Holthaus 1 Pauline Holthaus November 26, 2013

Who is the Beauty and Who is the Beast? Racial Ideology in Disneys Beauty and the Beast

Summary Beauty and the Beast is Walt Disneys classic childrens movie of a beautiful woman who falls in love with a monster, only to find out that she has actually fallen for a cursed prince. This movie follows a woman named Belle who is considered an outsider within her town because, unlike other women of the time, she spends her days reading, dreaming of adventure, and supporting her oddball-inventor father. In her town is a brawny, boorish man named Gaston, who claims to be the most handsome man in town and wants to marry the most beautiful womanBelle. However, Belle turns him down, because she is intelligent enough to see that his good looks do not make up for his vanity and stupidity, and she couldnt bear the thought of becoming a housewife when she wants Adventure in the great wide somewhere. She finds this adventure when she rescues her father from the Beast by offering to be his prisoner. At first Belle does not want to be around him, but through a series of encounters, she finds that he is just like anyone else and falls for his sincere and generous nature. At the end of the movie, the Gaston, along with the town mob, tries to kill the beast, but Belle saves him by giving him true loves kiss. The dominant reading of Beauty and the Beast appears within the first few minutes of the movie when the sorceress tells the prince, Do not be deceived by appearances, for true beauty can be found within. Throughout the movie, appearances and beauty are a source of conversation. Belle is beautiful, both inside and out. She is kind, gentle, and does not want to become a trophy wife for any man. Gaston is handsome, but only on the outside. He does underhanded things to get his way, like trying to place Belles father in the insane asylum in order to blackmail her into marrying him. His looks do not make up for his cruel and ignorant personality. In contrast, the Beast has been cursed for his previous vanity and had to learn to be beautiful on the inside. At the beginning he was rude and intimidating towards Belle because he didnt believe anyone could see past his appearance, but when he let his guard down he turned out to be very generous and trusting. The overall message of the movie is that people should not make judgments based upon appearances because it is inner beauty that truly counts. Analysis In Beauty and the Beast, the viewer sees reality through Belles perspective. Her reality is the one that is most real, visible, and powerful to the viewer. It is through her reality that the viewer comes to love the generosity seen in the Beast and condemn the egotism seen in Gaston. Overall, Belles lack of prejudice towards outward appearances benefits the Beast. In Messages between the Lions: The Dominance of the Transmission Paradigm in Student Interpretations of The Lion King, Naomi Rockler writes, In a culture in which people understand the social world through the lens of individualism, people are more apt to understand the impact of the media on individuals as opposed to the impact of the media on culture, (Rockler 20). In her study, she tries to see if students can understand the racial implications of The Lion King. Beauty and the Beast is similar to The Lion King in that it is a modern-day fable that many Americans are unwilling to look at

Holthaus 2 critically for its racial ideologies. However, unlike The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast has a more positive message. To see the racial ideology of Beauty and the Beast, it must first be accepted that the Beast represents a racial other. He is separate from the all white town where Belle lives and is viewed as dangerous because of the way he looks. An example of this is during The Mob Song, after Belle shows Gaston the picture of the Beast. She tries explaining that he is her friend, but Gaston and the towns people cannot see past his appearances. Gaston shouts, She says this creature is her friend. Well, I've hunted wild beasts and I've seen what they can do! The beast is stereotyped from the moment he is cursed. The mob associated his appearance with violence and cruelty, and, for a while, he believes them. When he starts to fall for Belle, he sees it as a lost cause because by defining himself as a beast the implied stereotype is that he is below her. He laments, Oh, it's no use. She's so beautiful, and I'm... Well, look at me! But Belle does learn to love the Beast because she can see that his outbursts are more about his frustration with the worlds prejudices than because of any inherent violence. In this way, they become a metaphor for an interracial couple. The way the Beast is viewed by Gaston and the people of the town falls in line with Oliver and associates article, The Face of Crime: Viewers Memory of Race-Related Facial Features of Individuals Pictured in the News. In this study, Oliver and her associates studied how viewers remember and associate violent crime with Afrocentric features. According to the article, These authors found that more Afrocentric, rather than Eurocentric, features were significantly associated with negative stereotypes such as being a criminal, poor, and aggressive, and were negatively associated with favorable counterstereotypes such as being smart, responsible, and successful, (Oliver 91). Similarly, the features of the Beast were associated with violence and evilness whereas the counterstereotypes of success and intelligence were associated with Gastons features. Belle was the only person who could look past these associations and see that Gaston was the one who was cruel and evil, and the Beast was just a victim of prejudice. By accepting the idea of the Beast as a racial other from the rest of the town and Belles reality as the dominant reality, Beauty and the Beast rejects racial ideology. Once beast is defined as a racial category within the context of the movie, the prejudice and stereotypes surrounding it start to stand out more. Upon seeing the Beast, they do not need to assume that he is violent, but they do anyway because, We don't like what we don't understand, in fact it scares us, and this monster is mysterious at least. This movie criticizes racial stereotypes and prejudice against races by making the Beast a sympathetic character through Belles eyes. The viewer sees that the only inherent evilness is in the choices people make, not in how they look. Throughout the movie, the Beast becomes a beautiful person, and Gaston reveals his beastliness to the viewer. Conclusion The overall message of Beauty and the Beast is a positive one because it presents a prosocial message about racial ideology. It shows that stereotypes about race are often wrong and that people should be judged by their actions, not their race. One problem that presents itself with this reading is how when the Beast transforms back into a prince, he becomes a white, heterosexual male. The message looses some of its strength when he falls in line with the hegemonic norm. Symbolically, however, the Beast presents a character

Holthaus 3 who is considered racially undesirable by many people, but manages to find his own happily ever after and cast off the towns prejudices. Belle sends the strongest message in the movie by accepting the Beast as he is, claws and all. She is a person who is smart, strong, independent, and is the only one in the town who had the ability to see the Beast without any prejudices. The message this sends is that through education and experience with other races, like Belle had, culture, as a whole, would be less prejudiced against other races. Response Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite movies because I have always admired Belles intelligence and fierce independence. While it was difficult to try to analyze it for something other than the dominant message, I am glad that I decided to look at it for its racial ideology. The message is extremely positive in that with some education and experience, people can look past racial prejudices to see a beautiful human being. One thing that would have really helped in this movie would have been having the Beast stay a beast instead of transforming back into a prince. Then the message would have been a little more realistic, because people do not change races once they fall in love, they are loved inclusive of their race. I think seeing Belle stay with the Beast as a beast would have sent a really strong and cohesive message. Overall, I think Beauty and the Beast has some great prosocial messages about looking past racial stereotypes to see the beautiful person inside. Works Cited Beauty and the Beast. Gary Trousdale and Kurt Wise. November 22, 1991. Oliver, M. B. et al. "The Face of Crime: Viewers' Memory of Race-Related Facial Features of Individuals Pictured in the News." Journal of Communication 54.1 (2004): 88-104. Print. Rockler, Naomi R. "Messages between the Lions: The Dominance of the Transmission Paradigm in Student Interpretations of the Lion King." Journal of Communication Inquiry 25.1 (2001): 6-21. Print.