In Everything's Eventual Stephen King* says that he does some of his best thinking in the shower. His thinking involves writing bestselling novels. Mine involves giving way too much thought to Disney movies. In this case Beauty and the Beast. I don't really know what sparked this. I didn't see anything about it and I can't remember the last time I watched the movie, but apparently my subconscious has been stewing over this for awhile now and wanted to talk through it. And for whatever reason lately my body has decided at 3pm it needs to sleep and when I don't give in to its nap time requests it punishes me by not sleeping at night. So what I'm saying is I'm over-tired, and there's a good chance nothing that follows makes any sense.
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She's reading. That makes this relevant. |
A young Prince is a selfish jerk. One day an ugly old lady shows up at the castle and asks for someplace to stay for the night, but says the only payment she can offer is a rose. The Prince is all like "ew gross" and says no way. The old lady tells him not to be deceived by appearances and please let her stay. Prince-y still says no. So then the old lady turns out to be a beautiful enchantress (because she couldn't really be powerful and ugly. Come on now) and puts a spell on the Prince to make him a beast and turn all of the staff into teapots and whatnot, because fuck the poor servants. That rose that she gave him was magic and was going to stay alive until the Prince's 21st year. If he can find love and be loved in return before the rose dies, he'll turn back into a person. If not he's a Beast forever. Sad for him. Years pass and Beast gets really depressed and loses hope and figures he'll just be a Beast forever and then the movie begins!
So here are my problems with this:
1. The intro identifies the Beast as a Prince. So that means there's a King and Queen somewhere, right? If there wasn't, Prince would actually be King. Where the hell are his parents? Did they get turned into pots and beds too? And if so, why doesn't anyone mention them?
2. If he is a Prince, what does his family rule over? No one seems too concerned that their royal family is suddenly gone one day and there's this power vacuum.
3. So maybe we can assume that the guy's name is Prince and he's not actually a prince. Just a really rich guy that makes some pretentious but ultimately catchy tunes. Again, why didn't people in the town notice when he disappeared and suddenly there's this beast thing roaming around? I mean, the town is overly concerned with the fact that Belle reads books**. This seems like the type of place where everyone is all up in everyone else's business. You'd think "crazy rich guy suddenly disappears" would be big news.
4. So the deal is Prince/Beast has to find love by his 21st year. In the song "Be Our Guest" Lumiere says "10 years we've been rusting..." 10 years. So Prince was roughly 11 when he acted like a douche to the old lady/enchantress. This seems like a really harsh punishment for an 11 year old.
Some people spend their time thinking important thoughts and fixing actual problems. I poke holes in the logic of a twenty year old family animated movie.
*This post is going to be light on actual book connections. Here's your first one.
** This is your second book reference and how I'm justifying posting this up here. Also it's my blog so I'll post whatever random thoughts I might have. Especially when I share these thoughts with Boyfriend who reacts by shaking his head and walking out of the room.
Emily · 704 weeks ago
Perhaps he was a minor prince of an outlying fiefdom.
Then again, if he was only 11 (and yeah, totally harsh punishment), maybe he was being educated away from home, but with a full reticule of servants. And when they were all transformed (ugh--way to take it out on the innocent), the royal family had to pretend that the young prince died of small pox or something to discourage questions.
I dunno. Are the versions of this fairy tale that are around today any better at explaining any of this? Because I'd say that Disney isn't really known for being true to its source material.
And now I've spent more time than i'd have thought responding to your post.
What Red Read 121p · 704 weeks ago
OK so building off of the Beast guy is sent away for learning, his parents must be awful to not only pretend he's died to keep up appearances but to abandon him in this decaying castle. I mean, couldn't they have brought him back home and just hid him, a la Rochester did in Jane Eyre?
Also! the enchantress says Beast has to find love and be loved in return to break the spell. So either Disney is referring just to romantic love, in which case it's an extra weird level to the already harsh punishment for an 11 year old OR she did mean any love and the kid's parents didn't actually love him so the spell didn't get broken earlier. Now I feel just awful for Beast.
OR what if Beast doesn't age while in his beast form? A friend pointed out that could explain how Chip exists because it would be really weird to think of someone giving birth to a cup.
I tried finding an actual (not Disney) version of the story but I didn't have it in any of my books and didn't look it up online. I'm sure I got distracted by something sparkly.
Laura · 704 weeks ago
Sorry, I just got all angry and crazy there. I probably need more sleep too. Anyway- I think the fact that the townspeople have never ever seen this creepy gothic castle before indicates how much they know/care about the disappearance of a Prince- and why does the castle seem so far away when Belle's dad goes there, and yet the townspeople march there in the time it takes to sing a really sinister song? I do like the 'they don't age while they're enchanted theory' because how could a teapot even give birth to a cup?! But then why would there be a time limit on the beast's punishment? And why is there almost a whole rose when Belle gets there, but it's dead by the end of the film? It's all too illogical!
I'm going to stop this now before I start imagining some kind of conspiracy or something, but I have 2 more questions: Why doesn't someone tell Gaston to stop being such a twat, and why is the beast so much more attractive than his human form?
I think you should do this as a weekly feature until you've gone through all the Disney films and until we all know that children will accept anything they're told if it's in the form of moving drawings.
What Red Read 121p · 704 weeks ago
So if they don't age while enchanted, does this mean they're all immortal if the spell isn't broken? Or maybe not immortal. I guess if Mrs. Potts got dropped or something that would be that, but just they won't die of old age?
I was thinking of making this a regular feature, although I hope not weekly only because I seem to have these thoughts when I'm not getting enough sleep and I hope to get enough sleep on a regular basis. But I promise if I do start thinking about some other children's movie and decide I need to poke holes in it and thus ruin my childhood a little bit more, I'll post it here.
Laura · 704 weeks ago
I'm pretty sure the singing mob gets there in about 3 minutes, if that. So why does it change distances away from the village? Why is everything about this movie wrong?!
I love that you have sleep deprivation as an excuse for this (well, I don't love that you're sleep deprived, but you know) when I really have none... But I need answers dammit!
What Red Read 121p · 704 weeks ago
Lindsay · 704 weeks ago
What Red Read 121p · 704 weeks ago
I feel like the Disney movie puts the castle close-ish to the town. As Laura pointed out, close enough for a singing mob to make it out there pretty quickly. It's night and they decide to go to castle and it's still night when they get there. Plus Belle's dad makes it there within a day, which included getting lost, so it can't be that far off. And I accept that people don't go visit the castle cos of evil wolf forest, but I wonder why there isn't more curiosity about it.
zeteticat 42p · 704 weeks ago
What Red Read 121p · 704 weeks ago
I do still really like this Disney movie but it does send some pretty bad messages. Have you ever seen the YouTube videos from Second City, Advice for Young Girls from Cartoon Princesses? They're hilarious. Here's the Belle one: http://www.secondcitynetwork.com/comedy-videos/ad...
The Mulan Disney movie is a better message for girls, since it's not about a girl finding a man as so many of the other movies seem to focus on.
readingrambo 112p · 704 weeks ago
Ok, points:
1. He could be a prince like in Germany when they had little principalities, so not really a king over them, but various princes.
2. Good point. Not sure how to answer that. Maybe they were an anarcho-syndicalist commune (Holy Grail reference YEAH).
3. See above? Although not sure about the other point. Hmmmm.
4. The prince WAS 11. That's not what the stained glass led me to believe. I feel cheated.
Laura · 704 weeks ago
readingrambo 112p · 704 weeks ago
What Red Read 121p · 704 weeks ago
Rachel · 704 weeks ago
The cup thing gave me a giggle too :)
What Red Read 121p · 704 weeks ago
disfanney · 608 weeks ago