Plastic toy company LEGO has been slammed by mental health charities for advertising a new toy character as a ‘Window Licker’.
The toy was described on Lego’s website as looking like “an experiment that’s gone very, very wrong”, according to the BBC. “Part frog, part chicken, part back-of-the-bus window-licker, this Mixel has the longest tongue of them all.”
The toy has come under fire from mental health companies who say the term ‘window licker’ is “highly offensive”. The word is recognised as a derogatory term towards people with mental illnesses.
The charity Mencap is one organisation vocal about LEGO’s choice of words. Lorraine Bellamy from the charity reportedly said: “It is unacceptable that a toy company like Lego have used a term that offends people with a disability such as this, especially as the toy is aimed at children.
“I want Lego to apologise and to stop using this type of offensive language.”
Vice president of LEGO for the UK and Ireland, Fiona Wright, has since issued a statement: “We are sorry wording which could be considered offensive has been used, as this has not been our intention at all.
“As an immediate result from the input we have received, the product description for the Mixels Turg has been changed.”
The current description has removed the ‘part back-of-the-bus-window-licker’ section and currently reads as such: “Turg looks like an experiment that’s gone very, very wrong! Part frog, part chicken, this Mixel has the longest tongue of them all. Being a slob, Turg doesn’t tend to move around too much, but you’re sure to enjoy playing around with this frog-mouthed Mixels™ model!”
