I have a tendency to over analyze things when I watch a movie. For example, “why is she opening the door? This must mean its a metaphor and the empty room on the other side represents her soul, devoid of joy and fun”. That being said I am not reviewing this movie or telling you if it is “amahzing” with an “h”, because we know the movie is the one of the best Disney movies ever. Nothing like that “The frog princess” and its lack of “wow” moments rubbish. By now you should notice I like using “quotes”, so as a fun mini game with no special “reward”, count how many I end up doing and pat yourself in the back, or is it the knee?
Anyways, I watched the movie a few weeks back and noticed that through my twenty seven year old eyes, the veil hiding the vicious manipulative personality of Belle is violently torn away from my eyes of innocence. Mind you, the last time I saw this was on VHS in 1991. At that age I truly believed in the power of singing your troubles away and if you truly want something bad enough, you will get it. That is why I am a millionaire and was able to write this post on my private island of “If you believe me, then its true”.
I was 7 years old when I first staw this movie and was the kind of kid who knew everything you didn’t know. I had large KMART brand glasses that helped me see bettter I always got the cool toys and as a result of this, my brother and sister would siphon off of my entertaining gifts and still have money to invest in an all new wardrobe. The point is, I am not a little kid anymore and I treat this movie like an adult. Now lets conduct this “He said, “she said” session with a hip hop and jingle jangle of a key that leads to dreams :
The Key (::::::::::============HHHHHHH
The movie starts off by telling you in the form of a musical number that Belle is a weird person who likes to read, be educated and doesn’t want to live a “provincial life” (you thought I forgot about the quotes didnt you, well you were wrong, I remembered). The townsfolk see her as the black sheep who is beautiful and should conform to being a face in the crowd and let a man take care of her. The man is “Gaston”, who eats 12 dozen eggs a day to get large. I assume Belle is maybe 16 years old, how old is Gaston? Let’s say for statuatory reasons, that he is 17 or something. Gaston is fixated on marrying Belle, not matter what it takes, even though he has blond triplets swooning over him in every musical number he sings in. If Gaston wants a brainless girl that is not so difficult, then he could choose one of the triplets or just all three. Anyways, Belle proceeds to show off her ability to read, walk and dodge water with the flick of a wrist while the towns people sing about her.
Fast forwarding to the where we find out that Belle is indeed smarter than my 7 year old self gave her credit for, her father is captured by the beast so she trades places with him. The beast is all like “Roar, here is a room, roar, I’m angry” and Belle is all “I am independant woman who does not have a fear of dying”. Seriously, she doesn’t know what the beast is capable of, what if there other girls who stumbled across this very same castle and were murdered at the hands of the beast? Are we, as viewers supposed to assume that she is the first ever girl to see the beast after his transformation? Belle, please have some “common-non-suicidal-sense”. After the trading of places with her father, is there even a formal introduction of names? We know who Belle is, but what is the beast’s actual name? I doubt the curse legally changed his name to beast…right?
The beast tells Belle that she can go anywhere in the castle except for the west wing. If it were me, and I was forced to live with a monster who could rip me to shreds in seconds, I would probably obey. As we know Belle thinks she is immortal, so she goes anyways and the Beast discovered her. The beast then scares Belle so much that she finally feels the survival instinct of “I could die” so she runs away from the castle into more danger. Wolves welcome Belle for dinner outside the castle. Belle makes amazing use of a twig and mistakes it for an iron clad defense, but she still requires the beast to come save her. After the Beast is done with dispensing with the wolves, he faints. Here is another moment where we catch a glimpse of her true nature, Belle thinks to herself “I AM FREE!!!”, and proceeds towards her horse with the purpose of abandoning her “kidnapper”. After her hesitation, she realizes that her enemy saved her and now they have upgraded to “frenemies” status. She feels like she owes the beast for saving her, but the truth is the Beast is the one who actually created the situation in the first place. Belle has the choice of going back to her hometown that contains books she has already read and conform to the “provincial” life she so very much dislikes, OOOOOOOOOORRRRRrrrr, she can actually have an adventure of her own like in the books she reads. Since she knows the beast risked his life for her, Belle now officially knows she will not be harmed since that defeats the purpose of him saving her. In other words, a transition of power occurred, Belle now has power over the beast. It’s even possible that Belle over heard the furniture talking about how she is the only hope they have of breaking the spell. Now she has an amazing weapon at her disposal, LEVERAGE!
Belle gets a huge bonus due to her choice to stay, A FREAKING LIBRARY. Of course this is a good manipulative tactic on the beast’s side. By giving her something she cannot possibly take home, she is forced to stay if she wants to enjoy her gift, which is not really a gift but more like a metaphorical ball and chain helping to ensure she does not leave again.
Anyways, the cast sings a song and the verses Belle sings about “Oh my god what are these feelings?!” are in my opinion her realizing she cares about the beast BUT AS A PLATONIC FRIEND! She has been through so much that this relationship actually means something to her BUT AS A PLATONIC FRIEND WHO HAS AN ENDLESS SUPPLY OF BOOKS THAT SHE WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO FINISH IN HER LIFETIME, or she might die falling to her death when se tries to get a book from the very top.
Skipping to the near ending, the townspeople find out the beast is real, Gaston leads a mini army of people to destroy the beast that they just learned existed minutes before. Come to think about it, the town got organized really quick and got people to put their lives in danger for no real reason. First of all, I assume the beast does not live very close, otherwise someone else would have seen them and cried wolf, I mean beast. Gaston finds the beast, they fight… sort of… I say sort of, because, the beast real strength should have decapitated Gaston or turned him into omelette (get it? Because he sang earlier that he eats over a dozen eggs a day, disemboweling him would have egg and meat and YAY! END OF THIS GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF DOOM). So Gaston gracefully falls to his death and Belle sees the beast “dying” as the last opportunity to break the curse is quickly passing. Belle is now distraught over her new friend that provided her with an amazing story, which is definitely better than any of the ones she will ever read in a book and a never ending library kit. She invokes the power of PLATONIC LOVE, which seems to be enough to break the spell. Belle has her “what did I do, I didn’t mean to break him” moment as he transforms into a well animated and by disney standards “beautiful man” who stares at her face with such intensity that Belle has no choice but to think “BONUS!!!”. She just wanted a friend who she cared about, but now he is a hunk? Screw platonic! He’s mine! He’s beautiful now! He has a freaking library! He’s Beautiful now! He has a huge house! He’s beautiful now! He has staff! He’s beautiful now! After Belle takes 0.00000000000012 seconds to weigh her pros and cons, the beast and Belle fall in love and live happily ever after.
Seriously, would she have fallen in love with him if he was still a beast?
So that’s my alternate point of view of the movie if you choose to over analyze like I did. She may have had feelings for the beast, but I can’t help but think that those very same feelings became infinitely more powerful once she saw the beast’s true form.
No more quotation marks! You did it! If you only found one, then there is something wrong…
Scamandrius Adventures 