Intersections of Beauty
"Now it's no wonder that her name means 'Beauty'
Her looks have got no parallel"
Belle and her journey are central to the plot of Beauty and the Beast; she is a woman who represents the ideal beauty standard and who everyone in the town recognizes as desirable. ​It's no secret that beauty standards today are constantly changing and the idea of a "standard" or "ideal" type of beauty always leaves someone out. From Ancient Greek statues to Victoria Secret models to Lizzo, there has never been just one type of beautiful -- only the beauty of the moment.
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In our production, we are striving to examine these intersections of beauty and let them inform how we celebrate beauty in the world we're constructing. In our world, beauty is inclusive and expansive.
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As you read through these resources, we invite you to think about how you feel about your own beauty as it relates to these questions. How do you define beauty and how has your relationship to that concept changed as you've grown?
Beauty and Body Diversity
According to the South Shore Eating Disorders Collaborative, if Mattel's Barbie doll was a real woman, she would have to walk on all fours due to her proportions. Similarly, the median waist-to-hip ratio of the Disney princesses is 0.535, meaning their waist measurement is 53 percent of their hip measurement. That is far below the 0.7 that is generally seen as ideal. And even smaller than Barbie's measurement at 0.56. Suffice to say, these fictional women have unattainable bodies.
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What does it mean that the dolls we give children to play with wouldn't be able to be functional human beings? When the Disney body standard is not only unrealistic, but literally unattainable?
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It's not only unrealistic beauty standards like these, but the media's portrayal of thinner bodies as healthier, sexier, and more desirable that have led to movements like the Body Positivity Movement and widespread pushback against diet culture. These standards have very real consequences. Because of assumptions tied to body size, people in fat bodies are less likely to be taken seriously by their doctor, leading to undiagnosed or treated conditions (to name one example).
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Articles to Read
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How has your relationship to your body been affected by what you've seen reflected in the media?
Beauty and Race
Disney's TV channels are broadcast in 133 different countries and their princess stories reach young children of all different nationalities. Sociologist Charu Uppal has been studying the effects of Disney's majority white and Western princesses on girls internationally since 2009. From the start of her study to 2018, she asked nearly 140 girls aged 8 to 15 to draw a princess. Her latest study analyzed 63 princess drawings from girls in Fiji, India and Sweden. In this sample, nearly every drawing — 61 out of 63 — depicted a light-skinned princess, many of those resembling Disney characters. Fijian girls drew multiple Ariels; Indian girls drew Belles and Sleeping Beauties. Not one girl drew a princess in her country's traditional garb.
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Disney's international popularity means that they are defining what a princess looks like for generations. What does it mean to not be able see yourself reflected in those stories?​
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While Disney has begun to make an effort to include more diversity in their princess films, the majority of official princesses are still white. And it's not just Disney. The media as a whole needs to take ownership after years of perpetuating and profiting off of white-centric beauty standards. Some beauty companies have started to make adjustments like coming out with full foundation shade ranges for dark skin tones and showcasing natural hair in ad campaigns. Yet within these campaigns for greater diversity, the issue of colorism still persists. Models with darker skin are passed over in favor of those with more ethnically ambiguous features or even a white model with an aggressive tan.
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Articles to Read
How has this intersection affected your relationship to your own beauty? What does it mean to see yourself reflected in the media as royalty?
Beauty and Clothing
The clothing we wear has a bigger effect on the way we're perceived than we know. An article published in the March 2020 issue of Nature Human Behavior presented a study in which participants were presented with pictures of random faces paired with either expensive or cheap upper-body clothing and asked to judge these people’s competence. ​Participants were told to “focus on the person, and ignore other features such as the clothes.” However, results found that over 83% of faces were perceived as more competent when paired with richer (compared to poorer) clothes.
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The ability to buy high quality clothing for work or leisure is entirely dependent on your income. What does it mean that other's perception of you is ​tied in part to the clothes you choose to wear?
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Not only is the way we dress a class issue, but the style in which we choose to dress affects how beautiful or competent we appear as well. The trend-cycle, meaning the rate at which fashion trends rise and fall in popularity, has sped up tremendously in the age of fast fashion. The pressure to buy clothing to stay on trend is more pressing than ever. Many young Instagram influencers feel that if they've been photographed in an outfit, they shouldn't be seen in it again. Additionally, those who choose to dress counter-culturally or "off trend" may seem to simply not have great style.
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Articles to Read
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How do you choose to express yourself through what you wear? What clothing makes you feel most beautiful?
Beauty and Disability
Disney has never had a princess with a disability. Their only attempt at directly portraying a hero with disability in a film has been The Hunchback of Notre Dame, a film widely criticized for its portrayal of disability. The film's main character, Quasimodo (whose name literally means "half-formed) is a social outcast because of his disability. The film perpetuates harmful stereotypes, portraying Quasimodo's disability as an insurmountable barrier to him finding happiness and fitting in with society. He is also depicted as a source of fear due to his appearance - again, making a harmful correlation between disabled people and ugliness.
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What does it mean that the only deliberate portrayal of disability in a Disney film perpetuates harmful stereotypes?
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In the biography Venus on Wheels, Diane DeVries describes her experience as a young disabled woman.
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"I never heard the words, ‘Wait till you become a mother,’ or ‘Someday when you are married, you will understand.’ Even though my toys represented the perfect socialization of a little girl into wife and mother, they were probably given to me with the belief that they would be the closest I would ever get to the real thing. Neither of my parents ever felt I would someday become a sexually attractive female, let alone marry."
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Diane's experience makes us interrogate the way society has diminished her ability to feel beautiful and desired. We are called to question why people with disabilities been left out of narratives about falling in love and happily ever afters.
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Articles to Read
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How does having an ableist perspective on beauty limit us? Who is left out?
Connect to Organizations
Listed below are nonprofit organizations that serve to connect people with disabilities to the arts as well as further inclusion and representation. These organizations have their roots in areas of philanthropy that involve inclusion and diversity for children by funding school programs, playgrounds, and music classes. This particular list was curated by Evan Ruggiero.
Evan Ruggiero and Jason Mraz tap dancing!
United Ability | Birmingham, Alabama
Their mission: "United Ability provides innovative services connecting people with disabilities to their communities and empowering individuals to live full and meaningful lives."
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Visit their website
Follow them on Facebook
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The Jason Mraz Foundation | San Diego, CA
Their mission: "Our mission is to shine for inclusive arts education and the advancement of equality. Our purpose is to cause peace in the world."
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Visit their website
Follow them on Facebook
Inclusion Matters by Shane’s Inspiration | Los Angeles, CA
Their mission: "Kids with disabilities are often excluded from play. Our goal is to create playgrounds and educational programs where kids of all abilities can play together."
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Visit their website
Follow them on Facebook
Beauty and Opportunity
The standards of beauty that are imposed on us at any given moment are not without consequences. Your beauty, as perceived by others, can have a direct link to your privilege and opportunity. Fairy tales often celebrate natural beauty by showing that being beautiful is a component of helping one transcend their station in life. Snow White is the fairest of them all and her tale is entirely centered around her beauty: Who is threatened by it? Who falls in love with it? Cinderella is a kind, gentle soul, but it is being the most beautiful girl at the ball that helps her escape her stepmother's rule.
What does it mean that the majority of our main characters have to be beautiful to be heroes?​
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"Pretty privilege" is the idea that people who are deemed more attractive have an upper hand in the world and are afforded many more opportunities than the average person. ​Pretty not just by any metric, but as it relates to conventional beauty standards that are popular at the time. All the intersections we've discussed thus far -- the nuances of beauty and what we consider beautiful -- play a factor in how we perceive conventional attractiveness. Knowing that being closer to the beauty "standard" could potentially get you closer to your goals makes the pressure to conform (i.e. lose weight, get plastic surgery, buy the latest clothes, straighten your hair, etc.) even stronger.
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With such a direct link to opportunity and privilege, we have a responsibility to work towards better representation onstage and onscreen.
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Articles to Read
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What are the privileges associated with being conventionally beautiful by societies standards? How have you benefited (or not) from these standards?
Girls Ages 5-18 Talk About What Beauty Means to Them
