Disney Disappointment

Is how kind you are directly proportional to how attractive you are?  Are you a mean and nasty person if you have an unfortunate skin condition?  If were were blessed with extraordinary good looks does that mean you are the kindest person around?  Well, Disney seems to think so. 

The kids were watching an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates the other day while I was puttering around the kitchen half listening.  All of a sudden I started to pay more attention.  The episode was about the Pirate Princess and a mean sea witch that was going to turn her into a golden statue.  When I looked at the screen this mean witch had green skin, hair that looks like sea weed, somewhat yellowish buggy eyes and not many teeth it seems.  I managed to find a picture. 

During the course of the show the Pirate Princess swoops in and uses her rainbow wand to transform the mean sea witch into a kind witch instead but in the process her looks are also transformed and she comes out looking looking gorgeous.  That's the finished product on the left in this picture.  I know that this sort of correspondence between personality and attractiveness has been alluded to or even blatantly thrown in our faces plenty of times before but I was still completely appalled when I saw it in this format.  I know we have a tendency to assume that people who are physically attractive also possess other desirable personality traits but is this really something that we would like to enforce, especially in young children?  This sort of representation will only lead to more children growing up thinking that the more beautiful a person is the better they are in general. 

On the flip side of that they will be mistrusting of those around them that are less attractive and what about themselves?  It's really no wonder that so many girls have issues with their self esteem.  Not only are they led to believe that they must be beautiful but they are taught that if they aren't as attractive as someone else they aren't as good a person as them either.  They aren't as valuable, intelligent, kind, considerate, happy, successful or lovable. 

When you look at the Disney movies there are a few that attempt to "break" this stereotype such as Beauty and the Beast.  However even in that the beast is never REALLY hideous.  I tend to prefer Snow White because the evil witch is actually the MOST attractive in the land.  The only problem that still exists with the plot of that story is that she is only able to be so attractive because of magic and her entire focus and drive is her physical appearance. 

I had thought that Disney was aware of this problem and had been taking steps towards being more inclusive in recent years but this has shown me that is not the case.  I'm quite disappointed in their blatantly feeding into negative stereotypes and have been attempting to contact them with my concerns but so far I have been unable to get a hold of an email address for the show.  Since we are in Canada the web site constantly directs me to the Canadian version that only has contact information for a general info email address and not the specific show.  If any of my American friends out there is able to get a contact email address for the Jake and the Neverland Pirates show or even the TV division of Disney I would be greatly appreciative.  I don't think we should accept these negative messages being driven into our children and in order to make change we need to speak up.  I want to let them know this is unacceptable.