beeftony:
justplainsomething:
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 fucking 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 fuck 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.
Ooooo I like this a lot! I wanna add something else, too.
Another way to look at it, is that Beast actually tried things the way Gaston was going to do them. Gaston essentially went to Belle like, “Hey, everyone wants me, you should too, end of story.” Even after she showed no interest, he showed up at her house with an entire wedding. Then, after the second no, and after getting reassurance from the entire town that “no one is as perfect as Gaston,” he keeps at it, so much so that he locks her father up and tries to use him against her.
Now, Beast pretty much did the same thing, EXCEPT, overtime he realized that that was not the way you did things. After yelling and screaming, he scared her away. Then, he saved her, brought her back, and after she yelled back at him… he actually listened. He actually listened, took his time, and they developed a relationship (and how symbolic is it that he gave her a library, full of books, the thing that Gaston said she was weird for liking). He learned so much, in fact, that he let her go. He let her go home. Because keeping her there was not the thing to do unless if SHE WANTED TO STAY!
Also, he let her have a voice. She yelled at him even after he saved her, “Well if you hold still it wouldn’t hurt as much,” while she was patching him up, and, “You need to control your temper.” She’s tried to get it through Gaston’s head but he won’t listen. Beast, on the other hand, did. I think that’s important. Like this post says, these two were both shunned, and sure the way they got together wasn’t great, but Beast improves. Gaston never, ever did. And what makes him frightening even with the sinister likes of Ursula or Jafar or other more supernatural villains in Disney is that… he’s real. He’s very, very real. No one in the town cares that Belle is like, “… no.” In fact, they’re a mix of, “Ugh what does he see in her,” and, “How could she say no?”
Like, the entire town worships him, and are o.k. with locking Belle’s father away. blindly storming a castle, and just… doing anything Gaston wants. Not because of magic or it being against their will, they just… want to. I mean sure Disney villains have their henchman, Gaston did too, but he had THE ENTIRE TOWN as his beck and call because… he said so. Anyone can see that Belle isn’t interested. But no, she’s lucky that he wants her because she’s so weird, and it’s an honor to be around Gaston. Period. You’re crazy not to agree.
Her and Beast started out on bad ground, but he learned. Gaston was like, “Nope. Gonna keep your father here unless you marry me. End of story,” after she came back from the castle. And even worse, “Gonna lock you up too while we storm the castle,” even after she said that Beast was kind and wouldn’t hurt anybody. In fact, when Gaston approached him, he had no interest in fighting and he didn’t care. He just sent all these townspeople into this unknown castle (and he had no way of knowing if they survived or not as he charged for the Beast’s room) then started fighting someone who didn’t even want to fight him. Real great guy, huh?
Anonymous
