‘Mannequin Challenge’: The Henry Ford Nails It (Whatever It Is)

DEARBORN, MI — You’ve heard of the “Mannequin Challenge,” right? No? It’s an updated game of the freeze tag game you used to play as a kid, except your frozen-in-place self(ie) will end up on social media in a viral troll for, well, nothing too deep, just attention for the sake of it.

(That it’s all the rage now may be the best news of all, a harbinger that creepy clowns are passé. The Mannequin Challenge doesn’t seem the kind of thing that would induce mass panic, as those ridiculous clowns did. People “freeze” in place. Kids who claim to have been chased down the street by creepy mannequins are fibbing.)

The whole thing started last month at Edward H. White High School in Jacksonville, Florida. Students posted a video on the internet, and for no particular reason, it caught on. What’s the point? There isn’t one, really. It’s just another internet rabbit hole and, as previously noted, better than the clown craze.

So why not The Henry Ford, the largest indoor-outdoor museum complex in the United States?

The staff at the Dearborn history museum used the craze to promote an upcoming exhibit, “American Style and Spirit,” which looks at the unique history of a Wisconsin family through a collection of clothing that spans 130 years. The exhibit runs through April 2, 2017.

Museum curator Jeanine Miller told WWJ Radio she expects visitors to closely relate to the family and their experiences, “not only visually, but also kind of emotionally, because many of the stories that are told here, we can all relate to.”

“We have a prom dress from 1932, and many of us remember going to the prom. And there are garments from the 1950s, when the family went on a lot of cruises and exotic vacations,” she said.

The exhibit includes letters, photographs and heirloom objects that tell a story about the life of the person behind each garment.

“I think it’s important for people to understand how unusual this is. I mean, we’re such a mobile society that often we don’t keep things relating to generations of our family,” Miller said. “So it’s a rare collection because it is so many generations of one family.”

Below, watch The Henry Ford’s Mannequin Challenge video promoting the exhibit.

Image and video from The Henry Ford via YouTube