What's going on, Walt?

I've recently downloaded an app on Facebook called Washington Post Reader.

This app allows you to easily scan through the latest breaking and headlining stories of the day or week. It also posts on your profile what stories you have recently read, and allows you to see what your friends have been reading, as well.

For the past day or so since I've had it, I've been addicted -- it's so simple to use, and allows you to get a taste of what's going on in the world, which is something that can be so difficult in school when your schedule consists primarily of sleeping, eating, classes, and hanging out. It can be tough to watch the news or grab a paper.

As I was perusing myriad articles whilst I should have been doing homework, I stumbled across a rather eye-catching one in particular.

Disney Parks' Craziest Staff Rules

(http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/01/25/disney-parks-craziest-corporate-rules-beards-ok-tattoos-still-out.html)

I'd been to Disneyworld once before and had loved it, and generally adore the Disney movies as a whole -- my interest was piqued.

As I glanced at the different rules, I didn't find them altogether crazy. The list consisted of the rules:

1. Conservative eyeglasses
2. Neutral, short nails
3. Classic hairdos
4. Short mustaches
5. Ear piercings only; no visible tattoos

(You can read the whole article here!)

They didn't seem so harmless at first. It makes sense for Disney, like all companies, to want to promote a certain vision of itself. However, then it clicked—

By staff of Disney parks adhering to these rules, are they helping to promote a strong sense of Disney's visual rhetoric? Is this like hidden ethos or something?

Children go to Disney parks to see, meet, and experience their favorite Disney characters, films, and TV shows. These different forms of media act as role models to children across the country, and the world. In a way, these rules of Disney staff seem to promote an idea that staff, because they interact with children on a daily basis, are to appear as role models, as well.

If this is the case, then what exactly are we teaching our children with these rules? That it's not acceptable to have thick pink-framed glasses? That glittery red nail polish is somehow unethical? That having a streak of blue-dyed hair speaks unwell of you, and having a nose piercing is totally the creme de la creme?

For a company such as Disney, whose films support uniqueness in everyone, and the importance in standing apart from the crowd, they sure seem to enforce a type of conformity within their own circle of people.

Is allowing a staff member at Disney, with a stud in her nose and long blue nails, to commandeer a guest shop such a bad thing at all? Should we be instilling a belief in young children that it is, in fact, a person's appearance that determines his or her heart? Or should we perhaps focus on something, I don't know, a little less superficial? Your call, Disney.