AssassinPrincess' analyze of Belle

I can forgive most Disney princesses a lot of things. But I never liked Belle as a child, for reasons I couldn't articulate at the time. As I got older, I realized it was because Belle was an intellectual elitist, whose thirst for adventure was merely poorly-disguised class boredom. Hear me out.

When we first see Belle in the Beauty and the Beast movie, she's introducing us, by way of song, to her home village. It's a village she refers to as "poor [and] provincial", full of "little people." Her disdain for the unimaginative people who live in this town (which, despite being poor and provincial and in the 18th century, is somehow big enough to warrant a bookstore/small town library) is palpable. Even in the refrain of her "provincial life" song, her hatred of all things small-town is there, showing that though she has no real goals in life, she feels destined to rise above those whom she obviously feels are just mindless sheep. Did I mention the mindless sheep metaphor is right there in the first song, the sheep eating away at her precious books? How dare these townspeople actually LIKE their lives! What a bunch of small-minded sheeple!

Unlike most of the other women, apparently, she has the ability to read. Combined with her love of fairy tales, this is all we're given as examples of Belle being much smarter than most of the people in the town. As a side note, she constantly compares her need for adventure with the townspeople's contentment with their current lives. In stark contrast to her disdainful attitude towards the others, the townspeople don't seem to mind Belle...they think she's a little funny, but they have no malice at all towards her. They even give her free books, greet her and ask her about her day. Maybe because they can't read her thoughts about them.

Pardon me for saying so, but having the presence of mind to find contentment with what you have has always struck me as being much smarter than being discontented with your lot in life, constantly wishing for something exciting to happen to you. The people of Belle's village clearly enjoy their lives and are happy in them. Of course they must also want some excitement and adventure, because everyone on EARTH wants that at some point. But they don't let it rule their lives, and they make the best of the reality that they are in. They're realists. To just assume that they're happy in their provincial lives because they're too stupid to imagine something more exciting is not only wrong, but utterly snobbish. The fact that Belle has been lucky enough to be born to a father who saw the need to teach his daughter how to read doesn't make her any more intelligent than the other women of the town, the same way having parents rich enough to send you to Harvard doesn't make you smarter than someone who doesn't have the opportunity to afford it. Belle has been given advantages in life that others didn't receive. Aside from being able to read and verbally outwit the dumbest guy in town, Belle doesn't actually SEEM any more intelligent than anyone else.

Having an interest in fairy tales (as evidenced by Belle's favorite book being a fairy tale book, and her effusing over its heroic contents) also doesn't make you an intellectual. Being "a dreamer" doesn't automatically make you SMART. Belle's nonstop reiteration of wanting "adventure in the great wide somewhere" doesn't translate well into her actions. She seems happy to read about other people's adventures, but does nothing to further her own personal adventures. She doesn't even go with her father to the distant "fair" in an unknown city to show off his invention, which can't have been a very far journey. She knows loads of people in town and seems well-liked, she couldn't get someone to watch the chickens for a few days?

After this, her 'adventure' is apparently manifested by riding after her vanished father and being forced to live in a fabulous mansion with a beast. This might be a legit adventure, if it wasn't exactly what she does every day at home, but with a different peer group. When shown reading books at home, it's dull and a poor substitute for adventure. When reading books in the beast's castle, it's different because now they're in a castle and reading! When feeding the chickens at home, it's a hateful daily chore. When feeding the birds at the castle, it's way better and totally different because again, castle.

Belle spends all her time playing house with beast, as she did with her father, and only her peer group has changed. Gone are the dull-witted, unimaginative, ordinary villagers. Now she has a beast and some talking FURNITURE as friends!

And that's the kicker. These new friends are mentally the same as the old ones. They're servants to this local monarch, the cursed prince-in-beast-form. They can't have come from very far away, they must have been local at some point. The castle itself is clearly within a days' journey of Belle's house. They're the SAME DAMN PEOPLE SHE LOOKED DOWN ON FOR BEING PROVINCIAL. But now they have new and exciting forms, and thus are much more interesting.

What about the beast? Is it Belle's big adventure that she live with a guy who has violent mood swings and can't treat her like a person sometimes, but that she can totally tell is a good guy underneath if she can just change him? That's not an adventure, Belle. That's an abusive relationship. I bet you have to explain to Mrs. Potts all about falling against the coffee table a lot. And she only pretends to believe you. Being trapped in a house with someone who has an explosive temper is not "adventure in the great wide somewhere." It's not exactly Lewis and Clark in the wilderness. It's the same thing you did your whole life, but in a nicer house with a bigger asshole.

By the way, Belle lamented in her song refrain the idea of a future centered around being the wife of the "boorish, brainless" Gaston. So what amazing new life does she eventually get? Being the wife of the prince instead, who may not be self-centered like Gaston, but whose violent outbursts put him in the boorish category (at least Gaston can use a damn fork and knife, for god's sake), and as for brainless, well...the beast is RICH, so that must mean he's smart, right? He's got books in his castle, right? I mean, they're not HIS books, they're family heirlooms, he didn't pick them out, but hey! He's um...well, he never really shows off any abnormally high intelligence. In fact, he doesn't even seem much smarter than Gaston. He uses the same small words, crude gestures and spoiled demands, only he adds in a lot of implied violence.

No, the real difference is his ability to defer to Belle and do as she says. She corrects him on table manners, on bird feeding, on clothing and presentation, on everything. Beast's appeal to Belle is that he allows her to feel mentally superior to him, without correcting her. Gaston thought he was the best at everything and to be fair, most of the things he bragged about (being strong, being a great hunter) he was apparently ACTUALLY very good at. Beast sublimates his personality and will so that Belle can constantly correct him and feel that she is his mental and moral superior. This isn't about her sacrifice to make him a better person. It's about her need to confirm her personal belief that she is smarter than everyone else and that her brains will win over his brawn. If she wanted to change a horrible lout into a good person, she could've done that with Gaston. It was Gaston's inability to see her as his moral better that dug into her. What's the point of trying to change someone if they don't acknowledge what a GOOD person you are for doing it?

In the end though, Belle learns to love the Beast for what he truly is on the inside and not what he looks like on the outside...which immediately changes him into someone way better-looking on the outside (ugh, not even touching that one). Now Belle lives in a big castle with servants and her wanderlust is cured forever.

Can we just admit that Belle wasn't after adventure at all? She was frustrated by relative poverty and wanted cheap novelty and some nicer digs? Because the whole adventure thing seems sucked right out of her after she moves in with the beast. As soon as she's transplanted to a big fancy house, her thirst for "adventure" seems totally slaked. She's like every person I've known who complains they really want to "do" something with their lives, but what they really mean is that they want to buy a house in the hills and have a walk-in closet the size of my kitchen.

Adventure isn't a bigger living room and plush carpets on all the stairs. Belle wasn't after adventure, she was after novelty. She was bored and mentally translated this common boredom into an intellectual superiority over others and being meant for greater things in life.

There is NOTHING wrong with being bored and wanting to lead a different life. It's a natural feeling. But don't dress it up as you being smarter than everyone and meant for adventure. If you're after true adventure in life, yet your happiest moment comes from putting on a fancy dress and waltzing in the expensive house you've lived in contentedly for months, you're not in it for adventure. You're in it for the ducats, bitch.

From: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3502448&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=22#post408716634

Belle's apparent longing for more intellectual company is a total pose...the beast and Gaston are just barely different from each other in attitude and intellect. Gaston even seems slightly MORE literate than the beast, since he admits he has read books (albeit with pictures in them). He also has a far larger vocabulary, as shown in his song. "Specimen"? "Expectorate"? His vocabulary seems at least on par with Belle's. All evidence points to him actually being even SMARTER than the beast.

It's only the beast's willingness to be constantly henpecked and corrected by Belle (coupled with his great wealth) that makes him more attractive to her. It may also be that she secretly likes that he's ugly, because it makes her all the more noble and non-judgmental for loving him over the handsome Gaston.

She really is a seriously stuck up, holier-than-thou person. And just like Gaston, people are willing to overlook it because she's beautiful.

From: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3502448&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=22#post408720088

Also see RandomFerret's post: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3502448&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=22#post408720317

You want to talk about what's wrong with the setting of Beauty and the Beast? Just look at the intro. I'm not the first person to notice this, either.
The movie's own intro posted:

    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. But she warned him not to be deceived by appearances, for beauty is found within. And when he dismissed her again, 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. Ashamed of his monstrous form, the Beast concealed himself inside his castle, with a magic mirror as his only window to the outside world. The rose she had offered was truly an enchanted rose, which would bloom until his 21st year. If he could learn to love another, and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell, then the spell would be broken. If not, he would be doomed to remain a beast for all time. As the years passed, he fell into despair and lost all hope. For who could ever learn to love a Beast?


Okay, so the movie takes place at the end of the rose's bloom. The Beast is, it can be safely assumed, 21 years of age at this point in time. Fast forward a little to Lumiere breaking it down in the bridge of Be Our Guest:

Lumiere posted:

    Life is so unnerving
    For a servant who's not serving
    He's not whole without a soul to wait upon
    Ah, those good old days when we were useful...
    Suddenly those good old days are gone
    Ten years we've been rusting
    Needing so much more than dusting
    Needing exercise, a chance to use our skills!
    Most days we just lay around the castle
    Flabby, fat and lazy
    You walked in and oops-a-daisy!


They've been like this for ten years. The Beast was not some cruel, miserly tyrant, he was an eleven-year-old boy! An eleven-year-old boy whose nanny and only friends were turned into flatware because he wouldn't let a stranger in the house when his parents weren't home.