Fairies have largely developed through an eurocentric view of how women should look. They therefore mainly adhere to eurocentric beauty standards, these include both straight hair and fair skin. These physical features cannot be achieved by all people, because they are commonly attributed to white women. However when these are the only beauty standards being publicly displayed, for example in toys and media, it can lead to internalisation, the belief that the only way of being beautiful is by resembling these standards. This pressures women and girls of colour to conform to whiteness and white beauty standards (Williams et. al., 2024).
Everyone needs themselves to be represented, to feel like they are normal and fit in, this is Social Comparison Theory. It applies even more to children, who are still actively shaping their view of the world. When playing with toys or experiencing stories it is important for children to have someone that looks like them, someone to identify with. Lack of this can lead to children feeling like there is something wrong with them (Nesbitt, 2019). As they recognise different skin colors and the stereotypes and biases that come with them from a young age, it is important for them to be exposed to a variety in their youth. If education includes more characters or toys with different skin colors, children will often discover the similarities between all people and show more empathy and understanding towards those who don’t look the same as them (Lee et. al., 2021).
Eyela and Bayala have a lack of representation of different skin colors, all of their characters are white, and very white at that. They therefore play a role in this process of whiteness being seen as the beauty standard. Another example for this idealization of whiteness, is the fairytale of Snow White. This story is very well known worldwide, as it is an old story by the Brothers Grimm and there are some movie adaptions on it, whether the animated or feature Disney version with real actors. Snow White's skin colour is very central to her story, as her parents highlight their wish to have a daughter with skin as white as the snow, which is the main characteristic of her. So, Snow White's skin makes her the most beautiful and adorable figure in the whole story, even the evil queen is jealous and wants to kill her for her beauty. For children of colour, it is very difficult to identify with Snow White. It rather leads to the feeling of having the wrong skin colour, that is not common for female main characters or women in general and that white is a characteristic of being a beautiful woman.
