Beauty and the Beast: The Most Upsetting "Love" Story Ever Told

   
     My school recently put on a performance of Beauty and the Beast, in which I played the role of Cogsworth, the British clock person. I loved every second of it. In fact, I loved it so much, I was fighting through tears through the entire last show. As a senior in high school, the knowledge that it was my very last high school performance was hard to deal with. So, instead of accepting that it is over, and that it was a beautiful way to go out, and embracing the fond memories I have, I've decided to smear the entire story. 
    
    It's a coping tactic. I've found that insulting things that I love is a great way to hide from my feelings. You see, it creates an emotional gap that...well, never mind. Here are all the things about Beauty and the Beast that I find uncomfortable, dumb, or otherwise negative in any fashion. Because I am a sad, lonely man with post-performing arts depression.

    

I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. It's not you, it's me.

   The messages in this movie are all wrong for children

    
    I talked a lot with my fellow cast members about this, and we came up with quite a few backwards and just outright immoral messages told in this story.

   

    1. It's o.k. to stay in an abusive relationship, on the off chance the other person might become less terrible 

    
    The Beast is abusive. There is no disputing that fact. In the first scene he is in with other characters, all of his servants show terror at the thought he might be upset with them. Why? It is not simply fear for their guest. No, even the young child, Chip, asks the question, "Should we hide, mama?" 

    This youngster truly realizes what the audience members tend not to completely grasp...they are all in danger. Meaning? The Beast will hurt them for disobeying him. Chip knows it, all the enchanted objects know it. Any psychiatrist who saw that kind of a reaction from a child when in the presence of one of their authority figures would assume abuse of some kind.

    
    Besides what he has done to his servants in the past, he is verbally and nearly physically abusive to Belle. When she first arrives, she sees her father for what she must assume is the last time, then is yelled at and ordered about. So now she's already traumatized. Simply yelling at her the way The Beast does would be considered verbal abuse, but consider her horrible circumstances. 

    He later threatens to drag her by her hair and even shoves her to the ground (in the movie he takes a swing at her, actually trying to strike her with his massive strength and razor sharp claws). That goes beyond being a bully. He not only feels the need to exert power over her, but for her to submit to him.

He is in no way attempting to be threatening right there. Not at all.

    Now, in that last situation, he is immediately guilty over what he did. Does that make it better? Not even kind of. However, Disney glosses over all that by telling little girls that big scary guys are really all soft and cuddly on the inside. 
    

    2. If someone tries to hurt you, if you kill them, everything gets better immediately

    
    This is a problem I have with a lot of movies, but right now I'm just picking on this specific Disney classic. Gaston invades the Beasts home and tries to murder him. That is bad. The Beast had every right to kill him in self defense. I have no problem with that message. 

    What I find unsettling is that Gaston dies, a bunch of villagers are presumably injured or even killed in the fight, along with many of the servants (Lets face it, one or two brooms were probably snapped in half during the scuffle, some cups got smashed, you know how it goes), but what do they do afterwards? They go get dressed up again and go dancing and singing and having a party. We aren't shown the aftermath of the violence. 

Nooooo...ooooone...dies like Gaston! Oh, too soon?

    Admittedly, there is no police force to report the incident to, as far as we can see, but wouldn't they have to do something? In the movie, Gaston falls into one of the conveniently placed crevices that always seem to be at the end of Disney movies. Now, no one has to go down and get his body, that's up to the townsfolk to do that, but still. Won't the townspeople be upset that the monster they thought was going to eat their children has killed their hero?            
    
    Sure, he's all Fabio-ish now, but this is France in the 17th or 18th century. For them, the logical conclusion is that he is a shape-shifting, child-eating, hero-murdering monster. The castle will probably either be under siege for a long time once the villagers flee and get reinforcements from their nearest feudal lord or whatever. 

    The only way I can see that the Beast will get away with this is he kills everyone, so that there is no one to go back and tell what happened. That will leave the town with no men to protect them or work their fields or raise their children. Yay?
    
    What I'm trying to get at is where there is death and violence, happy endings are not that easy. Sure, Belle maybe would have been able to convince the townsfolk to leave them be when she explains the whole story to them, but that scene is never showed. All the children see is Gaston being killed, the Beast being transformed, and then everything is happy. 
    

    3. It is possible to change someone in a weekend 

    
    Yes. The whole musical happens in about 3 days, starting from the first scene. At least the play version does. Belle's father leaves, ends up at the castle. Maybe the next day, probably the same day, Belle finds out and goes looking for him. Belle arrives at the castle, her father is sent away. 

Honestly, no one should be allowed in the woods. Ever. Just turn the village into The Village, you know what I mean?

    Let's assume it's been about a day and a half at this point. She sulks in her room for awhile, and the Beast shows up and threatens her. She then leaves her room, is served a "meal" in which she eats almost nothing. 

    Then she goes on a tour, goes to the west wing, gets physically abused, and runs away (finally). That same night she gets attacked by wolves, gets saved, and brings her savior back. She fixes him up, he does his best to win her over by giving her his library and then she asks him to dinner the next night (that night?). 

    They have dinner, dance, and then she leaves to find her father. She finds him that same night, brings him to town, then the townsfolk try to lock him up. She shows them The Beast, they go to kill him, that same night. There's a fight, Gaston dies, everyone lives happily ever after. Two, maybe three days, tops.
    
    What does Belle do to win The Beast's affections? Well, she's pretty. He falls in "love" with her from just seeing her, before she does anything other than yell at him. This spoiled brat of a man is suddenly transformed into a caring, sweet, and gentleman simply because she stops yelling at him and reads him a book.
    
    Girls: If a guy is a total prick all the time, and is suddenly super nice to you after you bat your eyelashes at him, then he hasn't changed. He's actually just putting on an act. Nobody changes that fast. It's impossible. Sorry.

Then again, how can you not fall in love with that face?

    

    4. Ugly mean people are ugly because they're mean, and if you fix their meanness, than they will be pretty again 

    
    As far as I know, guys care more about physical appearance in a partner than girls do. I'm not saying girls don't care about attractive guys (a quick trip to any teenage girls Pintrest will show you how wrong that is), but listen to me for a second. It is WAY more common to see a pretty or downright gorgeous girl with a fairly boring looking guy than it is to see a super handsome guy with some girl who is...meh. It isn't because guys are necessarily more shallow than girls, it's just that guys generally make more of an effort to get to know girls they deem attractive, meaning they will probably find an attractive girl with the intellectual, emotional, and spiritual requirements before one who is not as attractive. 

   
    Meaning what, exactly? I'm not trying to say it is completely unbelievable that a pretty girl would fall in love with the ugly guy. I just want to make that clear ahead of time. But that is not what happens in this story. 

    Belle falls in love with a creature, not the supermodel he turns into. And that is alright, because the message is supposed to be about inner beauty. Somehow she managed to make a violent maniac into a guy worth loving, and she would have been happy with him the way he was. That is the message they try to make.
    
    But then he goes from that incredibly ugly creature to...this.

Yes. This. What...what exactly is this? 

    I have been informed by many of my female friends that this handsome devil is not, in fact, handsome at all. Leaving me to conclude logically that he is simply the devil. But clearly the designers intended him to be handsome. SOME people think he's handsome. The point of him turning into a babe is supposed to be an allegory for inner beauty. Get it? Cause inside he's beautiful. Right? Hahaha...ha. 

    
    Wait, no! That's not how real life works! If you find someone has "inner beauty", that says nothing about their potential for being outwardly attractive. You could be the nicest person in the whole world. You could be courteous, a good listener, talented, and just in general likable and lovable, but if you don't do something to try and make yourself look decent, you aren't going to attract the opposite sex. 

    In general. That isn't always true. But realistically, Beast wouldn't have a chance. 

"I'm sorry, Beast. I've always seen you as more of...a really good friend." 

    5. Because someone is a prideful prick, they are evil. 

    
    Gaston would be a truly unfortunate individual to encounter. He honestly thinks he is the best because he is physically superior to everyone else. He values women based off of their attractiveness. He treats his sidekick like crap. He's ignorant and proud of it. 

    

   In what way does any of that make him worse than the Beast. He has pride issues. He rules through fear. He "falls in love" with Belle because she's a pretty girl, and sends the enchantress away because she was ugly. He treats his servants like crap. He never bothered learning to read, even though he obviously could have had one of his hundreds of servants teach him.

    What I'm trying to get at is that they both suck. Neither of them have personalities that repulse Belle. The reason Belle falls for the beast is because he saves her from the wolves right after he nearly assaulted her.

A big, strong male figure steps in to save the helpless female? Real progressive, Disney.

    So can you honestly tell me this story wouldn't have changed if Belle had just given Gaston a chance? Even if his priorities aren't in the right place, she obviously could have fixed him. If she could change the Beast in a few days from an immature, brutal monster into a self-sacrificing, gentle, and genuinely caring shemale...

I'm sorry. He looks like a woman with a really strong jawline. And a flat chest.

    ...then she can turn a guy who is actively pursuing a relationship with her before committing a felony into a loving husband. Apparently, just like Black Widow, her super powers are her looks. 

Also, guns. And Belle doesn't even need those! Why isn't she in The Avengers?

    Also, the whole plot to put her dad in the looney bin never would have happened. Instead of replacing her dad, she could have gone back to town, and returned to the castle with reinforcements. Gaston would get to look like a hero for saving her dad, and they'd live out their statistically short lives in their small French village. 

    So Gaston would get what he wants, and Belle wouldn't. Oh well. That's life. You can't always get what you want. 

    The one really sinister thing Gaston does is he plots to put her father in the Maison Des Lunes, the apparently horrible insane asylum, which is run by the evil Monsieur D'Arque, who's name alone would be enough to put him on an FBI watch-list.

    Anyway, the "evil" masters decide that if Belle turns down Gaston's proposal again, then they will put her father Maurice in the place for crazy people. How cruel and evil! They have no reason to believe that he is the slightest bit touched in the head! And even if he was, that asylum is no place for a delusional man.

    Actually, that's exactly the place for a delusional man.

6. Insane people are actually all nice, and we shouldn't treat them any different. 

    I know I just offended some people. That's ok. Let me explain.

    Maurice may or may not be slightly crazy...

It's really up in the air. 

    ...but either way, everyone in the town would be justified to think that he was. He's old. He's suffering after the loss of his wife. He thinks he's a genius, but more likely than not he's just creative and good with tools. Everyone already believes he's a little bit loopy.

    Then he actually goes off the deep end. He bursts into the pub late at night after being missing for a day or two, grabbing people and shouting in their faces. He goes on and on about a monster abducting his daughter. He continues to describe it in great deal, then says something about talking clocks. 

    If they had police, they would have called them up and had him spend a night in the local jail to see if he would sober up or detox, to see if that changed his story. If not, they would have placed him under psychiatric care, which in this context, unfortunately, is the Maison Des Lunes.

    Had Belle not come back, he would have inevitably ended up there at some point. All his symptoms pointed to some form of psychosis. He was experiencing what appeared to be hallucinations, obsessive behavior, and impairments in social cognition. Sadly, the things he was saying were true, and his lack of social graces would probably show in anyone who had lost their spouse were now afraid they might lose their only child.

    However tragic his circumstances, the townsfolk would have had no choice but to lock him up. For all they knew, his condition may have worsened and he might have become a danger to the townsfolk and their children. They couldn't risk having a madman on the loose. 

    The reason I take offense to Disney setting the scene this way is it makes it appear as if taking precautions in the presence of a psychotic person is mean. How do you know that they're not telling the truth? If a man with a knife, who is running around in his underwear screaming that he is the second coming of Jesus and wants you to come with him because he has to show you his spaceship, why not believe him? 

    Mental illness is a touchy subject, and I am by no means saying that all people with any form of it are  dangerous lunatics. I'm simply saying the subject should be treated with care, and that in the movie, the townsfolk had every reason to be worried for him and even possibly fear him. 

He comes for your soul.

Am I reading to much into this?

    Absolutely I am. Again, I love this story. It brings tears to my eyes even now when I think about all the good times I had while involved with the story. The characters are fun, the music is amazing, the love story is beautiful. On the surface. 

    Now, children only see the surface. They only see the fun characters, and not their dark sides. They love the music. Many truly believe that it is the greatest love story ever told. Now, as a reasoning adult I can peel back that first layer of shiny goodness and peer at the overall context of it. 

    Does this make me cynical and jaded? Possibly. Does it ruin all good stories for me forever? No. It can't. No amount of cold, clinical analyzation of this story will ever stop the flood of emotion that hits me every time I hear the song "Tale as Old as Time." No amount of sympathizing with Gaston will stop me from cheering for the Beast during the final fight. Never will my skepticism at the change of the Beasts heart stop me from empathizing with him when he lets Belle go. 

    I learned long ago that to enjoy a children's story, I must have the attitude of a child. I need to be able break my hardened heart and learn to enjoy the little things. I poke fun because I enjoy poking fun, I nitpick because I am a nitpicky person, but I love it. 

Besides, if these songs are going to be stuck in my head forever, I might as well enjoy them, right?