Once upon a time three sisters journeyed from far-flung cities to visit their mother in a small coastal village. The evening of the reunion was a joyous one, filled with champagne, laughter, champagne, stories, oops out of champagne so how about this white wine, then if memory serves, at 1 AM spontaneously doing a Richard Simmons workout video from the early 80s, and maybe more stuff after that but I fell asleep.
The next morning dawned grey and stormy, even for the Oregon coast. Between the mild hangovers, close quarters, and the weather the girls knew their situation was perilous. An escape was needed. So they went to see Beauty and the Beast. It began poorly. The projection was too dark, the chaotic CGI dance numbers weren’t an awesome way to recover from a night of overindulgence, and basic philosophical differences between the two elder sisters nearly started a popcorn war. In the end though, they all enjoyed themselves.
…. Ok, enough of that. But now you know how I came to be watching Beauty and the Beast with my mother and sisters last weekend. Like many people, I was curious to see what Emma Watson would do as Belle, especially given her claims that the character is more of a feminist in the new version. To put it mildly, I had my doubts.
The problems with the 1991 Disney retelling are so myriad and fundamental to the story that I couldn’t see how they’d be overcome without a complete overhaul. And this film is not so much an overhaul as a somewhat unsettling live action/cartoon hybrid pantomime. So in the end, I don’t think the problems are overcome. The love story still screams Stockholm Syndrome. There remains an underlying message that a woman’s job is to be pretty, to forgive men’s “beastlike” qualities (especially if they’re rich) and help them be better people. Plus the whole business with the servants as objects is enough for me to want to shut this franchise down. In addition to all that, the combination of live action and animation makes for a very confusing emotional experience. I was more worried about Belle’s horse than I ever was about the Beast. And I cared less about these servants than I did watching the original cartoon, but found myself strumming my fingers waiting for Mrs. Potts to become Emma Thompson.
BUT, I think there is an important difference in this film and it isn’t, as many reviews have claimed, Belle’s boots and bloomers, or her inventions. It has to do with the role of books. While I agree with critics who note that simply liking to read isn’t enough to make a girl character complex, let alone “feminist,” one of the few changes in the new Beauty and the Beast alters the tale just enough that being a “bookworm” is no longer a mere character quirk. Instead the film has become a story about using books as tools for building community, exchanging ideas and transforming the world around you.
Let me explain:
Early in the film, when Belle sings about there being “more than this provincial life,” she’s awful. In fact she suffers from many of the same flaws as The Beast; she’s arrogant, condescending, and doesn’t see the people in her village as anything more than caricatures of the function they serve in society. She is portrayed as superior to the small minded peasants because she reads, she comes from Paris, and she made her own washing machine while the vulgar bumpkins do laundry by hand. The only people she shows any real kindness towards are the vicar who gives her books, and her father – and even then she’s a bit patronizing.
Later she’s held captive by The Beast. When they finally begin to communicate, it’s through their shared love of literature. The Beast’s first gesture of friendship (or whatever) to Belle is offering his enormous library. He tells her he’s read most of the books in the collection, but thought of them as just stories. If we step back for a moment, it’s clear that Belle is guilty of the same thing. She claims to love Shakespeare, but his words don’t seem to have made her more wise or empathetic – at least not as concerns the people in her village. She cares for her father, obviously. However, while her decision to take his place at the castle is meant to display her courage and independence, it also shows that she isn’t a very good listener. Belle and the Beast are both isolated by stories. They use them as a means of escape from the “real world,” but are also trapped by the stories they tell themselves about who they are, where they came from, and how they’re meant to interact with the world.
Belle learns empathy at the palace, along with the Beast. And they learn not through books, but through conversations about books. Until they begin to exchange ideas and see how the same words can mean different things when viewed through different eyes, the books are just dead objects. (Or maybe servants? Sorry, that part is still really off-putting.)
This point is emphasized through the most important addition to the new film: a magic book that can transport the reader anywhere in time or space. The Beast claims it’s a cruel joke, showing him a world he can never truly inhabit. It isn’t until the pair take a trip inside the book together that it becomes meaningful. Belle gains understanding of her father. The Beast gains understanding of Belle.
The magic of stories isn’t in the books. It’s in their ability to bring people together and move those people to action.
I began this article by describing how I came to be watching a children’s movie on a rainy Sunday with my mother and sisters. The experience wasn’t earth shattering. We all had mixed reactions to the film that could basically be summed up as “meh.” But then we talked about it. And as we talked, I started thinking…“There’s something about books though. What if it isn’t love, but literature that makes the Beast human?” Appropriately it was my younger sister (it’s always the youngest of three who breaks the curse), blessed with the rare virtues of patience and the ability to listen, who gave me the clue to solving this puzzle. “But he’s read all the books,” my sister said. “It’s not until Belle arrives that they mean anything to him.”
And it wasn’t until I talked about this Disney film with my mother and sisters that the story meant anything to me. #feminism
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