I love the story of the Ugly Duckling as told by Lilo to Stitch in the Disney movie. It’s a simplified retelling. Lilo explains, “He’s sad because he’s all alone and nobody wants him.” When his family finds him, “the ugly duckling is happy because he knows where he belongs.”

The original tale by Hans Christian Anderson is a little darker. It follows a duckling who is relentlessly attacked and shunned for being ugly. He runs away and struggles to find his value in different groups, wanting to die in his loneliness. He eventually grows into a beautiful swan and finds love and belonging among the other swans.

It seems like a redeeming story of transformation and finding love and acceptance. A tale of enduring suffering to appreciate joy.

“He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him.”

But I can’t shake my uncomfortableness. In the end, it’s a distorted tale of acceptance. It’s not about belonging, it’s about fitting in. It upholds our admiration and bias towards physical beauty. And worst, it tells the wrong people they have to change.

What if the ugly duckling just grew up to be an ugly duck?

The story is read as assurance to those who struggle to fit in that they will find acceptance eventually. But the story promotes a feeling of negative self-worth. The ugly duckling feels loneliness and bitterness towards himself and his appearance, not towards those who hurt him.

Stitch doesn’t undergo any physical transformation at the end of the film. Instead, he learns to value himself which allows him to accept love from his own chosen kind of family.

You don’t have to turn into something completely different in order to be accepted. But to be accepted, you have to understand, you yourself deserve your love and acceptance first.