BBC found itself under fire about the color of Upsy Daisy, the central character in the children’s program “In the Night Garden.” Parents have complained that while she has dark skin on the screen, an Upsy Daisy doll on sale in toy shops is much whiter. Could BBC deliberately engaging in racism to sell dolls? Wait, there’s more. They capitulated. Apparently the doll has been removed from store shelves in favor of a new version more faithful to Upsy Daisy’s on-screen hue. I bring this story up for an important reason. The company behind the doll is Hasbro Inc., an American company. That speaks volumes. I guess in their eyes, a black Upsy Daisy is not as lucrative as a white Upsy Daisy doll. The BBC insisted there was an innocent explanation, saying the lighter-skinned Upsy Daisy matched an animated version of the character which runs at the end of the show. Hogwash.
Produced by the team behind Teletubbies, “In The Night Garden” has become Britain’s most popular children’s TV franchise, earning millions in the last year. Although Upsy Daisy has brown skin and what appear to be dreadlocks, according to the show’s creators ‘she is not intended to represent a specific race or culture’. But parents who bought the doll, manufactured by the toy firm Hasbro by arrangement with the BBC, said they were shocked by how light its skin was and began an Internet campaign to have it changed.
A spokesman for the National Assembly Against Racism said: ‘By replacing the only brown character with a white-tinted doll, it looks as if the producers of the doll have reverted to racist 1950s attitudes. The BBC should pull its contract with the manufacturers immediately.’ Source: UK Daily Mail
We have repeatedly seen this very attitude towards black toys in America. The tide has been changing in recent years, but the prevailing attitude among toy manufacturers is that white-tinted dolls sell more than black and Latino. Hasbro, shame on you!
Filed under: BBC, British Children's TV show, Dolls, Hasbro, Racism, Upsy Daisy
Black Political Thought 