Gender Stereotypes In Beauty And The Beast

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.

A merchant has many children, the youngest called Beauty. Once they were rich, but one day they lose almost everything. Beauty is the only one to be cheerful. Two years later, one of the merchant’s boats come into port. Before he goes to it, he obtains requests from all his children, except Beauty, about what they wanted. When pressed, she asks her father to bring her a rose. There were no funds from the ship, so the merchant heads home. Along the way, he stops at a castle where he finds a rose. After he picks the rose, a beast appears and tells him that he needed to bring one of his daughters to the castle. The merchant returns home and tells his children what happened and Beauty volunteers to go. At the castle, she dreams of a prince who asks for her help. Every day she wanders around the empty castle, and every evening she dines with the beast. When he leaves each night he asks Beauty, “Do you love me? Will you marry me” (Lang)? And every night, Beauty tells him no and fall asleep and dreams about her prince. One night Beauty asks if she could be with her family for a short time. In response to her request, Beast said, “I cannot refuse you anything you ask, even though it should cost me my life… Good night, Beauty. Fear nothing, sleep peacefully, and before long you shall see your father once more” (Lang). When Beauty rises, she was in her father’s home. Beauty is slow to return to the castle and when she finally did, she found the beast on the brink of death. Beauty finally agreed to marry Beast, and as soon as she does, the beast transforms into her prince and two women appear. One was the queen and the other a fairy. Beauty and her prince married the next day

Belle is extremely important to original story, and the movie. Maybe you are asking yourself why? Well, she is for surely one of the two main characters, the other being the beast whom she is supposed to fall in love with to make him become a man again. Especially in the original book version, it is more focused on Belle because they leave out the “evil sisters”. She still has bitter

In 1740, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot De Villeneuve wrote the first official version of the fairytale, “Beauty and the Beast”, which was translated from her original French title “La Belle et la Beta”. In reality, Villeneuve’s version is the original fairytale, although, many people believe that either Jeanne-Marie LePrince de Beaumont’s version would be the authentic one, and others that also believe that there had been similar versions prior to Villeneuve’s writing. “Beauty and the Beast” is a short fairytale about a prince who is given a curse that turned him into a Beast because of how he had rejected an old, unattractive fairy’s proposal to marry her. She then was so furious towards the rejection that she set that curse on him. Then, in the fairytale, there is a girl, Beauty, who happens to be the youngest daughter of a merchant who is set to give up his life after he had pulled a rose from the Beast’s garden to deliver to Beauty, but instead Beauty decided to take his place and she was set to live the rest of her life in the castle with the Beast. After some time, Beauty agrees to marry the Beast which then causes the curse to no longer exist, turning him back into prince he used to be. This fairytale has also been turned into a film a few times, the most famously know is the 1991 Disney animated version that was directed by Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, starring Paige O’Hara, as Belle (Beauty), and Robby Benson, as the Beast. In both the 1991 film by Trousdale and the original fairytale story by Villeneuve, there are a few differences from the meaning of the rose, to characters being added or taken away, to the actual spell that is cursed on the prince. Villeneuve uses personification, love, and feministic traits to demonstrate how Beauty chose to stay with the Beast on her own recognizance.

Referring back to fairytales like Beauty and the Beast film which involves the beast who magically got turned into a beast as a disciplining act because of his selfishness. Then a beautiful young women by the name of Belle, got imprisoned in the castle. The beast is very fond of Belle since he first laid eyes on her. During the movie Belle being the catalyst for the Beast’s need of wanting to change. But he distances himself from her because he has two mindsets. Which is a man and the other is a raging beast. The beast is going through trying to

“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.

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The stories “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Fairy Serpent” are about a merchant who loves his daughters. He takes a flower from a magical creature’s garden, and has to give up one of his daughters for doing so. When the daughter and the beast finally fall in love, the beast turns into a handsome prince, and they live happily ever after.

Belle acts in such a submissive manner prompting a negative message to young females. The message is one of that all females should be obedient to their male counterparts regardless of the circumstances, and one shall never stand up for themselves. When Belle exchanges her freedom for her father’s she is mistreated by the Beast. She refuses to have dinner with the beast and is left in the west wing of the castle to herself. The beast tells the servants that he refuses to let her eat if she doesn’t do so with him.

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

The reputation that has been placed on Disney for a long time is that their princesses are women, who are passive, reserved and foolish. This might have been true for some of Disney’s earlier films, because in the past Disney had focused more on female leads who were to submission, and had their motivation centered around obtaining the attention of a male and the desire for love. This all changed when Disney began to work on their interpretation of Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s classic tale of Beauty and the Beast.

Belle is the local girl who people view as strange she can read and that is unheard of for the time. She also teaches others and just seems to find the good in everything around her. She also loves her father for when she finds him locked in the Beast’s castle she takes his place. At first of courses she does not like the Beast he is cold and demanding. Once they both let theirguard down they become better friends. They discover common interest and do things to help the other feel less awkward. In the end they both fall in love and he loves her more than himself for when Belle’s father needs her help yet again the Beast

Belle, played by Emma Watson, is still the same beautiful bookworm who wishes for more meaning in her life. But, when Gaston, played by Luke Evans, enters the picture trying to win her heart, Belle is a little bolder than we remember.

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.

Additionly, Belle knew she did not fit in, especially when other young girls would just look at her like she was delirious for reading books. This would make Belle feel like she was an outsider. "With this more developed character as a prototype, Disney had much to build upon when its writers and animators set out to create their version of Beauty, who