Social commentary and Mickey Mouse
One of Lego’s favorite TV shows is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I hate it. At first it was just annoyance at the garishness of the colors, the squeakiness of Mickey’s voice, the bizarreness of the plots, and the theme song that would get stuck in my head for days on end.
I have now watched enough episodes to hate it with a fiery passion. Here’s why:
1. The show has negative educational value. Sure, they kind of teach numbers, colors, shapes, sizes, etc. But they also teach, less directly, that Mars has very low gravity, that dogs eat bones, that you should eat a green apple if you have a stomachache, that you can float around inside a bubble (your bubble might get stuck on top of a cloud, but you can remedy this by putting three rubber duckies on top of your bubble, which will cause it to sink), and an astounding number of other stupid things. C’mon. Would it hurt you to actually teach kids how the world works instead of making up random stuff for no reason at all?
2. Minnie Mouse rubs the feminist in me the wrong way. She giggles like a bimbo, always wears pink and heels, needs Mickey to save her in almost every episode, and is really only useful for things like making soup for a character who gets sick. Daisy Duck is better, at least.
3. Mickey Mouse promotes slavery. Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. So, there are these “helping hands,” which look like Mickey’s gloves on sticks. These hands pop out of the floor, wall, ceiling, whatever, and do things for the characters, like opening doors, putting on clothing, and preparing meals. In one episode, the helping hand machine broke, so Mickey and friends had to fix it. Which is fine. If it’s a machine, it’s not weird. But when the machine first broke, there were friends at the door waiting to come in. Everyone stalled for a moment, not knowing what to do. Someone even said, “What do we do? Do we open the door ourselves?!” Um, yeah. It’s not hard. And then Mickey kept talking about the hands as “our friends.” No. Friends do not make their friends do all the work while they play. And at the end, Mickey said, “You helping hands are as important as any of us at the clubhouse!” No. If they were, you wouldn’t have to assure them of it. And sane creatures do not make friends with machines. The only thing I can conclude is that the helping hands are sentient and thus essentially slaves. Creepy.
4. Mickey’s clubhouse looks like him—in pieces. What sort of sadistic person builds his house to look like his head and torso, with a hand-shaped hot-air balloon, a foot-shaped car, a leg for an entrance, and a pool that looks like the other foot? What kind of crazy person builds a house that looks like himself, even intact?
5. Mickey appears to be of normal intellect, but he is surrounded by idiots. Donald is jumpy, cowardly, stupid, and weak. As mentioned before, Minnie is a bimbo. Goofy’s a klutz and a goof. Daisy’s got a brain, at least, but Mickey’s still always running the show. I see none of the normal interaction I expect from a group of friends.
Every time I watch it, I want to yell at the screen. At least Lego’s interest in it seems to be waning a little. Here’s hoping he moves on to something better soon.