Disney - Image #717,349

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It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas. And thinking. Gaston, you ar positively primeval beeftony stplainsomething adrianestpierre Gaston really is the most terrifying Disney villain because he could be anyone in the world. Later he convinces the whole town to set up his wedding with the knowledge that the would-be bride would be thrown into it. Everyone finds his creepy-ass tactics as cute and "boys will be boys" esque. So yeah he is terrifying Yeah, the truly scary thing about Beauty and the Beast isn't that Gaston exists, but that society f------ loves him. People who deride the movie by saying it's about Stockholm Syndrome are ignoring that it's actually about the various ways that truly decent people get othered by society. People don't trust the Beast because of the way he looks, which only feeds his anger issues and pushes him further away. Gaston isn't the only one who criticizes Belle for being bookish, either, the whole town says there must be something wrong with her. And her father gets carted off to a mental asylum for being just a little eccentric Howard Ashman, who collaborated on the film's score and had a huge influence on the movie's story and themes, was a gay man who died of AIDS shortly after work on the film was completed. If you watch the film with that in mind, the message of it becomes clear. Gaston demonstrates that bullies are rewarded and beloved by society as long as they possess a certain set of characteristics, while nice people who don't are ostracized. The love story between Belle and the Beast is about them finding solace in each other after society rejects them both Notice how the Beast reacts when the whole town comes for him. He's not angry, he's sad. He's tired. And he almost gives up because he has nothing to live for. But then he sees that Belle has come back for him, and suddenly he does. In the original fairy tale, the Beast asks Belle to marry him every night, and the spell is broken when she accepts. In the Disney movie, he waits for her to love him, because he cannot love himself. That's how badly being ostracized from society and told that you're a monster all your life can f--- with your head and make you stop seeing yourself as human Society rewards the bullies because we've been brought up to believe that their victims don't belong. That if someone doesn't fit in, then they have to be put in their place, or destroyed. And this movie demonstrates that this line of thinking is wrong. It's so much deeper than a standard "be yourself message and that's why it's one of my favorite Disney movies

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Top Comments

Icecane

Mar 14, 2014 at 09:36PM EDT

How is Gaston's reaction to this so bad?

Believe it or not, that's how people were back then. That was the norm, women were supposed to act like that. Just think of how people in the future will react when they see how today's society still doesn't fully tolerate homosexuality. They'll be making their own Future-Disney movies.

And yes, Stockholm syndrome is still Stockholm syndrome. Either way you slice it, kidnapping and verbally abusing a women doesn't make you a good guy. Especially when you and your castle filled with talking objects keeps her there for your own selfish reasons. You know, to FORCE her to love you.

I like the movie, don't get me wrong, but people put too much black and white into it.

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