In Which Beauty and the Beast is Overanalyzed

CakeVsDeath: you'd think it would be an easy choice, but sometimes I catch people off guard.  Usually I give them cake anyway, because I'm the Church of England a nice person.  Not that you'd be able to tell, because most (if not all) of my posts will revolve around me being a proper bitch.  I like to get angry at dumb things, which you will see if you keep reading after this mess of a post.  No matter how good a movie is, there will always be something I don't like.  I'm that guy who comes out of an award-winning film going, "Hey, wasn't that one minute scene a bit stupid?  Let me complain about it instead of praising its many merits."  So enjoy my rambling and prepare to have your mind blown by the nitpicky details that I will blow out of proportion!


In Which Beauty and the Beast is Overanalyzed

It's a well-known fact that Disney movies are the opposite of historically correct. Hercules? Really? The stories are exaggerated and the lessons they teach sometimes dubious (see: the Little Mermaid and her fixation on giving up everything to seduce a man she's only seen once, but that's a different story), but usually the premise makes some semblance of sense. This is not the case with Beauty and the Beast. Don't get me wrong, it's one of my favorite movies, but seeing it again in theaters made me realize just how many problems there are with the story as a whole.

My main problem lies solely in the beginning: it makes no sense. Not in the 'oh, fairy tales are so unrealistic' sense, but in practicality, it makes no sense. The prologue goes,

“Once upon a time, in a faraway land, a young Prince lived in a shining castle. Although he had everything his heart desired, the Prince was spoiled, selfish, and unkind. But then, one winter's night, an old beggar woman came to the castle and offered him a single rose in return for shelter from the bitter cold. Repulsed by her haggard appearance, The Prince sneered at the gift, and turned the old woman away... The old woman's ugliness melted away to reveal a beautiful Enchantress. The Prince tried to apologize, but it was too late, for she had seen that there was no love in his heart. And as punishment, she transformed him into a hideous beast, and placed a powerful spell on the castle, and all who lived there...The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose... would bloom for many years."

The first thing we see is a characterization of the prince. He's not a nice guy, obviously, so it would be great if he got what was coming to him. Several problems with that, though. Later, it is stated that the rose will bloom until his 21^st birthday. So already you know that he is at least several years younger than 21, but it still might be reasonable to hold a teenager accountable for his behavior. However, in the song “Be Our Guest” one of the servants, Lumiere, says that “ten years [they've] been rusting.” This would make the prince eleven years old when he was cursed. Now, I have no love in my heart for children, but is it really fair to snatch away a kid's adolescence, during which he could have had the chance to mature? Congratulations, enchantress, you have just ruined any possibility he had to grow up. Did you really think he was going to become a better person if you cut off his direct contact with humanity?

All humanity, mind, as he doesn't appear to have parents. This in turn raises the question of where on earth his parents are, because the Beast is specifically described as a prince and not a king. Are his parents missing and he doesn't want to admit they're gone? Are they on a diplomatic mission? Are they at war? If they had abandoned him, as seems to be the case, that might have left the prince with some psychological issues. It is simply human nature to be frightened or at least put off by someone with an unusual appearance, and while there is no arguing that the prince wasn't very nice to the woman, I cannot imagine anyone who would agree to take in a strange old woman just for a rose. A young boy would not see any value in a rose.

The enchantress also seems very short-sighted. She turns the prince into a beast to teach him a lesson, but she also lays this spell on the innocent inhabitants. People who had once had lives were now reduced to inanimate objects for no other reason than the fact that they are assisting this child whose parents seem to be out of the picture, and as we see later in the movie, are perfectly nice people willing to help a stranger out. They were not the ones who turned the woman away, but the enchantress either had a temper equal to the prince's or just didn't realize the consequence of her action, which in comparison seems much more offensive than the prince merely choosing not to shelter someone. She also didn't think of what the rest of the country would do without a royal family. No one in Belle's town seems to know where their prince was, and the town seems to be absolutely rife with corruption. Since it was a rural town the monarchs probably wouldn't have paid much attention to it, but what about the rest of the country? Maybe this is the true cause of the French Revolution: a bitchy enchantress throwing a hissy fit (What? It could happen...).


Also, did anyone else notice that in several scenes ("Be Our Guest" and the fight scene, to be specific) there are thousands upon thousands of dancing objects?  Put this together with the fact that every inanimate object is supposed to represent a real person, and you have a horde of servants attending to one man.  This is already impractical, but at the end when everyone is transformed to their old selves, there are definitely fewer than one hundred servants shown.  Not to mention Mrs. Potts' dozens of children we saw as teacups earlier, whom she appears to be content with keeping out of sight once they become real again.  If you're looking for a textbook example of favoritism, look no further.

As a side note, it's interesting that they never give the prince a name. He is either called the Beast or the Prince. One way to interpret this is that he has two different personalities: the Beast is something to be pitied, whereas the Prince is the arrogant one. Of course, Disney never makes this distinction; after The Little Mermaid spat on feminism they needed to make the male lead much weaker, apparently not even worthy of a name.

I love Beauty and the Beast, I really do. Despite all of my nitpicking, it's a fantastic movie with a great heroine and great music. But the whole time I was watching, I was thinking, “You know what? Being turned into a beast would make me pretty cranky too.”