In the Christmas windows, Barneys played a three minute video about Minnie Mouse and the the fashion world. She has fantasies of being on the runway with all of the fashion directors and models...a lot like us other girls may do. During the video, they showcase some of our favorite Disney characters as tall and very skinny.
The artist in me says, "Hey that's a cool artistic rendering of traditional cartoon characters." The woman in me says, "That's ridiculous and infuriating."
Minnie dreams of looking like a high fashion model in the video and walking the runway. At the end of the video, Mickey surprises her with the dress she loves and she's wearing it at the end.
She's happy with the way she looks in the dress, with her little short legs and mousy curves. Which is cute. But here is what bothers me about it...
It continues to perpetuate that tall and skinny is the ultimate goal. The fashion world doesn't get it. We don't want it anymore. We don't want starving girls on the runway. And we especially don't want our favorite Disney characters dreaming of being emaciated for the sake of being beautiful. It's saying that those fantasies are OK. When a girl is little that's the first step. Approval of a tall skinny ideal from a very trusted source. If Minnie wants to be that way...then so do I.
Am I looking to deep into this? Perhaps. Like I said, the artist in me finds some appeal to the redesign and the creativity in it all. But the responsible woman in me thinks it should have never been a partnership to begin with. Disney cartoons are for children. Let's not go and confuse the matter. Kids are already growing up way too fast these days. Let's not skyrocket them any faster.
Here is a news article about the controversy...although it did air on ABC news which is owned by Disney, so it's definitely broadcast in a better light:
http://youtu.be/lfJnuCFbpqU
So what do you think? Cute and fun? Or revolting?
>the artist in me finds some appeal to the redesign
ReplyDeleteYou are rationalizing.
If I drew the Disney logo (ya know, the three circles) as three squares or three triangles, it might give you a reference to an artistic gesture, but it wouldn't be the image. It would not communicate. It would see the artist's clumsy thumbprint, not the brand.
The "re-imagined" emaciated versions look coarse and desperate. The originals work only because they are partly anthropomorphised, allowing a comedic empathy. Having twice abstracted them, once to "human-like", then to another cartoon extreme, they lose their appeal. They lose their attachment. They lose their identity.
I can barely identify with a talking duck. Some toothpick with a duck head is going to miss my connection entirely as it neither resonates with me as a human nor as an animal.