for my last day of kablpomo, i’m going to do the thing that i said i would do before this month started! commence….
beauty and the beast! i’m going to blog as i watch it because i’m running out of time!
we are watching for weird sexual references (like raping the feather duster) and analyzing stockholm syndrome.
mmm i love this beginning!
here’s the point of the story: the enchantress told him not to be deceived by appearances! beauty is found within!
she had seen there was no love in his heart!
“if he could learn to love another and earn her love in return by the time the last petal fell – the spell would be broken”
ENTER BELLE! (ps – you need to watch this on blu-ray; you can actually see the color from the sunrise!)
unneeded sexual reference #1 – buxom woman asking a drooling man how his wife is in the bonjour song, and said wife beating the guy on his head with a rolling pin? if said movie has an age range of the younger set, why is this needed?
and what’s up with gaston? way to equate pretty with the best. also, his admirers are the US standard of beauty – tiny, top-heavy, blonde.
also, the whole town thinks belle’s a weirdo but her looks make up for it? because she reads books and has an inventor for a father? just wait til the transgenders start moving to town! what will happen then!
off to the fair! i’m sorry, but philipe might be the smartest one in this movie. “no, let’s go this way!” philipe looks a little wary at the scary looking woods. “where have you taken us, philipe!” way to gaslight, maurice. philipe got out of the situation. good horse.
so now we have maurice opening up cogsworth’s clock door, and messing around with his pendulum. WHAT ON EARTH is the pendulum supposed to represent???!?!?!? is maurice sexually assaulting cogsworth? good ol’ C did have to close the door on maurice’s finger.
the beast is angry. 10 years of being a beast and holed up in his castle has not done him well. weirdly, all his staff seems to have kept their sanity. but they probably weren’t mean and cold-hearted before they got turned into household objects.
meanwhile, gaston is preparing a wedding he hasn’t even gotten consent to have!! woohoo! gaston sure is coming on strong. keeps walking toward belle, she’s walking away from him. he ruins her book with his muddy boots and stinky feet. bleah. then he corners her at the bookshelf and again at the door, trying to kiss her? well, belle didn’t come outright and say “no”. but she did get him out before things escalated.
philipe comes back! belle gets down to business and goes after her father.
oh, cogsworth and lumiere are getting all riled up, expecting belle to be the one they want to break the spell. expectations set!
beast is pissed. maurice trespassed and is in jail. and belle offers to take maurice’s place. “you must promise to stay here forever.” and he shows himself, but she makes the deal. beast is not very compassionate at this point, BUT has he EVER been compassionate? NO.
THIS IS THE TURNING POINT FOR MR BEAST. we see him show a little remorse when belle was crying over her not being able to saw goodbye. he shows a little less gruffness, but when belle asks what’s in the west wing, he gets all uptight. sounds like the beast might be bi-polar!
now we get to hear gaston’s very macho, very manly song about how he’s the best at everything, which can be a difficult thing for a dude to live up to. but, gaston turns out to be the bad guy, so does that mean the manly, macho man isn’t the best thing in the world? the pretty, weird girl won’t go for the best looking guy in the room if he’s a jerk? well, that’s something, i guess. if he had asked one if his blonde admirers to marry him, one of them would sure have said yes. “i’m especially good at expectorating!” (hey, at least we get to have a vocabulary lesson while we’re watching.) i wonder if gaston were to have a pinterest page, would it be all antler rooms?
enter maurice, raving like a lunatic. and instead of listening to him, they throw him out in the snow. then gaston decides to exploit him. what does that say about people believing other people? mob mentality?
meanwhile, mrs. potts has some words of advice – “don’t worry, my dear, everything will turn out ok in the end.”
OOOOH i want that nice fireplace. beast is loaded. then he loses his temper wondering where belle is, saying he’s thought belle might be the one. and we hear lumiere’s infantile theory on breaking the spell,” she falls in love with you, you fall in love with her, poof, we’ll be human again by midnight.” potts of course sets him straight.
mrs. potts’ more words of wisdom: “help her to see past all that” in response to beast implying he’s hideous. and potts and lumiere both address the, uh, beast in the room: “you must control your temper!” i think the beast’s temper is what his big downfall is.
i think i see what the problem is here: none of the beast’s staff really never talk back to him. point 1 for belle, standing up to him. beast throws a temper tantrum, runs to the rose room, and sees belle in the mirror, who’s telling the wardrobe that she wants nothing to do with him.
“i’m just fooling myself. she’ll never see me as anything…but a monster.” WITH AN ATTITUDE LIKE THAT BEAST, OF COURSE SHE WON’T. big reveal of the day!! she sees him as a monster for the way he’s behaving, not for the way he looks!!!
OOOH we see some hanky panky between lumiere and the duster! (sad that she doesnt’ have a name.) “i’ve been burnt by you before” – ooh double meaning there hahaha.
(how many kids does mrs. potts have? chip’s in the cupboard with his brothers and sisters?)
ok, so if this is a “kid’s” movie, why is no one worried about the beer steins and champagne?
UH OH BELLE. she’s been poking around in the west wing, and the beast finds her, yelling, telling her to get out. then realizes what he’s done. he’s got to figure out what his bi-polar self is doing.
and here come the wolves! i have to say, belle was doing pretty well there for a while, beating on the wolves and trying to get philipe unstuck. she has that going for her, taking care of herself! then the wolves are just too many, but the beast comes to save her! and she’s a little freaked out about it. after he collapses and she just stares of philipe’s saddle, you can see her mind shift.
OK, here’s a turning point, i think. the beast is flat down in the snow. philipe’s ready to go. the beast has been pretty awful til this point, and instead of turning tail and running away back to maurice and dumb gaston, belle decides to help the beast back to the castle. SHE COULD HAVE LEFT. he’d just blown up at her, and she knows he’s not a great person. but she decided to go back. i feel like from this point forward, she’s in the castle due to her either 1) deciding to see what happens iwth this beast or 2) she doesn’t want to go back to her provincial life (of some of each). i believe, at this point, it has nothing to do with her promise to the beast. he told her to get out. she had her window. she closed it.
and then belle stands up to the beast, which i think surprises the beast (and certainly his staff). this isn’t stockholm syndrome!! this is finding the person who’s willing to call you on your crap!!!
enter the scene where we see the beast start to transform into someone not so…beastly. is there something called reverse stockholm syndrome? the captor starts to sympathize with the captee? because i feel like that’s what we’re seeing here. the beast who’s pulling belle into the library is NOT the same beast who made her promise to stay in the castle forever. he’s OBVIOUSLY changing.
(i would die for that library.)
“something there that wasn’t there before” is probably the anthem for stockholm syndrome theorists. *eyeroll*
anyway, the beast is getting ready, and do we all realize he’s naked? we see him in the bath, after the bath, all with no clothes on. come to think of it, we see everyone in the castle naked except belle! how disturbing!
after the dance, the beast asks if belle is happy there, and she says yes, but she wishes she could see her father again. i feel like that’s the only part of the movie that could be construed as any type of stockholm syndrome. the beast lets her go at this point, and she’s off to help her father. and he lets her go because he’s finally figured out how to love and get over his cold-heartedness. i think this says something about belle too at this point – she doesn’t seem eager to get back to her old life, per se, just her father.
and now the mob’s come to get crazy maurice, and gaston can get her out of this if belle marries him. what a loser. and belle calls him out as the real monster, then gaston calls belle crazy too. that’s one of the real issues with this story – the moblike mentality of the townpeople is pretty disgusting. belle’s odd and weird, maurice is crazy. well, belle did want to get out of her provincial life. my guess is all those townspeeps would’ve voted for trump.
OK fight scene!
a guy just got eaten by a trunk. another got scalded. wardrobe landed on a dude, whose legs are there for the next few scenes. a guy got a makeover into a bikini, tutu, and beehive hairdo, which is somehow more horrifying to him than his two defeated buddies at his feet.
lumiere’s getting his wax melted, so cogsworth pokes lefou in the rear with a scissors. then we see feather duster getting her feathers pulled out, which liz thought alluded to rape. so i will paste what i posted on facebook on that thought: on the one hand, there isn’t a lot else you can do to damage a feather duster (i suppose you could break the handle in half). on the other, did the scene NEED to be included? on the third, did they just want a reason for lumiere to get so mad he’d to blow flames up a bad dude’s rear?
(i think it’s all about a butt joke.)
ugh, then we gaston being all ultra-manly with beast. what a loser. being kind a gentle are things men shouldn’t shy away from. everyone should be!
“did you honestly think she’d want you, when she could have someone like me.” oh gaston. i think the real message here is that if you don’t realize what a jerk you are and change your beastly ways, you will not be a worthwhile human being. or find love. or not. whatever floats your boat.
oh! and to say “belle is miiiine” like you own her? get a life, gaston! belle can make her own decisions.
and when the beast decides to not drop and kill gaston, we know that he’s a better man/beast/person. and he’s so surprised she came back!
(i gotta say, belle has some super strength. not only did she pull beast back from falling over the railing to his doom a la gaston, but she managed to get him on philipe earlier in the movie. and kudos to philipe! beast was almost as big as he was! not sure how he managed that.)
oh, and then we get the happy ending! belle says i love you right as the petal drops, we get the fireworks and sparky stuff, she realizes it’s him, everyone changes, and we wonder why 70-yr-old mrs. potts has a five year old.
another inappropriate sexual reference: feather duster dusting lumiere at the end? needed? why is the maid sexy? why is lumiere a horndog?
THE END!!
