Lead Bottom, The Glutton, and The Snacker have been replaced by the new villains: Scorches, Sappers, and Blocker Bots.

Luckily, after receiving a great deal of backlash from groups including the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, Disney closed the exhibit.

Last week, it re-opened, new-and-improved, with a focus not on fat-shaming, but on healthy living and healthy habits.

Callie Stenics and Will Power have been replaced by three heroes (with less embarrassingly punny names): Quench, Dynamo, and Fuel.

The disturbingly offensive villains Lead Bottom, Sweet Tooth, and the Snacker (ironic, really, given the multitudes of junk food served at Disney parks), have been replaced by more generalized trademarks of unhealthy living: Scorches, Sappers, and Blocker Bots.

There are three levels of the game: removing the villains from our bodies, from the city, and from the world.

Each of these levels corresponds to one of the rooms in the exhibit, and each room requires players to undertake a physical activity like disco dancing, cannon-shooting, and running from place to place.

Disney’s new and improved “Habit Heroes” exhibit promotes healthy living without the fat-shaming undertones!

These activities get people to be physically active, and require participants to work as part of a team. Obviously, the attraction requires that participants are able-bodied in order to participate.

Some of the themes of violence remain — cannon shooting, for example — but luckily, all of the undertones clearly stigmatizing overweight individuals have been removed.

It seems that the new exhibit has struck the perfect balance: it promotes healthy living in a positive, encouraging way, as opposed to a punishing one.

As far as attractions go, it may not be as exciting as Mission: SPACE, but still worth checking out if you make the trip to Epcot!

Minnie Mouse, is that you?

High-end retail department behemoth Barney’s New York announced its holiday collaboration with The Walt Disney Company, wherein our beloved characters get the “runway treatment” (Read: slimmed to scary proportions).

The front runners? A truly Skinny Minnie, a drastically dieted-down Daisy Duck, hipster Goofy, and more irritatingly altered versions of the iconic clan. In the short 3-D film titled “Electric Holiday“, Minnie pursues her dream as a fashion model, visiting shows in Paris, wherein she encounters our cherished characters who will be donning designer apparel. Daisy will be decked out in Dolce & Gabbana, Mickey backed by Balenciaga, Snow White by Nina Ricci, and Princess Tiana (minor props for including her) by Proenza Schouler, to name a few, all strutting their stuff down the runway.

Barney’s creative director, Dennis Freedman explained that regular ‘ol Minnie was not in acceptable shape to take on the world of high fashion and would “not look so good in a Lanvin dress.” In an effort to “make it work” they opted to elongate her to the height of 5’11″ and hack off a quarter of her body. “When you see Goofy, Minnie, and Mickey they are runway models, ” explains Freedman. The drawings themselves were engineered by John Quinn, Disney’s own character art director.

Epic Fail: Daisy Duck’s Makeover.

With all this focus on transmuting these beloved characters into fashionistas, the larger symbolism of the danger of linking their lithe counterparts with the Disney name is lost. Sure, it’s clever to dress Daisy in dazzling designer duds, but is the Walt Disney Company’s main target market, not impressionable young children?

This comes on the heels of the Disney Villains Designer Collection of beauty products that hit stores in late June and unveiled the previous sea witch, Ursula from the Little Mermaid, in a nearly unrecognizable state. No longer did she exist in her ample, octopus glory, but had instead been slimmed down. The underlying message becomes that there is more commercial value in thinness.

With the media already disseminating such limiting portrayals of women, do we really need our cherished childhood characters following suit? Equally problematic is the reinforcement of this idea of high fashion and an impossible degree of thinness, an unattainable and unhealthy ideal for young girls to aspire.

Lack of size diversity represented on the runway is one thing, but to purposely slim down children’s cartoons in an attempt to make them more fashion-forward reinforces the correlation between a specific size being more sophisticated and stylish than another. It sends consumers the message that there is more commercial value in thinness. It tells women that only certain shapes and sizes are suitable to be clothed in high fashion.

The Disney brand is inextricably linked to childhood, wonder, and whimsy, and has historically stood for wholesome family values. I don’t know about you, but I want my lovable, playful pals of youth to look like their original, identifiable versions. Miss Piggy has been outfitted in Zac Posen and Marc Jacobs with nary a change to her body. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take my bumbling Goofy, cheeky Minnie, and demure Daisy any day over these creepy, catwalk caricatures.

Heather Klem spends her days working in the corporate business world, and can be found sharing her own experience, insights, and pop culture commentary at www.msmettle.com.

Callie Stenics and Will Power, the "heroes" of Disney's fat-shaming exhibit.

Fortunately Disney has actually realized their mistake with Habit Heroes, and the exhibit and the corresponding web site have since been shut down, a victory to those of us who are often told, “Complaining about a problem won’t do anything.” Still, it doesn’t undo any damage the exhibit may have done.

In one part of the interactive exhibit, Will Power and Callie Stenics urge visitors to point and shoot the empty calorie foods shown on the screen such as cake, ice cream, and candy. (I wonder if some of the waffle sandwiches and funnel cakes Disney serves at the Epcot restaurants were also on that screen.)

Does Snacker look like Ursula to anyone else? Am I sensing a theme, Disney?

More disturbingly, it appears visitors also had the option to shoot the Snacker character, who disappeared in a puff of fairy dust when shot, then reappeared to continue conjuring sweets on the screen. The message is clearly promoting more than “kicking bad habits.” Violence and shame is being directed at overweight characters.

In a later part of the exhibit, visitors were urged to pressure Lead Bottom (“positively,” of course) to work out with Callie Stenics. The workout routine was a series of basic calisthenic moves, but like many of the suggestions in Habit Heroes, the assumption was that every person was able-bodied and physically capable of performing such exercises.

The exhibit clearly linked “bad habits” with a lack of virtue, and made the assumption that every overweight person has habits like watching a lot of television, eating fattening or sweet foods often, or not working out, which obviously isn’t true. Though Disney did well to respond to criticism and take down the exhibit, the company’s history speaks for itself, and they’re certainly not coming off my Watch List any time soon.

–Cassie

"Hannah Montana"

The youngsters love Disney’s Hannah Montana, but what kind of message is Miley Cyrus sending them about how to act in real life? Whether she is wearing thigh-high boots or clutching a sheet to her naked torso (as she was in last year’s Vanity Fair), 16-year-old Miley has been shown in very adult poses.

These provocative photos, mixed with the fact that her fame comes from her popularity with the tweens and pre-tweens, results in another attempt to link youth with sexiness. Unfortunately, Miley’s image is falling pray to the pull toward a more “sexy” persona.

Case in point is her photo shoot in the August issue of ELLE magazine

Miley Cyrus in ELLE Magazine, August 2009

Short skirt, legs spread, hair tousled — take this image in while keeping in mind that most of her fan base is still in elementary school. It is true that ELLE is a magazine aimed at adults with more mature content. Why, then, did they choose to feature Miley to attract their adult audience?

Spears on the cover of Rolling Stone in 1999

The answer is in our culture’s fixation with youth being seen as “sexy.” Think back to the Spring 1999 Rolling Stone cover featuring Britney Spears in her underwear talking on the phone and clutching a Teletubby doll. This is a much more blatant attempt to mix youth with sex appeal, but the photo spreads Miley Cyrus has been involved with are much the same.

Novelist Nicholas Sparks is quoted in the ELLE article as saying:

“…she’s growing up, as much as we wish she wouldn’t… I think everybody, when they watch Home Alone, wishes Macaulay Culkin were nine years old, but he’s not. People grow up!”

What Mr. Sparks fails to see here is that while Miley might be growing up, the decisions she and the people around her (i.e. her manager father, Billy Ray Cyrus) make have a direct impact on the young people that watch and sometimes imitate her every move. However popular Macaulay Culkin was, he didn’t send droves of fans running to the stores to imitate his latest outfits.

If these types of images bother you, take action. Don’t underestimate the power you have on the kids around you. Talk to the young people who may or may not be Miley fans about why she might be taking photos like the ones in ELLE. Ask them questions about what they think of Miley’s new photos. Opening this door can help people of all ages see though the hype of marketing campaigns.

If you want to let Miley Cyrus know your feelings on her photo spread in ELLE, you can send her a letter to Miley Cyrus, P.O. Box 1459, Santa Monica, CA 90406.

You can also send feedback to ELLE using the form on their contact page.

-Ashley