“I want adventure in
the great wide somewhere / I want it more than I can tell…”
My favorite Disney princess sings this line in one of the
most personally moving scenes of the animated classic “Beauty and the Beast,”
and this line has been running through my head all evening. Honestly, the
brunette brown-eyed bookworm known as “Belle” has been on my mind a lot lately
– not just today.
Maybe it’s the hype that is surrounding the impending
release of the new live-action movie in March. Maybe it’s my school-loaded mind
trying to escape responsibility by dwelling on happy memories and familiar
storylines. More likely than not, it’s probably the fact that I’m working on a
Halloween costume that is inspired by one of her dresses from the movie.
In any case, my ponderings on “Beauty and the Beast” and
have led me to the conclusion that this is one of Disney’s best princess
movies, and it’s not just because I share some of the heroine’s physical
features – although my 4-year-old self decided that was a great reason to love
the movie.
Brown hair. Brown eyes. Loves books. Has eyebrows. Met a
horse once. Yup – me and Belle are definitely twinning.
No, my love for this movie goes much further than
surface-level similarities. I believe Belle experiences real situations that
even the most average person faces at some point in his or her life, and it is
this resonance with reality that lifts this film above a veritable sea of
Disney movies.
Reality vs. Imagination
During the first part of the movie, Belle yearns for the
chance to live an adventure like the ones she reads about in books. She walks
through town preoccupied by a story that takes her far away from “this
provincial life.”
I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve definitely connected
with her situation. I’ve gotten lost in another world when reading books and
living vicariously through the characters. I’ve also experienced the “book
hangover,” where real life is so hard to jump back into because the book
provided such an intense experience. I’ve wanted adventure and ached for that
which I did not have.
And then Belle gets what she wants. “Be careful what you
wish for, because you just might get it.” She goes on a quest to recover her
father and ends up trading her freedom for his, resulting in her imprisonment
in an enchanted castle that is ruled by a terrifying beast. The animated movie
does not delve deeply into Belle’s reflections on her predicament, but the
musical developed for stage productions explores her emotions here in the song
“Home.”
"Home"
“What I’d give to
return to the life that I knew lately / And to think I complained of that dull
provincial town,” she sings. I can’t claim any connection with her
situation (imprisonment, loss of freedom and family), but I can certainly
relate to her experience of accomplishing a dream only to realize it bears no
similarities to the imagined conception of it. Disillusionment with a
once-cherished idea is a universal experience, and one that Belle embodies
poignantly.
Crossing Lines
As far as heroines went, I always thought of Belle as pretty
flawless. She loves her father, gives the Beast a big second chance, and throws
a mean snowball.
But then I remembered the West Wing.
Belle infiltrates the West Wing, the inner sanctum which the
Beast expressly forbid her to enter. She nearly touches an enchanted rose
before the Beast discovers her and flies into a rage, and then Belle runs away
for fear of her safety.
All ends well enough, for Beast saves her from wolves in the
snowstorm outside and Belle returns with him to treat his wounds and keep her
promise. They argue about where the fault lies for Beast’s injuries:
Beast: “If you hadn’t run away, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Belle: “Well, if you hadn’t frightened me I wouldn’t have
run away!”
Beast: “Well, you shouldn’t have been in the West Wing!”
Belle: “Well, you should learn to control your temper.”
Silence.
Belle wins. If Beast had better control of his emotions and
hadn’t been so flustered by Belle’s appearance, they could have avoided this situation
altogether. What’s the big deal with the West Wing, then?
The problem here is that Beast establishes a very clear
boundary and Belle ignores it. He gives her as much freedom within the castle
as he can without letting her leave and asks only that she not enter the West
Wing. She violates this stipulation – not out of malice or revenge (although
one does wonder, considering her plight), but out of curiosity.
Look at that face. Curiosity in its purest form.
The mystery is just too enticing – she must know the secrets of the West Wing. Although Belle is scared
half to death by Beast’s reaction, she brings it upon herself by prying into a
very personal place. She experiences the terrifying consequences of her
decision, but she also puts the Beast through agony – the one place his secrets
are safely hidden has been found out, his insecurities and vulnerability
exposed.
I can recall times when I have asked one question too many,
when I have been Belle in the West Wing of someone’s private struggles. This
sort of trespassing does damage to our own souls and character, and it is easy
to reflect on how this action or that decision has been detrimental to our own
person – but what has our idle curiosity cost the other person? I think I’m not
the only person who has encountered this situation before.
Beast might have serious flaws, but such flaws should never
have been used as a justification for crossing a boundary he desperately needed
to be respected.
Eucatastrophe
In his essay “On Fairy-Stories,” J. R. R. Tolkien defines eucatastrophe as “the consolation of
fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good
catastrophe, the sudden joyous “turn”…it is a sudden and miraculous grace:
never to be counted on to recur.”
Every fairy tale ends with a happy ending, but Beauty and the Beast finishes with an
ending that is worthy of Tolkien’s definition of eucatastrophe. Belle and the Beast don’t just experience a happy
ending; they experience a happy ending that should not have happened.
Beast dies. (For the sake of this point, please ignore the
fact that pretty much every Disney character who dies comes back to life). In
many the other Disney fairy tales, the main characters don’t die (Little
Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Aladdin, etc.). Belle held Beast as he
died. Strike one.
Not only does Beast die, but whether or not the spell under
which he was cast should have been undone is debatable. The spell stated that
if before the last petal of his
enchanted rose fell “he could learn to love another, and earn her love in return,
the spell would be broken.” But Belle says “I love you” as the last petal
falls. Should that really count as “before” the last petal falls? Her timing
seems questionable to me. Strike two.
The spell also said only that the spell would be broken – i.e.,
that Beast would get to have his human form back. He was never promised to be
given his life back if he should die even in the event that the spell was broken. Belle still would have ended
up alone. Strike three.
In short, Belle should never have had a happy ending, but
she still gets it. In fact, she gets a happy ending at the point at which it
could not – no – should not be
expected. So many things went wrong, but in the end, all inexplicably came out
right. Eucatastrophe.
Tolkien says eucatastrophe is a proclamation of the Gospel in
that it shows death does not have the final say and that there is joy beyond
the realm of this life, but I think Belle’s unbounded joy at the realization of
her happy ending is a universal experience. It might happen in a big way, but I
think eucatastrophes happen all the time in the little ways: a random text from
a friend, being asked out to a dance, coming home to fresh-baked cookies, the
forming of a friendship. We don’t necessarily expect these hardly-hoped-for
goods to come our way, and we can never assume that they’ll happen again, but
these are the small miracles God gives us all the time without us deserving
them.
This is the face every college student makes upon hearing
that class is cancelled: eucatastrophe.
http://data.whicdn.com/images/88347380/large.jpg
There are so many reasons to love Beauty and the Beast, but I
hope this reflection displays the real merit of this universally relatable
film.
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