Tale As Old as Time… or So I’m Told

As we resume our track back through the Disney PrincessesReleased in 1937, Disney's Snow White was a gamble for the company: the first fully-animated, feature-length film ever created. It's success lead to the eventual creation of the Disney Princess franchise, which has spawned 13 main-line films and multiple spin-off movies and shows., we come upon one of the game changes for Disney. Sure, The Little Mermaid came out two years earlier (in 1989) and effectively kicked off the Disney Renaissance, the second golden age for Disney animation, but it was Beauty and the Beast that really showed the way forward for Disney during the era, animation wise. The Little Mermaid was a traditional, 2D, hand drawn affair that barely used CGI at all. Beauty and the Beast, though, really pulled it all together, blending the upon-and-coming 3D art style (that would eventually take over the genre) with the traditional design in a way that felt impressive and seamless.

It’s really the ballroom scene that truly illustrated the artistry of Disney. That moment when Belle clearly falls for the Beast, they go to dance, and the camera sweeps in, flowing around from the top of the ballroom down towards the dancers and then out again. It’s one, seamless shot with the ballroom done in full CGI while Belle and the Beast are handdrawn, and it all feels united. This was the moment that Disney would then use later, with the CGI lava chase in Aladdin, with the sweeping vistas of The Lion King. With all the movement through the jungle of Tarzan. This was the key where Disney truly realized what could be done with 3D design.

Of course it also helped that Beauty and the Beast was a good movie that far outperformed the films that directly came before it. The Little Mermaid was a hit, raking in $235 Mil at the Box Office against a $40 Mil budget, but its direct follow-up, The Rescuers Down Under, barely made a blip with just $47.4 Mil in returns. And then along came Beauty and the Beast, which cleared over $450 Mil against a smaller, $25 Mil budget, and Disney suddenly knew their time back in the spotlight was at hand. It led to a decade of hits that few other animation studios have been able to rival, and it would take the emergence of full 3D theatrical films, led largely by Pixar, to truly change the game afterwards.

Going back and watching the film again, I was struck by just how tight and well thought out the film really is. It’s a simple story of a girl that doesn’t fit in where she lives finding a home in the strangest of places: a magical mansion ruled over by a seemingly evil Beast. But the reason why she finds her home is because she learns that the Beast really isn’t a bad guy. He’s sweet and kind, once he lets you in, and there’s a real heart hiding under all that fur and gruffness. Certainly he’s a darn sight better than the man back at her home town that wants to marry her and won’t take no for an answer.

It was actually really amusing watching the film and seeing it through that lens. Belle (voiced by Paige O'Hara), is pretty and smart, but doesn’t really pay much attention to the world outside her books. Gaston (Richard White) is big and thick and only appreciates Belle for her beauty, not her brains. It’s easy for her to turn him down because he doesn’t have the intellect she’s looking for. And when given the opportunity to hide from him at a mystical castle, she all but locks herself in the cell to get away from Gaston. Is the Beast (Robby Benson) any worse than the lout back in town who can’t take no for an answer?

Now, sure, another way to look at the story is that Belle is functionally kidnapped and, through Stockholm syndrome, falls in love with her kidnapper. That’s an easy interpretation, but it does ignore the fact that, more than once, the Beast lets her go (or actively chases her away), only for her to come back when she realizes there’s more to the Beast than just his grumpy demeanor and outwardly beastly looks. In a way he’s a mirror to her, someone judged by how they look while the person inside then is ignored. It does make them a perfect pair, once they can both get past themselves to see the other.

Not that I truly hate Gaston, mind you. Yes, he’s a lunkhead and, functionally, the villain. But you also get the vibe that while he’s too into Belle, there’s probably a reason the rest of the town adores him. The pretty ladies in town (Mary Kay Bergman and Kath Soucie voice the trio of “Bimbettes”) all think Gaston is “so dreamy”, which means they, too, are judging him for his looks. In a way he’s also a reflection of the Beast, a man who didn’t have the curse and so, over time, he’s become worse and worse, more egotistical and self-centered. But if the Beast could be restored, taken from an awful prince to a cursed beast, and then given a chance to find love and become his best self, couldn’t Gaston somehow have found his way as well?

Okay, maybe I just really like Gaston’s song, titled, of course, “Gaston”. It’s a fun, silly affair that actually does a lot to humanize the guy even as it also paints him as a puffed up blowhard. How can you hate someone this dumb and silly. It’s like hating Patrick Warburton, who could have honestly played a fantastic, live-action version of Gaston. He’s both conceited and stupid, and it comes across so well in “Gaston” that you kind of love him for it. In a different universe (one where Gaston doesn’t get thrown off the top of a castle tower, where, “no one falls off a tower to their death like Gaston…”), you’d expect him to get some small redemption in the end. With a song that good, you want him to get a little redeemed, to realize Belle is better off with the Beast and that he should step aside (and go have a four-way with the Bimbettes).

Of course, that’s not really how the film plays out, but then Gaston also goes full villain in the end, with sweeping music backing him trying to kill the Beast. It’s a fine ending for how things play out, and you don’t really care that much for Gaston in the end since he pretty well fucks everything up by that point, but you do also wonder what could have been. And that’s a fun thing about this movie: it has a number of layers to it. The depth of the relationships between Belle and Beast as well as Belle and Gaston, and how each acts as a kind of reflection of the other. A weaker movie wouldn’t invest that much in the characters, but Beauty and the Beast is stronger for it.

Plus, yes, it is an artistic marvel. The songs are great (although as I’m not a huge appreciator of musicals the songs here don’t hook me as well, even if a number of them are certainly toe-tappers), and the animation is fantastic. This was Disney firing on all cylinders, on all fronts, and it shows. KIt made Beauty and the Beast into a massive achievement, artistically and financially, and it set the stage for all that would come for Disney AnimationThe House of Mouse built on their classics, Disney Animation is considered among the premiere animation masterpieces ever since their first release, Snow White, all the way back in 1937..