Danielle's Corner: Finding Beauty in Ugliness

Upon entering Sid Phillip's bedroom, Woody and Buzz are greeted by demonic looking toys. A metallic octopus with a baby's head strides over next to a pair of legs with a fishing rod for a body and a rubber duck head mounted on a muscular dolls body. Woody begs them to stay away by using Buzz's karate chop button. Their second meeting begins much like the first with Woody begging them to stay away. However, the ending is quite different. As the toys surround Buzz, Woody pushes and shoves but the toy will not give way to him. Once they move away from Buzz, Woody dashes over and sees that they have fixed Buzz's broken arm. He thought they were attacking Buzz when they were actually helping him. Their final meeting is when Woody asks them for help in saving Buzz and they agree without hesitation.
Disney is consistently dishing out films that depict ugliness as beautiful. Beauty and the Beast is the most obvious. The film directly says, "beauty is found within" and features a complex characters like the Beast who is more than a simply a monster, an enchantress who is much more than a simple old beggar woman, and Belle who is much more than her beauty implies. Another movie that takes on this trope is The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Quasimodo, the ugly and deformed hunchback is more than he appears, Esmeralda is kind and gentle despite her gypsy title, and Frollo is evil and satanic despite his holy role in the church.
Even the Lizzie McGuire Movie tackles this trope with the Italian popstar, Paolo Valisari. He seems like the ultimate gentleman and perfect singer and his is multiplied by his handsome exterior. But he turns out to be a manipulative, lip-syncing fraud and it is Gordo, the messy haired guy who isn't super handsome, who deserves Lizzie's heart.
There are a ton of examples I could use throughout this blog besides those but I digress. What do all of these stories have in common? They take on a much bigger challenge than simply routing for the underdog. They say that beauty is found within. This very much mirrors the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament who chose people who didn't look perfect and didn't seem worthy to stand alongside him.
We still live in a culture that values exterior beauty over internal. But let's learn from Toy Story and give people a chance because in the end, we are all people who deserve to be treated nicely.

"Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them." - A.A. Milne