Animated films reinforcing negative stereotypes of skin issues, according to new study

Animated films are falling into the trap of using skin disorders, blemishes, and wrinkles as a visual shorthand for negative traits, a study published in the British Journal of Dermatology has claimed.

The study found that 76.5% of villainous characters or those with negative associations had some form of what the authors call “dermatologic findings”. This compares to 25.9% of the characters meant to appear good. The study analysed characters from the top 50 highest grossing animated films as of January 2017. 92% of the movies were released after the year 2000, and 50% were released after 2010.

Previous studies have highlighted the same issue in prominent films of the 20th century and shown that notorious film villains have a statistically significant higher proportion of dermatologic findings compared to heroes.