11. From the musical which made the most impact on you.

Oh, my little baby heart. Beauty and the Beast. The answer is so Beauty and Beast. 

Bookish Belle made me feel comfortable to be bookish me when I was a youngling in ways I can’t begin to describe. 

And, okay, I totally know the criticism. She ends up with her kidnapper at the end, and that is problematic. It’s very, very problematic.

But like, okay, I know I’ve said this stuff before, but like-

In a way the entire story is about consent, and serves as a primer for the definition of how consent works and what it is. It’s awesome.

Belle doesn’t love the Beast and change him. He loves her long before she loves him back, and-

We’re step by stepping this. 

Gaston, a figure who isn’t in any original version of the fairy tale I’ve come across, he is a clear definition for the audience of what it means to not respect the autonomy of others. Hell, in sex ed in middle school we even watched the cabin proposal scene in order to discuss bad behaviour and the definition of sexual harassment. 

Gaston feels entitled to Belle, and is so unwilling to acknowledge her personhood that the thought of her denying him doesn’t even occur to him as a possibility. 

And then Belle goes out to selflessly rescue her father, showing her nobility and her bravery. And we meet the Beast, who just like Gaston has no respect for Belle’s personhood. The Beast has been given to us as a figure who does not know how to love.  And this is the state in which we meet him, as someone who literally lacks the ability to love. 

But he can, in theory, learn to love. And so he selfishly keeps Belle in order to attempt to do this so he can break the spell. And this is awful, it’s an awful violation of consent, and is treated that way. It’s not treated as romantic, Belle cries, yells at the Beast for not letting her say goodbye and again when he tries to force her to have dinner with him. 

And every single turn in their relationship is instigated by his efforts. Belle is not a damsel in distress, nor does she make any attempt to change the Beast. When he says she can’t have dinner without him, she disobeys him. When he threatens her, she runs. When she’s about to be eaten by wolves, she picks up a stick and sets to defend herself. And when the Beast saves her life, she honestly considers leaving him to die (which would have been perfectly fine).

Even when kidnapped, she takes every opportunity to assert her will, to stand up to those who try to own her.

But that first move towards a better relationship? It was the Beast’s. He saved her life, so she saved his and looked after him. But she still didn’t put up with his crap, lecturing him when he tries to blame her for being the victim of his abuse.

And then they start spending time together, and he stops making demands of her. 

And he wants to show her kindness, so he gives her a library.

And he takes an interest in her interests.

And he asks her on a fancy date with a ballroom and a dress and dinner and dancing.

But does the movie say that he’s learned to love yet? No, not yet. Not yet.

The movie doesn’t say he’s learned to love until after he lets her go. 

Because saving her life, treating her with kindness, giving her gifts, enjoying her company - these things aren’t love. You can’t ever love without respecting the other person’s right to say no. 

And it was only when the Beast did that that he finally did love. It wasn’t love, couldn’t have been love, without that respect. The movie spells out that consent is necessary for love. That love cannot exist where there is coercion or force. 

But, Mrs. Potts says, that’s not enough to break the spell. Because here the movie spells out, she still doesn’t love him. That whole time, she didn’t love him!

And this is why I really love it. It wasn’t her ~love~ or her ~feminizing influence~ that changed him, because she didn’t love him. That whole time, she didn’t love him, so it wasn’t a story of her trying to groom him into some acceptable husband. He changed himself, because he wanted to be a better person. Was Belle the motivation for that? Absolutely. But it wasn’t something she did, it was something he did. He did it on his own, and for himself, because he figured out it was the right thing to do.

And she wasn’t able to love him until after he’d done it.

Is it still really problematic that she winds up with her kidnapper? Totally. But when I was a kid I never got “I can change him!” out of this movie. What I got was “Don’t put up with men who don’t respect you, no matter what.” Because Belle didn’t put up with it, and that was awesome. She never once put up with it, and didn’t allow herself to fall in love with anyone, man or Beast, who didn’t respect her.

I’ve talked forever, haven’t I? I JUST REALLY LOVE THIS MOVIE OKAY?

I love it so much that in my iTunes there’s this:

That is a playlist of the song Beauty and the Beast 41 times, in 41 different versions.

(For the record, I really like the Gregorian Chants version)

Okay, but anyway, Beauty and the Beast TOTES INFLUENCED ME IN A REALLY POSITIVE WAY. SO THERE.