For many of us, Walt Disney Pictures have played a large part in our childhood. Giroux (1995) even goes as far as saying that Disney are just as useful as school teachers and parents at teaching values and morals to younger children. Throughout Disney movies, important life lessons and messages are constantly being put across; whether it being Rapunzel telling us that sometimes, feeling the fear and letting go of familiarity can allow us to move forward and experience new and better things (Walt Disney Pictures, Tangled, 2010) or Timon from the Lion King sending out the positive message of 'Hakuna Matata', meaning no matter how hard life gets, you can always pull through (Walt Disney Pictures, The Lion King, 1994).
For the past century, many children have looked up to Disney characters with great admiration. Although these characters may have taught us lessons and inspired us to aim for our dreams, they may have also subliminally encouraged us to believe even more in the 'beauty goodness' stereotype.
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Is it really just biological and physical factors that determines whether someone is beautiful or handsome, or is there more to it? Whenever we hear someone describe another person as being 'beautiful', we automatically visualize a tall, slim woman with a curvy bone structure, long, blonde, glossy hair, smooth, sallow skin, crystal blue eyes, peachy lips, a neatly chiselled jaw line and prominent cheekbones. We also very often associate positive traits such as innocence and goodness with the stereotypical meaning of 'beautiful'.
All the features listed above are the type of characteristics people constantly see Disney promoting in their films which leads many to believe that they portray the 'beauty-is-good' stereotype. However, whilst Disney are seen to be the main culprits of encouraging this stereotype, there is no solid empirical evidence to prove that they are continuingly displaying it in every single one of their