Yes so we're supposed to write blog posts every week, but no one told me to my face, so I just didn't and forgot and everything was terrible but that's an exaggeration, it was more like mildy bad. Anyway, this is my first weekly blog post even though I was supposed to start like a month ago. So I'm going to write about this video, which is basically just an ad for Barney's (it's also supposed to reference Disney's famous Electrical Parade).

It's actually just really boring and long, and the awful part only comes towards the end, so I'll summarize it for you. Baasically Minnie Mouse, the beloved children's character sees this dress in a window, and she's like wow that's really wonderful I wish I could wear that but I guess to wear that I would have to be a model in Paris. I don't really know, basically she ends up in Paris and there's fashion runways and paparazzi, and a bunch of animated people who I'm pretty sure are supposed to be actual people but I don't know anything about the fashion world so I can't recognize any of them. I think I saw the cast of Sex and the City though. Anyway, so basically she goes to this fashion runway show, and there's Daisy Duck, and Goofy, and Cruella De Ville and Tiana (The Princess and The Frog) and everyone is getting their makeovers. So everything is fine until they get to the actual runway. And then little Minnie Mouse walks out onto the stage, and suddenly she's transformed into this rail-thin anorexic dead-eyed model. The same thing happens to all the other characters (and really, they didn't choose the best characters to be models anyway. Cruella De Ville is a villain, and Goofy is just a mess (his outfit is really awful too)).

So if you don't already know what the problem is with this video (well, actually multiple problems), I'll just let you know. Minnie and the others are supposed to be children's characters. Innocent, pure, honest, good, and all those other 1950s values. Children's characters are very unsexy, because they're for little children. And yet, Barney's has sexed up sweet little Minnie Mouse. The way they've done it is also quite disturbing. If anyone actually did watch the video, then they probably notice how skinny everyones legs and just generally their whole entire bodies were. Barney's and whoever was in charge of this video made Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck and Tiana and everyone else anorexic in their attempts to make them looks sexy. The first thing might not bother some people, but the second one is really just bad. Oh and that's not even the worst. Ready?

“When we got to the moment when all Disney characters walk on the runway, there was a discussion. The standard Minnie Mouse will not look so good in a Lanvin dress. There was a real moment of silence, because these characters don’t change. I said, ‘If we’re going to make this work, we have to have a 5-foot-11 Minnie,’ and they agreed. When you see Goofy, Minnie and Mickey, they are runway models.”

That is a quote from Barney's creative director, denis Freedman. So Minnie Mouse isn't thin enough, or tall enough to wear your dresses? And the only solution is to make her an anorexic model? That's a great message to send to little girls, who adore Minnie Mouse. Their hero has to change her body type just to wear a dress. But once she's skinny and tall, everyone loves her. Of course I suppose I shouldn't really be surprised. That's already what girls get told. Still, this just seems like a step up from everything else. If Minnie Mouse can be slimmed down in a short for a department store, what's to stop it from happening to just regular Minnie, and other children's characters. But still, it could have been worse. I will leave you with the conceptual drawings to contemplate.