5.09 Beauty and the Beast: In the Eye of the Beholder
Beauties and Beasts have been falling in love all throughout mythology and folklore, but what makes Disney’s 1991 adaptation such a fan-favourite? In the next instalment of my Disney Fairy Tale series, I take you through the history of the original Beauty and the Beast fairy tale, and compare it with its Disney adaptation. From animal studies to mob mentality, we cover lots in this episode! I hope you enjoy x
Listen to the episode here
Download a full transcription
Hank Green’s video: My Greatest Tool Against Vaccine Misinformation
Other episodes on fairy tales
Listen to me read The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen
4.13 Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space by Amanda Leduc
Quotes (in order of mention)
‘Beauty and the Beast is a subtype which entered the folk tradition from the literary, with evidence of overlapping geographical distribution of oral and printed version.’ – Hearne, Betsy. Beauty and the Beast: Visions and Revisions of an Old Tale. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
‘not for children but for the entertainment of court and salon friends.’ – ibid.
‘Folktales are not always profound or even coherent, much less moving. No telling is above modifications.’ – ibid.
‘We can speculate that the tale was meant primarily for young women who were being passed back and forth in arranged marriages; the you’ll-come-to-love-him moral of Beauty and the Beast was more likely intended as a balm to those who were facing their new lives with some degree of trepidation.’ – Leduc, Amanda. Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space. Chapter 6, “‘Something Below Humanity’: The Beautiful and the Beastly.” Coach House Books, 2020.
‘our imagined relationship to the real conditions of our existence.’ – McGregor, Hannah, host. Kosman, Marcelle, host. “Book 1, Ep.3 | Animals.” Witch, Please, Book 1, Episode 3, Acast, 29 Sep 2020
‘Within human relationships, rendering the other animalistic as a way of dehumanising them in order to justify violence against them, that works because of this whole ideological understanding that we have that to be human is to be not animal.’ – ibid.
‘Lots of scholars have also pointed out not only that the animal and human divide is a patriarchal divide and a settler colonial divide, but is also at the root of white supremacy and how white supremacy has been articulated.’ – ibid.
‘generating and maintaining power.’ – ibid.
‘question the idea of normalcy.’ – Davis, Lennard. Quoted by Eilers, Nicole. “A critical disability studies reading of Beauty and the Beast: Détournement in pedagogical practice.” Journal of Media Literacy Education, 12(2), 53-63, 2020.
‘Hemmed in by expectations of what it means to look different and be different in the world, society is unable to see how happiness might be wrestled from a life like this. And so the focus shifts to curing: a world without wheelchairs, a world where beauty follows a predictable and prescribed pattern.’ – Leduc, ibid.
‘Beauty is the thing that is lacking and is fulfilled at the end, further underscoring the idea that in the stories, beauty comes to those who deserve it.’ – Leduc, ibid.
‘Until the late Eighties, Disney animated features had always been conceived on storyboards, then went directly into production.’ – Thomas, Bob. Disney’s Art of Animation: from Mickey Mouse to Beauty and the Beast. New York: Hyperion, 1991.
‘the new film is so fresh and altogether triumphant,’ – Maslin, Janet. “Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Updated in Form and Content.” The New York Times, 13 Nov 1991
‘the viewer would be well advised to bring a hanky.’ – ibid.
‘I wasn’t reviewing an “animated film.” I was being told a story, I was hearing terrific music, and I was having fun.’ – Ebert, Roger. “Beauty and the Beast”. 22 Nov, 1991
‘[I]n contrast to the commanding, sophisticated, and intelligent Beasts that frequent the other tales and that finally make him so deserving of Beauty’s love, this Beast seems childish, blustering, “clumsy”, petulant, and untutored. As with his upbringing and his initial acquisition of his selfish personality, the Beast does not have to take responsibility for his behavior. It is the work of other people, especially women, to turn this childish Beast into a loving man. The message is clear: is the Beast has not changed before, it is not his fault, but that of those around him who failed to show him otherwise.’ – Jeffords, Susan. “Ten: The Curse of Masculinity: Disney's Beauty and the Beast.” From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture, edited by Elizabeth Bell, Lynda Haas, Laura Sells. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.
‘It’s very difficult to take the originals and convert them into a story that works for the Nineties. […] You have to make sure that your themes are strong, that people can relate to the characters, that the story isn’t sexist. Belle is a strong, smart, courageous woman. […] She’s a Disney heroine who reads books. It excites me. We’ve never seen that before.’ – Woolverton, Linda. Quoted by Thomas, ibid.
‘You have to understand that the whole idea of the heroine-victim was baked into the cake, especially at Disney. […] every day was a battle of making it happen. Every single line of her dialogue was a battle.’ – Woolverton, Linda. Quoted by McGovern, Joe. “Beauty and the Beast, Alice screenwriter Linda Woolverton remembers a Belle Battle.” EW, 26 May 2016.
‘In one scene, for example, Woolverton wrote Belle sticking pins into a map of all the places she wished to travel. By the time it got to storyboarding, Belle had been rewritten into a kitchen, decorating a cake. Woolverton protested, and the compromise that was reached had Belle with her nose in a book, a pastime at first considered too passive to be compellingly animated, which is why she always walks when she reads.’ – Berman, Eliza. “How Beauty and the Beast’s Screenwriter Shaped Disney’s First Feminist Princess.” TIME, 23 May 2016.
Other references
La Belle et La Bête by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, 1740. Four and Twenty Fairy Tales, trans. J. R. Planché. London: G Routledge and Co, 1858.
La Belle et La Bête by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, 1756. The Young Misses Magazine, 4th ed., v.1.. London: C. Nourse, 1783.
Beauty and the Beast, dir. Gary Trousdale, Kirk Wise, Walt Disney Pictures, 1991
Conley, Amanda. “A Tepid Apology to Beauty and the Beast (1991).” amandaactually.wordpress.com, 10 Dec 2018.
Fallon, Claire. “Coming to Terms With ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and the Imperfect Feminism of Disney.” huffpost.com, 23 Nov 2016.
Glosswitch. “How feminist was Disney’s original Beauty and the Beast?” The New Statesman, 23 Mar 2017.
Sculos, Byant W. “We are the Beast: On Toxic Masculinity and Social Responsibility in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.” Class, Race and Corporate Power. Vol. 5 : Iss. 2, Article 7. 2017.
Wolfgang, Aurora. “Introduction” Beauty and the Beast: The Original Story. Iter Press, 2020.
***
My Instagram, Goodreads and StoryGraph
The Community Library’s Instagram
Cover artwork is by Ashley Ronning
Ashley’s Instagram, website, and printing studio website
