Beauty and The Beast Notes

WOMEN

Belle:

• Beautiful (Her name french for)
• Small waist
• In cleaning clothes
• Prancing around the fields
• Exposed
• Sings, nice voice
• Didn’t care if a man ignored her or didn’t take part in their conversation “men will be men, they do what they like”
• Very exposed 
• Showing curves
• Loves to read
• Always polite
• Attracts men
• Oblivious
• Not submissive to Gaston, refuses to marry him
• Passionate loves her father
• Willing to give up her freedom for her father
• Seen crying twice
• Adventurous - seeks the west wing even though forbidden
• Eats elegantly with a spoon, not slurping
• Gracefully dances
• Takes care of her Papa
• Small waist
• large eyes
• light skinned

Triplet Blondes:

• In uniform with each other
• Attractive
• Blonde hair
• Girl actions
• Small waist
• Big breasts

MEN

Gaston:

• Buff
• Strong
• Muscles
• Big jaw
• Shoots birds as a sport
• Handsome
• Strong stance and walk
• Conceited
• Gets distracted by his own reflection
• Can pick up 3 women
• “Every last inch of me is covered in hair”
• Thinks he knows everything

Prince/Beast:

Used to be 

• Spoiled
• Selfish
• Unkind
• Handsome
• Strong stance
• Controlling figure 
• Demanding
• Possessive
• Eats very messy, not using cutlery and shoving his face into the bowl
• Has to look nice to impress the princess

Belle’s Papa:

• Inventor
• Creative
• Enthusiastic
• Successful

Animated House Objects

• The necessity objects (Clock, Candles) are men
• The cooking cleaning objects (Teapot, Dust-brush, Wardrobe) are women
• This is a very subtle reinforcement to men women’s jobs around the house
• Teapot: “Oh listen to me, chapping on when theres supper to get on the table”
• Wardrobe: “Well now, what should we dress you in for dinner?”
• The clock and candles are smart so they are the ones to show Belle around the castle
• The dust brush becomes a “sexy’ maid when turned into a human

Overall Notes:

There were so many stereotypes just within the first 5 minutes of the actual movie

• Gaston immediately chooses Belle without having known her personally just by judging on her physical appearance. No matter how much LeFou tries to tell Gaston that she is a little bit weird in personality he still says “She’s the most beautiful girl in town, making her the best.” This indicates that only physicality matters, personality aside.
• When Gaston rudely snatched Belle’s book from her attention, Belle had to kindly and politely ask for it back. This is a representation about how men can be demanding and controlling, and no matter what they do women still have to do what they were taught to do and be polite.
• Gaston: “It’s not right for a woman to read! Soon she’ll start getting ideas and thinking!”
• Gaston intrudes into Belle’s home without her opening the door for him or wanting him to be there. Belle: “Gaston, what a pleasantly surprise” It was obvious that Belle didn’t think it was a pleasant surprise (politeness)

Rest of Movie:

• It seems to be that in every princess movie, the princess is always shown at some point of the movie crying, in this, we saw Belle crying at least 2 times.
• The Prince/Beast sprints to Belle’s room, bashes the door and shouts “Why aren’t you coming to dinner? I told you to come to dinner.” He has a very bad temper “If she doesn’t eat with me, she doesn’t eat at all”
• Beast saves Belle from the wolves, the man is strong and brave enough to save the woman
• Belle looks after and takes care of the Beast when he was hurt from saving her
• Beast provides for Belle - gives her a whole library of books
• Gaston is not strong and buff and neither is Belle’s dad, and they are shown as social outcasts and subdominant characters
• Only the men were set off to kill the beast and the women were to stay home.
• Gaston: “What’s wrong Beast? Too kind and gentle to fight back?” This is a big gender stereotype statement as Gaston is bullying the Beast with words that are very gender representative. He says that men shouldn’t be kind and gentle and must have the ability to fight.
• Gaston and the Beast are fighting for Belle’s love. This says a lot about their values and how much they would go through just to get the girl.
• The main objective for the Beast/Prince at first was to get Belle to fall in love with him so as they can break the spell for him to become human, a very selfish objective. But throughout the movie when the Beast becomes human, he is glad that he had fallen in love with her