Why Beauty and the Beast is million times better than Cinderella

Whenever my friends and I discuss movies (which is often), and we approach the subject of animated features, I passionately start to sing the praises of what I consider to be an enormously underrated movie, Beauty and the Beast from Disney. It’s gotten to the point that this has become a running joke with my friends, and they tease me about it often. I figure it would make a good subject for my first Feministing-community blog-post.

(I should make it clear that it is actually not my favorite animated movie, that honor belongs to Grave of the Fireflies . It is, however, my favorite American animated movie, and my favorite animated movie that doesn’t make me want to kill myself, which Grave of the Fireflies does)

(By the way, this essay is going to be somewhat lengthy. Apologies for that. As I said, I’ve argued this many times, so I tend to ramble on. And I do belive it’s interesting, but I guess I’ll let you be the judge of that.)

Why do I love this movie so much? Well, it has all the traditional elements that the classic Disney-features should have: the songs are great, the artwork stunning, the characters engaging and the jokes are funny. In my opinion, it does all those things better than pretty much any other Disney feature in existance. That alone would make it pretty fantastic.

However, the main reason I love it so much is because of the feminist message that’s deeply embedded in the heart of the movie. As I’m sure many of the readers of this fine site would recognize, traditional fairy-tales (especially those Disney makes into movies) often have deeply rooted sexist messages in them. It’s always the Damsel in Distress who leads a miserable life, only because she is unable to find her True Love. Look at Cinderella, just waiting for the Prince to discover her in her miserable situation, and Sleeping Beauty, cursed with sleep until her Prince comes and kisses her and wakes her up. I mean, just think about this: the woman is literally unconcious until she is found by a man! Her life is literally nothing if she is not the wife of some handsome man (who she presumably will spend her life waiting on).

I don’t know about you, but to me the symbolism here isn’t all that appealing. And it’s not like any of these girls are praised for their wits, either. Snow White is, after all, "The Fairest of the Land", not "The Smartest of the Land".

This pattern recurs even in the modern, more "evolved" movies. Princess Jasmine in Aladdin is a kick-ass woman, but she is also "saved" from her dull life by a heroic "prince". Same with the Little Mermaid, it’s all about Ariel finding True Love.

The natural question to ask is of course "Does it really have to be this way? Can’t there be a kick-ass heroine, who’s praised for her smarts, who don’t just live for finding a husband, and in the end will become the hero and rescue the guy instead?" Turns out there can be such a movie! It’s called Beauty and the Beast.

Not only does it turn the traditional Disney fairy-tale on it’s head, it attempts at every turn to undermine the sexist underpinnings of the traditional fairy-tale.

Most obviously, there is the protagonist, Belle. In the very first song of the movie, we are introduced to her and her life. She reads book after book, dreaming of a life beyond her "provincial town". We get to hear all the towns-people give their opinions of her, and they are almost unanimous:

Look there she goes that girl is strange, no question

No denying she’s a funny girl that Belle

Look there she goes that girl is so peculiar

What a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle

While she is described as having "looks without parallel", the prevailing opinion of her is that she’s an odd-ball goof, a total outsider. She doesn’t care about popularity or being the perfect girl, she’d much rather read a book.

In the same song, we are introduced to the movie’s foremost antagonist, Gaston. Gaston in this movie is a total caricature of the traditional Prince Charming role. Like Prince Charming, he’s handsome, he’s popular, he’s strong and brave and everyone loves him. But he’s also a total dimwit egotistical asshole, and Belle wants nothing to do with him. When he courts her in the beginning of the movie, she’s almost revolted. Already, not ten minutes into the movie, it has totally upended all the traditional gender roles of the fairy tale: she’s the smart one, he’s the one that courts her, and she is the one who turns him down. She doesn’t need him, and he’s not the Prince riding in on his white horse to be the hero, he’s the villain!

Then, her father, a daffy inventor, goes missing in the dark woods. She tracks him down to a huge gothic castle where he is being held captive by the Beast. She bravely saves him by trading his life for hers (she’s in the role of the savior). Thus begins the uncomfortable cohabitation of Beauty and the Beast.

(The character of the Beast is extremely fascinating, by the way. His curse is that he will remain a Beast if he is unable to find love by his twenty-first birthday, meaning that he is twenty for the bulk of the movie. In a throwaway line in one of the songs, we find out that the castle has been cursed for ten years, meaning he was cursed at the age of ten. Think about this, a boy of ten years old, completely abandoned by his parents in a huge castle, with only servants that are afraid of him and do his every bidding. One could easily interpret his being a Beast as his internal hatred of himself manifested, because he never had anyone to love him. You see him on several occasion tearing up pictures of his old, true self. His despair goes deep. The psychological realism of this character is far beyond that of any other Disney movie.)

Anyway, their life together is difficult. The Beast has harsh rules and demands, and proceeds to order her around. She wont have any of it. When he orders her to come down to dinner, she refuses. He could kill her in an instant, but she refuses to be intimidated by him. She is allowed anywhere in the castle, except the dreaded West Wing. The Beast makes it clear that she is totally forbidden from entering there. Of course, she goes in there, and after a confrontation with the Beast, she flees the castle into the woods.

She is soon attacked by wolves, and things look very grim indeed, when the Beast steps in and chases away the wolves. He is heavily injured and lies unconcious in the snow. Belle makes the choice to save his life by hoisting him on her horse and takes him back to the castle. She easily could have decided to just ride home, but she didn’t.

The next scene, with Belle tending to the Beasts wounds, is typical for the movie. He’s angry and the servants are all terrified, but each time he growls, she growls back (saying "Don’t be a baby!" when he complains that the wounds hurt). The more she challenges him, the more his armor breaks down, and soon enough, they’re falling in love (in a completely believable way).

Meanwhile, back in town, Belle’s father (Maurice) has come back ranting of a huge beast in a castle that’s holding Belle captive. Gaston, still intent on marrying Belle, intends to blackmail her into agreeing to his proposal by throwing her beloved father into the insane-asylum. Through a magic mirror in the Beasts castle, she sees this, and panics. The Beast (by this point essentially completely redeemed and head over heels in love with Belle) lets her go, apparently losing his one chance at having the spell broken (his twenty-first birthday is just days away, if that).

When Belle gets back to town, she tries to stop her father being hauled off to the loony-bin. Using the magic mirror, she is able to prove her fathers sanity by showing the Beast on it. The townspeople panic, and under the guide of Gaston, they form a mob for the purpose of storming the castle and killing the Beast.

At the castle, the servants form a defensive line and is able to stop the bulk of the attackers, but Gaston gets through and proceeds into the West Wing, where the Beast is hiding. The Beast puts up no defense (having lost the will to live when Belle left) and Gaston proceeds to almost kill him, when the Beast suddenly sees Belle riding in on her horse. A savage fight ensues between Gaston and the Beast, with the Beast barely winning. In the final moments of the movie, the Beast lays dying while time is running out on his curse, and Belle declares her love for him, saving him in the nick of time.

At every point in this movie, Belle is in complete control over her destiny. Despite people constantly telling her what to do, she stubbornly refuses and always makes her own decisions. She refuses Gastons proposal, she decides to trade herself for her father, she stubbornly refuses to follow the Beasts order. When she’s had enough, she flees the castle, and when the Beast is dying from being wounded by the wolves, she decides to save him. And on and on and on.

In traditional fairy tales, when the girl meets Prince Charming, she automatically falls for him. There’s not even a second of doubt. He’s good-looking, brave and rich, why wouldn’t she? Not so in Beauty and the Beast. The Beast has to work hard to prove to her that he’s worthy. He needs to earn Belle’s love, and she is able to heal his fractured soul. That’s the ultimate point, she’s the one that saves him, not the other way around.

To me, this movie is a complete deconstruction of the traditional fairy-tale, and complete rebuilding of it from the ground up. Only, this time, it totally has a feminist message. Every kid should watch this, boy or girl. I’ve certainly seen it enough times as an adult It is the only animated movie ever to be given an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, and I think it is richly deserved. Many people dismiss Beauty and the Beast is an un-orignal tale derivative of the classic Disney-movies. They couldn’t be more wrong. I think it’s nothing short of a masterpiece.