it does feel patronizing ...)

of course, had we been a huge nation with an empire to match, we would have done the same as the others. and guess what ... so would the native americans, the australian aborigines, the people of the south pacific etc etc. no ethinicity is less evil than another.

the 'noble savage' philosophy belongs to the 19th century.

it's basic human nature, whether we like it or not  ;)
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