Hold on folks, here comes a rant.
All cultures are agendas, in that they aim to replicate themselves. Training the young is how they do this. Europe has been Christian for over a millennium, so for a European company to create toys with Christian imagery, or depicting one specific, European culture (Victorian theme for example), is only natural, and not "propaganda", except in the most debased, useless sense of that term.
More importantly, the notion that a completely culture-free viewpoint is desireable or even attainable
IS ITSELF A CULTURAL VIEWPOINT. It is one of the defining ideas of modern Western culture. To promote THAT view is more subtly propagandistic, more white-man's-burdeny, than simply selling an honest Noah's Ark toy, one that many Christians probably bought for their children in an effort to honestly transmit their culture. (Full disclosure: I am not Christian. More a sort of lackadaisical Buddhist. Yes I almost bought the girl on lotus set for the lotus.)
In fact if you think about it for even a second the original PM toys themselves were intensely culture-bound. They manifested a version of modern European culture that we can still recognize in media products of the time: stylized, modular, interchangeable, smooth clean surfaces....(This effort to escape culture might be one of the lingering effects of the war, btw. Bolingbroke is onto something when he points out white guilt.)
Finally, to say that all points of view should be represented while condemning one of those points of view is utterly incoherent. It makes NO SENSE to criticize portrayals of reality (there really are crosses on top of mountains in the German Kulturraum!) on the basis that they are slanted towards one view. ALL PORTRAYALS OF REALITY ARE SLANTED. WE ARE JUST FANCY MONKEYS AND ALWAYS OPERATE FROM ONE PERSPECTIVE OR ANOTHER.
If you really wanted cultural diversity, you would praise the Ark and the Nativities and use them as support for your claim that there should be e.g. a Battle of Karbala set, or a Mahaparinirvana (Buddha's death) set.
I ask again: would you demand that a Nigerian or Korean toy company include all cultural points of view, or strive to be "culture-free"? Why or why not? Answers on the back of a postcard please.
what's the most recent (as in contemporary) historical figure they've ever done?
Are there any more recent than Martin Luther? There was Saint Martin, Cleopatra...some more contemporary media characters such as Lara Croft...can't think of any others.
edit: Elvis and Lady Gaga!
beer drinking construction workers
I thought that had been shown to be bottled water. In Germany green glass is used for water while brown glass is used for beer, and the bottles in that set are green.
On that note, I've strangely never seen criticism of
the conquistador figure, even though the conquistadors wrought pure hell upon the indigenous peoples of the Americas. There's even a bar a few blocks from me called
The Conquistador that has never to my knowledge been criticized for its choice of name.
edit: Martin not Christopher, duh
edit2: Elvis etc
