Shocking images of Minnie Mouse spinning a little girl around when she tried to hug her at Disneyland have outraged viewers who accuse the character of being “aggressive” and “mistreating” the child.
tik tok user @anisrios1 shared the now-viral video of her young niece running towards Minnie during a gathering at the famous Main Street USA theme park in Anaheim, California.
The excited girl had her arms open to give the character a hug, but quickly turned to take a picture. The girl broke free of Minnie’s arms to try to give her a hug again, only to be turned a second time.
“Yesterday my niece was trying to hug Minnie and she was rude,” the girl’s aunt wrote in the video, sparking a fierce debate in the comments.
TikTok user @anisrios1 shared a now-viral video of her young niece being shunned by Minnie Mouse after she tried to give her a hug at Disneyland.
The excited girl had her arms open wide as she ran towards the beloved character.
Minnie Mouse avoided the girl’s hug and quickly turned her around to take a picture.
The clip has received 15.5 million views and more than 20,000 comments since it was posted last fall.
Several viewers insisted that the theme park actor had been too harsh on the girl when all she wanted was a hug.
‘No way @DisneyParks. Not well. She is a girl and they were aggressively pulling her away from a hug,” one person wrote.
‘The way Minnie mistreats her,’ someone else commented, while another added: ‘That baby got whiplash from those spins!’
‘All this baby wanted was a hug. I’m so mad,’ one critic shared.
Others couldn’t resist making jokes about the character’s surprising behavior, with one amused viewer proclaiming, “Minnie is in her dark age.”
There were also many people who sided with Minnie in this situation, claiming that the actor was busy posing for photos.
The boy escaped from Minnie’s arms to try to give her a hug again, only to be turned a second time.
“Yesterday my niece was trying to hug Minnie and she was rude,” Minnie’s aunt wrote alongside the video, which has been viewed more than 15.5 million times.
Outraged commenters accused the character of being “aggressive” and “mistreating” the girl, but others claimed the cast member was just holding the line.
‘Minnie has work to do. She is short on time and she needs the line to keep moving,” argued one person.
The boy’s mother, Aiko Mora, weighed in to respond to commenters who thought her family was overreacting.
“It was her first time at Disney,” she said of her daughter. ‘And first in line for the photo… Minnie was coming from a break…’
Mora, who uses the handle @aikotov1she also posted images of her daughter being rejected by Minnie Mouse on her own TikTok page.
“This is not the way anyone should be treated at Disneyland,” the mother said using the app’s text-to-speech feature.
She added in the caption: “This is how Minnie decided to treat my son after standing in line for 1 hour…Not a magical moment…”
tiktok user @sthoocha former Disney cast member, responded to the images, saying it looked like Minnie Mouse was doing what’s known as ‘push and love’.
The boy’s mother, Aiko Mora, posted the images on her own TikTok page, saying they waited an hour in line during the disappointing meet and greet.
TikTok user @chanellealyssa responded with a video of herself hugging the beloved character at the theme park, writing: “What an interaction with Minnie Mouse SHOULD be like.”
TikTok user @sthooch, a former Disney cast member, shared his own take on the video, saying the employee was probably doing the ‘love and push’, a technique to keep the line moving.
‘Is Minnie Mouse being rude to the child? I’m going to say no, and it’s because of this. When characters have meet and greet, you could say they have an A Mode and a B Mode, she explained.
“Mode A is when the characters take more time to talk to the child or the family or the adult, whoever it is, and really interact, creating this great experience between the guest and the character. Now, on the busy days, the really busy days, they can go into B-mode, which is known as “love and push.”
According to the content creator, the technique is when a cast member has a quick interaction with a fan and “gracefully pushes them aside as the next person to come.”
“You’re won over during the ‘love and push’ because they’re trying to get as many people through as possible,” he said. ‘Otherwise. people complained: “That took too long.”
tik tok user @chanellealyssa had a different take and shared a video of herself hugging the beloved character at the theme park, writing: “What an interaction with Minnie Mouse SHOULD be like.”
“All these videos of Minnie being rude make me so sad…character interactions can be so fun and personal and we don’t need to take a lot of time,” she added in the caption. All we need is a moment. And this one was so magical! How should everyone go.
DailyMail.com has contacted Disney Parks for comment.