Okay
For many animation is a child's first introduction to cinema
teaching them key concepts that they will encounter throughout life.
Whether your lessons are beneficial or ruinous is based on
what you're watching and what you take from it.
As such I will be talking about Beauty and the Beast
and what I believe my tiny self took from this film.
Earlier Disney movies perpetuate this idea that for every girl, one day their prince will come to save them
In addition to this whether they are Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or The Little Mermaid
there's very little in the way of agency from the protagonist's point of view.
Beauty and the Beast flips this idea so that Belle is saving the Beast.
"Don't you see? She's the one. The girl we have been waiting for. She has come to break the spell."
But here's the thing, I was about five when I first watched this
I didn't get the fairy tale script-flipping because I had no previous frame of reference.
I just absorbed the love-will-triumph-over-all concept
and kept that as a standard to live by for way too long.
More than those past facsimiles for actual romance
Beauty and the Beast shows all the awkwardness of trying to connect with someone for the first time
especially with unseemly body hair and sudden unexplained height
As an adult is all too obvious that Beast is going
through the worst stages of an awful extended puberty.
It's all there and the looks on face that scream "Why the fuck did I just say that? Stupid!"
And the goofy enthusiasm as he presents her gift.
He is me at 15.
I related to Beast and so sealed away my monstrous form for most of my adolescence,
awaiting the princess to save me.
A kiss from my fabled one true love that would make all my insecurities
and self-hatred disappear and of course that's not how it really works.
You learn as you grow up that to escape your castle of of self-pity
you have to work to improve yourself.
But unfortunately some boys don't grow out of this princess entitlement,
instead of bettering themselves they grow bitter, having never learnt the lesson that Beast himself learns.
He understands that he will need to control his temper, bathe and groom himself
and make an effort in sharing Belle's interests.
When he could be controlling and aggressive
he instead does what's best for her.
Something that's explained in the IMDB trivia is that
Belle likes books because like with her two love interests, you can't judge them by their cover.
Who is the monster and who is the man?
"He's no monster, Gaston. You are!"
In any other Disney film Gaston would make the perfect prince-type.
Brave, good-looking and willing to fight for the one he desires.
But he's so self-interested and arrogant.
"As a specimen, yes I'm intimidating."
He just decides that Belle is his and arranges the wedding for the next day.
The Beast is the total inverse.
While he may start the film as an antagonist, he can change.
Beast respects Belle enough for her to have her own opinions and autonomy.
He wants to be better.
So what lessons are to be learnt from Beauty and the Beast?
So what do you think? What does your favorite childhood movie say about you?
What lessons did you not realize you had learnt?
Leave a comment, make a video, keep this discussion going
and be sure to watch Mikey's original video.