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Author
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Comment
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evil
little pixie
Registered User
(4/17/05 9:05 pm)
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Beauty and the Beast, again
Hi everyone. I was reading some of the archived discussions about Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" allegedly portraying an abusive relationship, and I started making connections. The basic plot seems to go like this: a woman becomes involved with a man who treats her badly but who eventually, as a result of his love for her, redeems himself, and the two marry with happily-ever-after strongly implied. I can see how this plot can be construed as supporting the "love can turn abusers into good people" myth, but what bothers me about that interpretation is that the plot I recounted about is not found just in Disney; it's also the basic story of _Pride and Prejudice_. Yet I've never heard anyone say reading Austen will encourage the "love conquers abuse" myth.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I certainly agree that an abuser will not change if his/her victim is just "good" enough or loving enough, given its similarities to _Pride and Prejudice_ I don't see the Disney movie supporting the myth. I can go into more detail if anyone's interested, but if you feel the B&B abuse topic has been discussed to death I understand. What do y'all think?
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DerekJ
Unregistered User
(4/17/05 9:48 pm)
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Re: Beauty and the Beast, again
Actually Disney's B&tB came out of:
A) a confessed and pre-emptively despairing frustration on the part of the story editors that, quote, "there's nothing happening!", unquote, between the space of where Beauty arrives at the castle and when she leaves to visit her father,
and
B) an attempt to market Beauty as the "heroine" of the
piece, which means that having her be the one to misjudge Beast
based on appearance would mean she wasn't so much smarter
and more insightful than anyone in her village, etc., etc....
As far as their familiar (and, to Cocteau/Beaumont's Beast, somewhat
insulting) use of Last-Ditch Romantic Comedy Plot #5, "Love
at First Fight", reading "abusive metaphor" into
this one says a lot more about the analyst than the analysee,
IMO--
Somebody's got some serious personal issues here, and I don't think
it's Disney...
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beautifulstars
Unregistered User
(4/17/05 10:44 pm)
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definitely a thread..
actually, i've heard much discussion in this regard-- the thread within fairytales of various versions and cultures in which the woman 'tames' the beastly man. it certainly can be interpreted, and often has been, as a woman trying to change an abuser. on this vein, if you look at jane eyre, it carries this theme. the 'hero' in that book certainly is a beast, and yet jane 'tames' him and the story is often taken as a pure romance.
there is a good book out there, called 'labyrinths of desire' which deals with these issues--classic books which are often thought to encapsulate ideals of romance which don't hold up under close inspection. very interesting.
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(4/18/05 12:56 am)
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Re: definitely a thread..
I don't know about the Pride and Prejudice parallel. While
Darcy is certainly a jerk, Lizzie doesn't stick by him through thick
and thin, putting up with his unpleasantness. In fact, she tells
him off and rejects his marriage proposal because he's such a jerk.
It's not her unwavering love for him that causes him to change;
it's his love for her that causes him to change himself.
As for Jane Eyre--certainly. I see parallels with Bluebeard,
too.
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kristiw
Unregistered User
(4/18/05 2:21 am)
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abusive relationships, or combatative?
I think you have it, Veronica-- the relationship in P&P is the stock "sparring couple," or combatitive relationship, which is often paralleled to the harmonious relationship (like Bingley and Jane's) and represented as the more attractive and successful, or at least more interesting. A couple that rub each other the wrong way will push and stretch each other in ways that keep them vivid and dynamic. It's such a familiar device now that as soon as one (suitably aged and situated) character is rude to another, we know they will end up together.
This relates as well to another thread, on the appeal of the wilder, more dangerous heroes/villains: you could read it as an unsettling attraction to abusive relationships, but you could also see these males as the ones that demand more from their heroines. What appeals to women isn't abuse, it's a challenge.
But I think the parallel between P&P to Beauty and the Beast holds because of this, not in spite of it. At least in the Disney version, Belle is not victimized; she gives as good as she gets.
Even in milder incarnations, Beauty is not a martyr to the Beast, although she may be to her father/family: she always refuses his proposals, night after night. It seems like we get either the sparring couple, as in the Disney version, or the harmonious couple (I'm thinking specifically of Angela Carter's The Courtship of Mr Lyon) but I can't think of a case of the couple's temperament's being mismatched, which would be the abusive relationship...
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Aer
Unregistered User
(4/18/05 7:02 am)
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RE:abusive relationships, or combatative?
I must agree with Kristiw. In Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Belle does not change the Beast just through loving him, she hates him until he sacrifices his own safety for her own. It is then that she begins to think that there might be more there than she thought before. It is not a case of Belle gentling the Beast just through loving him, it is a case of the Beast gentling himself in order to win Belle, and that is a completely different thing, though it can sometimes on the surface appear similar.
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evil
little pixie
Registered User
(4/18/05 10:46 am)
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Re: RE:abusive relationships, or combatative?
My own thoughts were pretty much along the lines of what Kristiw and Aer posted: Belle/Elizabeth tells the Beast/Darcy exactly what she thinks of him, and it's that telling off that prompts him to take a good look at himself and realize, "hey, I am being a jerk, and I can't get away with it even if I am under a curse/rich and good-looking and well-connected." I agree that one person can't change another and that if a person changes only to try to win someone else, it's probably not a real change, but I think another person can serve as a catalyst to make a jerk realize "I'm a jerk, and I should change. If the person grows to like me as a result of that change, that's a nice bonus, but I should do it anyway, because it's more important than just this one person not liking me." I think the Beast changes not because Beauty loves him, but because she makes him realize he can't get away with that sort of behavior, the same way Elizabeth does.
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redtriskell
Registered User
(4/18/05 11:45 am)
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abuse as a theme
Perhaps I'm going out on a limb here, but I have never thought of the Beast as abusive. A jerk, to be sure, but abusive? No. The abusive party in B&B is the father. He is, after all, the one who willingly sends his daughter to a beast in his stead. He makes a terrible bargain with an unknown, but presumably very bad, fellow; and then, actually keeps the deal! Of course, this is the tale, not the Disney version. But, really, the beast expected the family cat or the maid, not the lovely daughter. As for the treacherous notion that love will redeem the wicked... well, it's okay for a story, but real life just isn't like that. And I think we, as a culture, have a skewed idea of what abuse is. It is not, as seems popularly believed, just being a cad. There are plenty of mean people who do all kinds of mean, petty, selfish things; only a handful of those (thank goodness) are abusive. To put it another way, people get treated the way they allow themselves to be treated. Abusers, of any variety- no matter how vile, would be out of work if so many people weren't willing to be their victims. I guess I should clarify that I am speaking of adults; children are significantly disadvantaged because they are, by and large, unable to help themselves in any of the ways adults are. The concept of the adult who will sacrifice their own child to a monster is what makes Beauty's dad the villain, not the Beast.
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DerekJ
Unregistered User
(4/18/05 12:07 pm)
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Re: abuse as a theme
>>The abusive party in B&B is the father. He is, after all, the one who willingly sends his daughter to a beast in his stead. He makes a terrible bargain with an unknown, but presumably very bad, fellow; and then, actually keeps the deal! Of course, this is the tale, not the Disney version. But, really, the beast expected the family cat or the maid, not the lovely daughter.
The concept of the adult who will sacrifice their own child to a monster is what makes Beauty's dad the villain, not the Beast.<<
Can't remember whether Disney messed this one up, too, but in the
story, seem to recall it's her father who wants to go to "certain
death" because of the Rose thing, and Beauty who nobly/virtuously
steps up to take his place?...
(...Okay, any OTHER scapegoat villains we want to find in the story source?--
We certainly seem to be looking hard enough for one.)
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evil
little pixie
Registered User
(4/18/05 12:48 pm)
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Re: abuse as a theme
Interesting points, redtriskell. I seem to remember the Beast asking specifically for a daughter (or even more specifically, for Beauty herself) in most of the non-Disney versions of the tale, but I haven't read either of the two "original" versions. I remember that in some versions Beauty has brothers who say they will go kill the Beast, but Beauty talks them out of it and presents herself willingly to protect her father.
As for your comments on abuse in modern society, I agree that there is a difference between a jerk and an abuser, and also that an abuser has to have a victim on whom to practice the abuse, but I have a couple of qualifiers. Abuse isn't always physical, for one thing, but I think people still seem to see it only in physical terms, and thus dismiss some emotional abusers as jerks who'd be fine if they'd just grow up a bit. Also, part of the abuse package is that the abuser picks people who already have a bad-enough self-image that they will take whatever the abuser dishes out, and then actively works to keep them in that state. Abusers are master manipulators. So it's not quite as simple as people just willing to be victims and then whining about it. (I saw this first-hand last year with my roommate, although as far as I know there was no physical abuse, but tons of emotional abuse. I tried to tell her not to accept it, but every time I thought I'd gotten through to her it turned out I hadn't after all.) Like kristiw points out, Belle doesn't just accept the Beast's bad behavior- she calls him on it, and when he doesn't seem to be listening, she leaves. At this point an abuser would most likely pick another victim who won't resist, but a jerk might think about what she said and realize she's right. Which is in my opinion what happens in the movie. The Beast shows he regrets his actions and is trying to reform himself, and Belle cautiously agrees to give him another chance. But since she left the first time, we know she will again if the Beast goes back on his implicit promise, and that the second time she won't come back.
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(4/18/05 4:40 pm)
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Re: abuse as a theme
I don't know that I agree with that. For one thing, it's a pattern
with most abusers to apologize and promise that this time,
things will be different, they'll never do that again, etc., and
to expect that the victim in question will come back. For
another, the abuse in B&B, in my view, is encoded in the fact
that Beauty can't leave. She's traded in this creepy deal
between the father and the beast (who giveth this woman?), and in
the Disney version, when she leaves, she's set upon by wolves--effectively
she's imprisoned by the isolation of the Beast's castle. What that
suggests to me is that if she leaves and doesn't have the Beast's
protection, she'll get eaten by wolves.
What I really object to most about this situation is that in many
other versions of B&B (not, as I'd thought, in the original,
but in many of the best-known versions pre-Disney), the issue is
that Beauty learns that what matters in love is the person beneath
the beastly exterior: the Beast is initially physically awful, but
he treats Beauty with unfailing kindness and courtesy, and thus
wins her heart despite his ugliness. I appreciate that message,
and the idea that goes with it that once you love someone, they
become beautiful to you. Disney reversed this whole idea, for no
reason that I can see, so that the beastly outside does
indicate a nasty, rude, unpleasant personality.
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evil
little pixie
Registered User
(4/18/05 6:58 pm)
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Re: abuse as a theme
Certainly lots of abuses offer false promises of better behavior in the future, but that doesn't mean such a promise is false when someone who's not necessarily an abuser makes it. I dated a guy who treated me badly, so I broke up with him and told him why. We kept in touch loosely, and after about six months I realized he seemed to have grown up and we still had feelings for each other, so I very slowly and carefully started to date him again. It's been a year and a half since we started going out again, and he treats me very well. If he had ever once gone back to the way he first treated me, I would have left for good, but his change was real. Of course, he wasn't an abuser to begin with, but I'm not so sure the (Disney) Beast is either. I see him more as a guy who spent a lot of time indulging his temper and selfishness (rather like Darcy) and who is jolted into a realization of what he's become when someone tells him off. I think the movie's lesson was more along the lines of "this kind of behavior is not acceptable even if the world has screwed you over, and you'd better drop it if you expect to get your life together." Belle serves as the catalyst, but it's not her job to reform him- he takes the responsibilty on himself. I think if he'd truly been an abuser, then rather than putting himself at risk he'd have let her get eaten by the wolves and found another girl to torture (or gone back to torturing his servants- something he stops when he begins his reform). Also, is Belle truly trapped in the castle? She made it there on her own just fine- it's hardly a certainty that she can't make it out again, even if it's difficult.
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redtriskell
Registered User
(4/19/05 12:58 am)
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Re: abuse as a theme
Evil little pixie- I realize from personal experience with my own parents that abuse is not always physical. Believe me when I say I know what pain words can cause; they are wounds that are difficult, if not downright impossible, to heal. The body does not recall pain- if it did, we would all be mad with agony by the age of three. But words last a lifetime. At any rate, I still think the Beast is not abusive. I agree with Veronica that part of Beauty's problem is that she can't leave. A situation imposed by her father's bargain. And even if she did offer to take her dad's place, what decent parent would agree? I admit I usually think of the dad as an idiot more than a truly vile man; not that this absolves him of his part in Beauty's predicament. And I suppose I will always think that even the most esteem- challenged person on Earth is partly responsible for their own victimization. Part of adulthood is owning your life. If you give away part of it to an abusive person... well, whose fault is that?
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Veronica
Schanoes
Registered User
(4/19/05 1:29 am)
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Re: abuse as a theme
We're treated to a graphic example of her failure to make it out again--we might speculate that she'd have better luck next time, but I don't see much in the movie to support that speculation. The isolation in that movie really smacks of abuse to me--as many of us know, unfortunately, one of the first things abusers do is to separate their victims from their emotional support systems, manipulating them into dropping contact with friends and family, often regulating their movement. Which is what the Beast does. I realize that he sees the error of his ways, becomes good, etc., and that, in my opinion, is the romanticizing of abuse. That's what I object to. Disney uses what are to my mind, several hallmarks of an abusive relationship, and turns it into a great romance. Of course, they're not the first. It is a narrative trope, I believe.
I agree that the father is really...wanting...when it comes to decent parenting. Most fairy-tale parents are, aren't they? Honestly, what fairy-tale parents aren't incompetent at best and evil at worst?
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