Is Minnie Too Skinny?

That's the Today.com headline. "Is Minnie too skinny? Disney icons go on a diet -- for fashion." In the new Barney’s 2012 holiday campaign “Electric Holiday”, yes. She's too skinny. Look at the before and after shots.

If Minnie had actually started out as a tall, lanky model type, then no, she wouldn't be too skinny. But that's not what Minnie is meant to look like! She's a freakin' mouse. She's short. She's round.

Other characters got a Barney's makeover, too. Behold, Goofy:

And Daisy:

So, what were the Barney's people thinking?

"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.”

Ugh. Not so, Barney's. Minnie could have rocked Lanvin, just as she is.

We wish Disney could have taken some cues from Miss Piggy, another fictional character who has been (repeatedly) given the designer fashion treatment. As Styleite points out, "that pig didn’t have to go on a diet” to don Louis Vuitton, Giles Deacon or Zac Posen. Her body is purely celebrated, hooves and all.

Goofy and Daisy photos: Barney's