With a little help from Barneys, New York, Disney has morphed a few iconic children’s characters into waif-ish, albeit stylish, runway models. In an upcoming campaign called Electric Holiday, Disney decided to sell out on our kids and whittle Minnie from a robust, kid-friendly mouse into a high fashion, stick thin something or other. Walt would roll over in his grave.
With a little help from Barneys, New York, Disney has morphed a few iconic children’s characters into waif-ish, albeit stylish, runway models. In an upcoming campaign called Electric Holiday, Disney decided to sell out on our kids and whittle Minnie from a robust, kid-friendly mouse into a high fashion, stick thin something or other. Walt would roll over in his grave.
Fashion designers, who spend millions each year marketing clothes to our painfully impressionable and fickle youth, knew exactly what they needed to do in order to get to the next level of consumers—little kids. So they pulled our kids’ beloved cartoon characters into the bizarre fold. How low can you go? Really. Daisy and Minnie? Shouldn’t they have immunity or at least be put off limits by the geniuses who created them?
Eating disorders are no laughing matter, and they are life threatening. The scope of those young women (and men) who have them can’t be adequately tallied because they come in so many varieties beyond the classic anorexia nervosa.
But Disney seems to have no problem advertising straight-up anorexia because one glance at Minnie and you know that’s what she has. Few with bulimia or mixed eating disorders can look this thin. This is true-blue unabashed starvation in its purest form. And we know that anorexia nervosa is simply the tip of the iceberg when it comes to eating disorders, which are so rampant on college campuses.