Beauty And The Beast By Walt Disney

The fairytale “Beauty and the Beast” by Jeanne-Marie LePrince De Beaumont was produced in France in 1756. The story is about a wealthy merchant with six children, three boys and three girls. With the story’s primary focus on the girls, we learn that the youngest of the daughters, named Beauty, was admired for her kindness and well behaved manners. Due to Beauty being the town favorite, her sisters grew jealous and hated her. When Beauty’s father falls in debt with a Beast, her father sends her off to live with the Beast. In the end, Beauty gets to know the Beast and accepts to be his wife. Although, Beauty and the Beast have their ‘happily ever after’, social and economic complications hindered their relationship.

The story of the Beauty and the Beast is well known amongst all ages. Though the story they portray in the Disney version is much different than what they have portrayed it in France. La Belle et la Bête has been produced twice, once in 1946 and again in 2014. These two movies tell the same story but in very different ways. The perception of this story has changed between the different time periods.

Beginning in 2010 with Alice in Wonderland (Devoe n.pag), Disney has now resolved to produce live action remakes of everybody's favorites, including Maleficent, Cinderella, The Jungle Book, and most recently, Beauty and the Beast. The original Beauty and the Beast was an all-time favorite when it came out in 1991 (IMDb n.pag), and now those same children, as adults, experience the nostalgia brought about by the 2017 live-action version. Beauty and the Beast surpasses all expectations from both children and adults alike.

The Beauty and the Beast starts with a lively music in the castle which immediately set us into action. A castle full of expensive housewares and beautiful ladies wearing white gowns dancing to the music represent perfection. The ball is interrupted by a knock from an unexpected beggar who offered the insensitive prince a rose for shelter. The loud thunderclap and the way the chandelier lights were blown off by the wind intensified the scene. When he refuses, the beggar transformed into an enchantress and changed him into a hideous beast and his servants into housewares. The camera angle which showed the shadow figure of the prince turning to a beast was amazingly done. She casts a spell on the rose and it would only be broken if he could learn to love another and earn their love in return by the time the last petal fell. On the other hand, Belle starts the film in a small lively village which implies peacefulness and security. Belle is a simple, creative girl wanting to leave her monotonous village life to explore new things and go to an adventure. This came true when her horse Philippe went home anxiously without Maurice, her father. The way the horse neighed repeatedly implied that something is wrong. Belle, without hesitation, stormed off to the castle where her father was imprisoned and took his place as

Beauty and the Beast is a “Tale as old as time” or at least as old as 1740 which is when the first publication appeared (De Villeneuve). The original author, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, wrote 362 pages which Jeanne- Marie Leprince de Beaumont later abridged (De Villeneuve). Countless people know the general story of Beauty and the Beast: A beautiful girl saves her father by becoming a prisoner in an enchanted castle. She and the master, a hideous beast, become acquainted. The beast wants the girl to be content, even when her request is to leave, so he lets her go. When the girl returns, the beast is in grave danger. Tearfully the girl confesses her love for the beast, and he transforms into a handsome prince.

“Beauty and The Beast” is a classic well known romantic Disney movie that depicts the gender role of men and women in society. The film is based upon a smart young female protagonist named Belle who is imprisoned by a self-centered young prince after he has been turned into a beast. They both learn to love each other in the end and throughout the film there are several examples shown portraying the roles of gender. In the film the main characters Gaston and the Beast portray themselves as rude, conceited and more important than the woman even though the main character Belle is a woman whom is considered odd, yet smart, and unrelated to most women in society.

Young girls are often stuck in a world of make believe, they are fed fairytales, dream up unimaginable views of reality and believe everyone will find their prince charming. This unrealistic perspective is formed through their experiences with different fairytales. As G.K. Chesterton tells the fairytale are a realistic world for children, “Fairy tales are more than true — not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten”. Fairytales lead these girls to believe that in order to find true love there is some sort of intense journey one must go on. This idea of a journey for love has created a specific ideology for what love is and how to achieve it. In the text Beauty and the Beast by Madame Le Prince

Cassandra Stover explains in her Journal Damsels and Heroines: The Conundrum of the Post-Feminist Disney Princess, the dramatic shift with Disney princess at the peak of the late 1980s and early 1990s. She explains that the shift can derive from feminist movements and how the change can be directed to the third wave of feminism. She examines the original Disney princesses and decribes them to be more passively aggresive and unindependent, while the new princesses are more independent and brave. The author then explains if the shift from the old to new princesses are actually better, and not just different. Stover analysizes that Disney princesses evolve and are a part of the worlds change on feminism.

Beauty and the Beast is another film with questionable morals. Despite a sixty year time span between the two films, gender relations changed very little. Though the main characters come off as slightly more rounded, there are still some eerie instances that should be addressed. Belle is (yet again) a stunning young woman who is revered throughout for her

Most fairy tales involve characters with heroic tasks to complete in order to grow. They might have legendy strength, or a genie to help them. Sleeping Beauty is different because it involves long periods of concentration. Sleeping Beauty has been argued to represent the time period before and during adolescence. Children often need to go through a period of deep thought. Some may mistake this for inactivity, but their minds are still developing. Many children will make up for this inactivity after puberty, and will become successful in life (Bettelheim 225).

Belle was kind to the Beast, and then she found her prince. It took courage to look into the eyes of someone that took away everything and see the good.

The portrayal of women, gender roles and stereotypes in Disney films has long been a controversial topic. Disney’s 1959 animated film, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, and Robert Stromberg’s 2014 live action remake, ‘Maleficent’, each provide a different take of Charles Perrault’s 1697 fairy tale, ‘La Belle au bois Dormant’ (‘The Sleeping Beauty’). The comparison of Aurora, one of the main characters from both films, brings into light the stark contrast in portrayals of gender roles as well as physical ideals and stereotypes in women. Emphasis or lack thereof on physical characteristics and gender representation from both texts challenge and reflect ideals and stereotypes that are impactful to the audience.

Indeed, in the first essay, “Girls on Film: The Real Problem with the Disney Princess Brand” by Monika Bartyzel, an experienced freelance writer and editor regarding women in film who began the Alliance for Women

Beauty’s role in beauty and the beast glorifies her as a sweet girl who can find light in any darkness. She prefers to move forward in life rather than sulk in misery. Being such a positive female character allows her to fall in love with a man who is not of the society standards of handsome, name Beast. She was more intent on focusing on what he had to offer as a person. Karen Rowe states in “Feminism and Fairy Tales” “such alluring fantasies gloss the heroine's inability to act self-assertively, total reliance on external rescues, willing bondage to father and prince, and her restriction to hearth and nursery” (Rowe). The heroine being beauty in this case, doesn't have opinions or rights because her character wasn't created to. Rowe believes that fairytales have paved the way for our expectations towards what women and men should be doing and what romance is. Rowe argues that “These "domestic fictions" reduce fairy tales to sentimental clichés, while they continue to glamorize a heroine's traditional yearning for romantic love which culminates in marriage” (Rowe). Beauty’s character found herself in these “sentimental cliches” with her

All over the world Feminism is a current topic of concern and there are very few advocates who are currently fighting for gender equality. In the media men and women are attempting to use their voices to fight for equal rights and get the message across to all generations. In this paper, I will be analyzing the movie Beauty and the Beast (2017) by drawing upon the feminist theory, which will demonstrate how the main female character, Belle challenges the modern-day system of inequality and the socially constructed gender roles. I will do so by examining why Emma Watson was chosen as the leading actress, how Belle is different than the other women in her town, the modifications from the original movie, and how Belle ultimately gets to decide her destiny. I will also consider why some people may view the film as anti-feminist, which will allow for me to understand a different perspective. It is my thesis that socially constructed gender identities are negatively presented in popular culture, however actors and actresses are attempting to use their influence to make an impact and move towards equality.