OK, so there's a car for women that has just been unveiled.
Introduced in London on Sept. 23, it is offered by a car manufacturer called Seat (a Spanish line owned by Volkswagen Group). Its model name: the Mii. It is a joint project of Seat and Cosmopolitan magazine, which itself is enough to make one's frivolity radar go off.
"It's small, purple -- and some find it offensive," begins the story at CNN.com. What makes the Mii a car for women? "Jewel-effect rims, a handbag hook, and 'eyeliner headlights.'" The car represents two years of work for Seat and Cosmopolitan, which tout the Mii as being a lovely car for "impromptu karaoke performances, last-minute wardrobe changes, dramatic gossip sessions and emergency lunch-hour kips [naps]."
After people predictably took to Twitter to protest and mock the car, officials at the manufacturer and the magazine did some backpedaling. The car wasn't designed to appeal to women in general, they claimed, just to Cosmo-reading women.
The biggest problem I find with this car is that it's just plain dog's-rear ugly. Which is a surprise, seeing that Cosmopolitan magazine is all about looking sexy -- no plain, modest-dressing ladies on those covers! -- and telling their readers how to have sex.
The Mii is anything but sexy. It looks like a large, purple version of that red-and-yellow play car for children ... the Little Tykes Cozy Coupe without the eyes, just the "eyeliner." The snub-nosed, derriere-less thing doesn't look big enough to fit a handbag inside, let alone make wardrobe changes or take a "kip." The two years of collaboration must have consisted of: "What would Skipper [Barbie's little sister] drive?" Mii's purveyors seem to have gotten caught up in stereotypical car features without considering what women might find visually attractive.
The Twitterati weren't nice. "Oh thank goodness; finally there's a car wearing eyeliner," one woman tweeted. "How have we women coped so long without this ... Oh wait." Tweeted a gentleman: "Precisely 0 people need this car." I, too, can't see anyone -- Cosmo readers or otherwise -- past the Hello Kitty-loving stage get out and make a run for the Mii. (I'd be willing to wager that handbag hook would soon be ignored in favor of the usual slinging of a purse into the backseat or dirty passenger-side floor.)
If somebody wants to make a "woman's" car, here are some features to consider. The fellows and fellow middle-agers would probably like these features too:
• Retractable umbrellas over all doors. What's the use of an umbrella when you get soaked between the time you fold/unfold it and the time you enter/exit your car? I can see it now: a button on the ol' car remote with an umbrella symbol on it. Hit that button while approaching your car, and it looks like a Batmobile prototype, with half-umbrellas forming awnings over the windows. Get in; lower, fold and stash your umbrella under the awning's protection; close the door and, voila! You're still at least as dry as your umbrella kept you.
• A place to stash your umbrella, which usually makes you and the car interior even wetter as you try to figure out a place to put it.
• A car version of those lifting cushions or lift chairs. This would help you avoid struggling to get out of your car, especially if you're in some low-slung midlife-crisis-type sports car you didn't have the money to buy when you were young enough to look cool in it. Combine this with the already-existing Swivel Cushion Car Seat that helps people to turn as they prepare to get up from a chair.
• For children, a singing car that will keep them amused while Mom and/or Dad concentrate on the road. Young'uns want to sing a few hundred rounds of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" and the DVD and Game Boy batteries are dead? Let the car lead them in song.
• A chic LED sign for expressing one's wishes without wallpapering the car exterior with bumper stickers. If you're a soccer mom, voting for a particular candidate, run marathons, etc., you can change your sign at will, flashing pre-composed messages with the touch of a button. One online "features we'd like to see in cars" list includes a "Sorry" button to acknowledge one's dumb driving; the LED sign would cover that. (These would have to be regulated because we as a people won't act right.)
It'll be interesting to see how the Mii does and whether they bring it across the pond. Meanwhile, one can only hope that Playboy or Maxim (whose cover subjects' attire, ironically, isn't much more concealing than Cosmo's) doesn't decide to car-procreate.
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Style on 10/02/2016