It was really all about Inara?
There was a minor kerfuffle this past week about LEGO declining to produce a model based on the Serenity spaceship from the TV series Firefly. I would link to the project page but it has already been removed from the site. Suffice it to say that the project did reach 10,000 supporting votes, the minimum required for The LEGO Group to officially consider the proposal for a production release. However LEGO declined to continue the project.
I will say that I am not particularly surprised that LEGO declined to produce the set. It was a long shot in the first place, especially given that they responded similarly for the Winchester building from Shaun of the Dead and later provided a clarification of their stance on incorporating other brands into their product line. From a corporate standard it actually does make some sense: LEGO is attempting to manage their image to affiliate it with childhood, toys, and to some extent naivete. That’s their choice and it’s not an unreasonable one even if I don’t always agree with all of their decisions.
However it was this morning on Twitter that I saw what is apparently the specific reason that the Serenity model was rejected: Sex. Here’s the relevant tweets.
@khaleesi_jp Sorry to disappoint u & the 10K who voted for the idea. We design many sets for older builders but all LEGO products must - 1/2
— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) May 9, 2012
@khaleesi_jp be content-app for child 6-11 why we didn’t want to link d LEGO brand 2 d Inara character who's a cntrl part of the story - 2/2
— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) May 9, 2012
@khaleesi_jp Inara is a central character and we did not deem it impossible to license the IP without creating a link to this character
— LEGO (@LEGO_Group) May 9, 2012
So it wasn’t the violence, as should be fairly obvious given their enormously successful Star Wars line of products, it was all about the sex. That Inara is un-apologetically in the sex industry means that LEGO can not associate themselves with the entire brand. Well, at least those tweets were fairly honest.
BTW - Prostitution has been legal in Denmark for over a decade.