Aladdin Central Messageboard

[Syera]

I never really thought about it until now, but now that I think about it, there's something about those people dressed up as various Disney characters at the themeparks that I find vaguely unnerving.

Crap, they're downright creepy.

Mind you, I've never been there in person. I've only seen the photos. All the same, I don't think going there would help.

The full-body suits appear to have crawled from the depths of Uncanny Valley. These characters look just fine in cel animation, but blow them up to human proportion, make them out of stiff plastic, and the effect is just... ugh. Honestly, those big ol' Mickey and Minnie suits give me the jibblies.

Then there are the 'human' characters. The proportions are off - usually by making various aspects of the costume too big. Too much material is often used, making parts of it hang limp and other parts too bulky. The bright colors are brought into the real world from the cartoon world as is, making a costume that looked perfectly natural in a colorful cartoon world look garish and out of place. The actors wear gigantic wigs that are tragically out of proportion with their heads and faces. The result is something that looks like it shambled out of Wal-Mart's costume department.

It's not like this stuff can't be done, at least with the human costumes. Cosplayers do it all the time. Pretty Guardian Sailormoon did an admirable job of making the sailor senshi into real live girls. The costumes were re-proportioned very well and the hair was scaled down to more closely reflect human hair proportions.

Okay, I've gotten this off my chest. I think I feel better now.
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[Salukfan]

They're not bad, at all, in person. And the fur costumers are not really that stiff, either; trust me, I've hugged enough of these guys to know that.

And, really, the wigs aren't big at all, and most of the time, they look good (when they don't, it seems to be an application issue; there's times where they're just put on incorrectly and it looks a damn mess. ) Okay, so Jasmine's isn't the most convincing if you get too close to the back of it and stare at it for a while, but that doesn't really happen a lot as a Guest, so it's kind of a non-issue.

(Yeeeeeeeeeah, Mickey's gonna be kicking my ass again. )
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"This cow's been covered with flour!"

[AladdinsGenie]

[Syera]

If I had gone to Disney World as a child, I would have run to my mother in terror upon seeing the Disney 'characters' running around.

(Nope, I'm not real keen on clowns, either.)
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[Salukfan]

I've seen Aladdin make a scared child fall absolutely in love with him.

Aladdin, at least, can seduce the love out of anyone.
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"This cow's been covered with flour!"

[AladdinsGenie]

I've seen him do the same with grown women of all ages

For some reason, little girls aren't as afraid of the princesses as they are the princes. I wonder what they've been told

[Salukfan]

Psh, I doubt Aladdin could affect a grown woman. *Whistles*

They're not used to seeing men around the princesses.
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"This cow's been covered with flour!"

[AladdinsGenie]

I dunno, I've heard stories around the block. They might be false, though

"OH NO, A PENIS "

[Salukfan]

These stories are *obviously* false. What's next, grown women stalking him? Puh-leeze.

"These guys can talk? I thought they were giant dolls. D: "
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"This cow's been covered with flour!"

[AladdinsGenie]

How obsurd

"Make it go fight a dragon or something D:"

[Syera]

I'm not crazy. It's not just me. Other people do find these things creepy.

[AladdinsGenie]

Mickey Mouse isn't six foot tall even in costume, but that's not particularly important right now

But I still think that's one of those things where you just have to go there to experience it to see for yourself. Most of the time when kids are scared it's because of one of two reasons:

1. The character is standing there with their arms out for a hug or to escort them over to the meeting area, and the parents are pushing them towards the character, aka, making the child leave the comfort of their parents' protection. That doesn't always go that well with most little kids at a young age where they are seriously attatched to their parents, and about half the time that doesn't work out when the character in question is another talking person like Peter Pan, for example, because it's like you're doing a trade off to them. "You go to this other person you don't really know, even if they are a 'character' from a movie you like for a picture, dear. I'll be over here away from you ". They don't care if you portray that character perfectly like as seen on their TV, if they are scared it's because they don't know you in a personal setting and therefore don't care what you're saying or doing to show them you're not mean or scary . That's always somewhat easily fixed with a "Ok, I'll go with you", and they ease up knowing their parent isn't going to leave them and they have someone they know to fall back on if things get to be too much for them.

Or 2. The character itself has a canon of being scary or coming from a scene that might have scared them like the villains, or even Stitch when he's destructive because I know he's one some of the kids are scared of, too.
I know when I was a kid, I was scared shitless of the Hulk because of his eyes when he starts to transform. If when I was a kid I were to go to meet the hulk in a park and I'm freaking out when it's my time to meet him, it wouldn't be because costumes creep me out and he's not 100% accurate or proportional like I've seen him, but because I'm still registering him as that thing on tv that scares the shit out of me and I don't wanna go near him, even if he's being friendly at the moment .

You enter a different level of intimacy when you're able to physically touch or be near that thing that scares you. It's one thing if it scares you on tv, but to have that same thing in front of you and able to touch you is another. That is scary. Then again, I have to wonder why you'd force your child to go meet someone you know they don't like. I mean, it's not like they're not giving you signals of "DO NOT WANT" long before they're forced to get in line because I know I wouldn't go near something that scares me either when I'm being forced to get in line and then AGAIN to go meet this thing, so that's partially on the parents, too.

Not to mention children are often times afraid of things that are taller than them anyways and that probably plays in to it because these characters aren't that big on your TV, but almost always the characters get on their level to talk to them, even if they can't "talk" so the child doesn't feel overwhelmed. I think it's more the idea of getting close to that thing that could potentially scare them/has scared them more than the design of the costume, really, especially when it continues when you're an adult because you're even more aware there's a person in there than a child would be and you're still scared? Come on, now

[Syera]

Knowing that an adult inside doesn't necessarily help. You have this huge face stretched into a permanent Joker grin and while you know there's someone inside, you don't know who is inside.

Nowadays, I wouldn't run screaming in terror as I would have when I was three years old. I just find the whole thing creepy and unnerving.
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[AladdinsGenie]

They're really not that big and not all of them are smiles, although they try to make them that way so they do look friendly. I'd prefer a "" to a "" myself, but I guess there's just a few special cases where some people can't accept that. It's not Batman's Joker we're talking about here, it's Genie .

[Syera]

I was thinking more of Mickey and Minnie.
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