A Turkish group claims Jabba’s Palace playset creates negative cultural stereotypes, how did Lego respond?
Star Wars playsets have long been a part of the Lego brand’s lineup, but one featuring the iconic Jabba the Hutt’s palace recently came under fire from the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria because it “resembled a former mosque in Istanbul,” namely the Jami al-Kabir mosque in Beirut. The group claims that the allegedly close resemblance was contributing to negative stereotypes about Muslims because it is not only the home of a bad guy, but also (like, let’s face it, just about every single other Lego playset aimed at boys 9-14) sports several guns on the structures.
The Turkish Cultural Association did meet with Lego to air its concerns, and, according to NBC News, claims to have secured a promise from the toymaker to stop selling the set.
Lego quickly countered, putting out a release that included the following statement, accompanied by a screen cap of Jabba’s Palace from the movies, just one day after NBC ran its story:
The LEGO Group regrets that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to interpret it wrongly, but point out that the design of the product only refers to the fictional content of the Star Wars saga.
A few media have reported that the product is being discontinued due to the mentioned criticism. This is, however, not correct.
As a normal process products in the LEGO Star Wars assortment usually have a life-cycle of one to three years after which they leave the assortment and may be renewed after some years. The LEGO Star Wars product Jabba’s Palace 9516 was planned from the beginning to be in the assortment only until the end of 2013 as new exciting models from the Star Wars universe will follow.
As you can see, the wording used in Lego’s crisis communications places the blame squarely on individual’s interpretation of a design, and makes clear, repeatedly, that every aspect of the playset is based on a purely fictional universe, not any type of real-life structure.
Not only that, but the statement also seeks to avoid future crisis management issues for the company by not setting a precedent of pulling playsets due to pressure, instead insisting that it was due to leave rotation either way. Whether it was or not, we may never know, but the important thing is that Lego’s covered its own behind, while distancing its playsets further from past, current and future accusations of racism.
Reading comments on several stories regarding the situation, opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of Lego and, if we’re any judge, then this situation should require no further crisis management action.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/