Toy giant LEGO has announced a colourful new Pride Month-themed set, titled 'Everyone is Awesome'. It's a fun twist on the song 'Everything Is Awesome', which you'll no doubt remember from The LEGO Movie.
It'll be hitting the store on 1 June to celebrate Pride Month, which continues through the month of June. The figures are designed to have no specific gender, apart from the purple one, which is meant to represent drag queens.
LEGO's Vice President of Design, Matthew Ashton, explains: "We’ve made sure to include black and brown colours to represent the broad diversity of everyone within the LGBTQIA+ community. We’ve also added in the pale blue, white and pink to support and embrace the trans community as well.
"I purposely put the purple drag queen in as a clear nod to the fabulous side of the LGBTQIA+ community. I hope it’s a joy to build and a joy to look at, and hopefully, it will bring a lot of joy to people’s lives."
LEGO hasn't directly stated how much will be donated from the sale of the products to charities, but it has partnered with Workplace Pride, Stonewall and Open for Business to "help shape strategies to support employees who identify as LGBTQIA+ and allies across the company."
It also supports the UK-based charity, Diversity Role Models, which "works to educate children about inclusivity and empathy in order to build supportive and inclusive future generations."
On why this project was so important to him, Ashton explained: "Representation is so important. I grew up in the 80s and was obviously a gay kid. There was a lot of negativity back then around being gay; it was right in the middle of the AIDS crisis when I was a young teen and that was incredibly daunting and scary.
"Being quite an effeminate kid, I was constantly told by different adults around me what I should and shouldn’t play with, that I needed to behave like a ‘real boy’ and to toughen up. I was dissuaded from doing the things that came most naturally to me.
"I think many of the adults around me were doing all of this to try to protect me from getting bullied, but I was actually fine with all the kids at school. All of that has had an impact on me in many ways; it was really exhausting and kicked my confidence.
"So, I think by taking small steps and having products like 'Everyone is Awesome' out there and people representing the LGBTQIA+ community, it allows everybody to see that things do get better over time and there is a place for everybody. That’s what’s been so important to me in getting this set out with a message that we can be really proud of."
www.lego.com
The brand new set, released in celebration of Pride Month, is available to buy from 1 June. There's no way to pre-order, so you'd better be quick on the day.
The set is priced at £30.99 and states that it's suitable for ages 18+, which LEGO tends to do with some of the more ornamental pieces.
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Jade Moscrop is the Deputy Editor for WhatsTheBest, specialising in lifestyle topics. She also writes for Closer, Heat, and Mother&Baby.
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