I am a feminist who loves fairytales. I love the fantasy, the romance, and the history (often dark and disturbing) of these stories. Which can be problematic, depending on what fairytale you're looking at.
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Which is why I was both intrigued and a little excited (did I mention I also love a good musical?) to see the premiere of Beauty and the Beast, Disney's remake of its original animation, now 25 years old.
At the time, the animation was hailed as creating a new version of the Disney heroine – a smart, independent young woman, quite in contrast to the previous female leads (passive, pretty and permissive).
![Emma Watson in a trailer for <i>Beauty and the Beast</i>.](/web/20170310003210im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/o/l/5/7/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gutequ.png/1489027979678.jpg)
Kate Forsyth is a fairytale researcher and author. Her latest book, The Beast's Garden, is a retelling of the original Beauty and the Beast. She says that the screenwriter for the 1991 film version was an inspired choice.
"Linda Woolverton drew upon the version of the tale told by the 18th century French writer Jeanne-Marie le Prince de Beaumont, which is the best known version ... Linda Woolverton's script is unusually faithful to the original source material – unlike the Disney version of The Little Mermaid (1989), for example – and I think it is interesting that she was the first woman Disney ever hired to write the script for an animated film. I think her script has a great deal more sensitivity and depth than other Disney remakes, because both the hero and the heroine must travel a journey of transformation and each brings about change in the other."
The Belle of Woolverton's tale started to turn the tide on the way females were portrayed in fairytales.
Don't get me wrong, I still have issues with the way they are drawn (don't start me on Elsa's tiny waist, sexy dress or those huge, huge eyes) but you just have to look at Merida in Brave, who chooses to fight for her own hand in marriage, or that "true love" in Frozen is proven when one sister saves the other and most recently in Moana the heroine is a girl destined to be chief who sales across the oceans to save her tribe.
![Emma Watson stars as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast in Disney's new live-action version of the classic animation.](/web/20170310003210im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/t/g/2/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gutequ.png/1489031750078.jpg)
But this is also where Beauty and the Beast is problematic.
The storyline itself does not read well. That is, a beautiful peasant girl trades her life for her father's, is locked away with a beast until she falls in love with him. And they live happily ever after.
![The relationship between Maurice, Belle's father, and Belle, is one way the storyline has evolved.](/web/20170310003210im_/http://www.canberratimes.com.au/content/dam/images/g/u/t/f/m/y/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gutequ.png/1489027979678.jpg)
This was highlighted to me, as many moments of insight are, on Facebook. A friend of mine Anna posted that Beauty and the Beast made her physically ill.
When I asked her to explain further, Anna wrote back: "She is held captive by a literal monster, isolated from the world (the abuse metaphors really aren't hard to spot), until she falls in love with him. It feels like Stockholm syndrome … It's certainly not the only problematic fairytale going around. But even as a child, I found this story creepy and disturbing. And that's without even mentioning Gaston. Ugh. No amount of singing crockery could convince me to go see it."
With that echoing in my head, I wondered if Emma Watson (who plays the lead, Belle) was deluded when she took Gloria Steinem to see the final cut, to confirm that her portrayal of Belle was feminist. Could changing the wardrobe (so that she had pockets for handy things, and no corsets) and vocations (apparently, Belle is now an inventor) really make that much difference to a story that, as Anna points out, teaches young girls that abusive relationships are OK?
Would I really want my own daughter to see this version of the film?
Having now seen the movie, I am pleased to report that Emma Watson was not deluded, and that she did, indeed, pull off a feminist heroine. For me, it's her portrayal of Belle that has put my mind at rest about this film, and it's not about what she wears.
Belle in this version of the story is all about action. It's what she says, and how she makes her choices, that make her the active heroine in this movie. The Beast, despite his rages and oversized shaggy presence, is the passive one compared to her.
When we're introduced to Belle at the beginning, her father tells her she's "fearless" like her mother, she's invented a washing machine and is teaching a girl how to read (which is not condoned in her village). It's a good start right?
Throughout the film she never does as she's told. She tries to escape by tying a series of dresses together. She refuses to go to dinner with the beast even as he rages at her door, and she ventures into parts of the castle she's been told to avoid.
She's curious, feisty, smart and kind. And there are the things she says. It felt pointed to me when Belle disdainfully denied that she was a "princess". And after a romantic (and beautiful) waltz with the Beast, in a tender moment he asks her if she would ever be happy with him, and she replies "can anyone be truly happy if they aren't free?" (Or something along those lines).
So, would I let my daughter watch this film? The answer would be yes, well … When she's a bit older (she's only five, and not quite ready for the drama and violence in it yet).
As Kate Forsyth says, "Fairytales are not stagnant; they are a natural living and evolving aspect of human society", and in this case, I think that this latest version of Beauty and the Beast is much more reflective of where many women are at today.
Strong, independent protagonists in their own lives. And in that way, I guess you could call this movie one of the first "feminist" Disney movies.
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