Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 Disney animated film that is part of the Disney Renaissance. It is an adaption of the fairytale Beauty and the Beast. This version is quite different from the original, but still keeps the essential themes of looking beyond the surface and not judging a book by its cover.
Melanie likes the film and Kasey doesn’t. On one hand, it’s a very beautifully animated film that’s rich in detail. The themes it portrays are universal and it has a good message for children to learn. On the other hand… Belle is such a Mary Sue. A completely and totally Mary freakin Sue. And the couple fall deeply in love in like a week. Sure that’s improvement upon love at first sight but…
What do you think of Beauty and the Beast? Was Kasey’s hate for Belle justified? Do you think it portrays positive values or does it just reinforce negative gender stereotypes? Does Gaston’s friend Lafou really have a gay crush on him? Let us know what you think!
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much of the questions you asked are answered in, at least, one of the midquals, where you find out that the winter night that started the curse happened to be christmas eve and he was eleven.
i actually hated the puzzled look on belles face after he transformed. i mean SERIOUSLY! HE JUST TRANSFORMED IN FRONT OF YOUR FREAKING FACE!!!
what really bothers me about this movie is the lack of knowledge of the curse. they imply that the servants are just transformed into inanimate objects, but then at the same time every piece of furniture, every cup, and every piece of silverware are servants. what happened to the original stuff? or did the servants merge with furniture? I have a similar gripe with Rapunzel’s magic hair.
having seen this movie MANY times, i have a couple different imaginary scenarios that happen after the movie ends. one involves belle asking the prince to put on a beast mask while in bed. the other is about what the beast would do to the village. being that it is renaissance france and based on what i know about middle age french royalty, he would have the whole town burned to the ground and all of it inhabitants killed.
did i hear fable 3? i want fable 3! i like the fable games.
You already got a gift Charlie… or at least Melanie was supposed to give it to you. Did you ever get that anime dvd?
I feel pity for you that you had to endure the midquels. You need to get your daughter better movies. lol Do you own Labyrinth or The Last Unicorn? If your wife is stuck on getting the Disney movies you could get Mulan and Lilo and Stich.
I assume the Beast just forgives everyone I guess… I’m not sure what kind of authority he’d even have though since he appears to not have a standing army. Who would enforce his revenge? The town militia could probably go in and just take over. They might want to since they all had just undying devotion to Gaston. I’m sure there was a day of mourning and everything. lol
i have yet to receive those. i think we have labyrinth and i know we have the last unicorn, albeit on vhs.
the midquals explain that he is a prince, so i’m assuming that the French army would do that.
yeah the midquals are terrible, but they do add some to the story, but belle still comes off as a poster child for stockholm syndrome.
I have to side with Kasey on this one, I never really liked Beauty and the Beast, I’m pretty ‘meh’ about it. I just don’t really care for the characters or the romance or even the plot and the songs just aren’t as good as the ones from The Little Mermaid or Aladdin. My favorite Disney movies are generally pretty low on romance, like Mulan, The Great Mouse Detective, Treasure Planet and the Emperor’s New Groove.
I’m surprised you didn’t bring up the whole Stockholm syndrome thing, most people seem to when they criticize the movie. And how it’s a bad example for little girls to try and change guys, that are abusive towards them. And that it tells them, if you just love him enough and endure enough, he will become a better person. I don’t really think that the movie sets a bad example, but like I said, I never really liked the romance in this, it just leaves me cold. But then so do most romances, I’m pretty picky about that.
Stockholm syndrome was on our list of things to talk about it, but we strangely never got to it. I do agree with Melanie that Belle didn’t start to like him untl he was nicer to her and the change in the beast (at least in this version) came from the Beast trying to change himself rather than Belle attempting to change him. I guess Beauty and the Beast 2 or 3 or however many they made of them say otherwise though. For my own santiy I’m never watching them.
My favorite Disney movie is actually Lilo and Stitch. I think it’s really underrrated. I also saw it as an adult and it still held up well. I really liked the Little Mermaid and Aladdin as a kid though. Mulin kind of bipassed me since it came out in this odd period of my life where I thought I was too old to watch cartoons (age 10-12 or so weirdly enough). I’ve only seen it once but I remember liking it.