Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 133

Yep, Gaston’s Gay
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The new Beast no longer stomps around the castle, resentful and angry
at Belle for what he must do. This is a Beast who conceals, who now hopes the
young girl won’t go into the special forbidden room where he keeps a portrait of
himself, a rose, and a lovely hand mirror. This is a Beast who now gets angry
when his staff does a big production number (he lives, after all, in a castle where
everyone sings and dances and loves show tunes). This is a Beast who is broken,
who admits defeat, who hides his fairy tail beneath a gentleman’s cape. But try
as he might, his true nature is there for anyone who still wishes to see it. Even at
the moment of his transformation into Man, the Beast does not step easily into
the role. In a classic Disney reversal, it is not a sleeping Beauty who needs the
kiss of her prince to end the story. Rather, the defeated prince—fresh from
wrestling in sweaty combat with Gaston—is awakened, saved by the kiss of
Beauty’s tear, ready to embark on a life of lies.
Beauty is Proof, Proof Beauty
But of course one must wonder why Beauty agrees to this. Once she
discovers the Beast’s penchant for show tunes, flowers, and fur, why does she
agree to play along, to take up the traditional “masculine” role, reviving him
with her tears and declaration of love? To see the answer, one must accept a
rather startling fact about Belle’s character. Belle is not really a very nice
person. She is a selfish, scheming, shallow manipulator—worse, by far, than
Gaston, whose outward egotism is merely an act.
From the start, Belle holds her neighbors in contempt—they are little
people with little dreams, she proclaims, and she wants “so much more than
they’ve got planned.” Belle is certain that she is better than everyone around her,
that she deserves more out of life than these simple folk. As she walks through
town in the film’s opening scene, she sings her disparagements: The baker has
his “same old bread and rolls to sell,” the quiet village is full of “little people” to
whom she feels no connection and for whom she has no respect, she deserves
much more than the “provincial life” with which everyone else seems content.
The tmth is that from the start, Belle appears to be more of a snob than a
heroine. She is not satisfied merely to wish for something new, she wants
something more than everyone else. She is not prepared merely to see herself as
different; she feels she is better than everyone else.
At first it appears that Belle’s shallow character will only admit caring
for her father—that this Beauty is only kin deep—but even this is a ruse. Belle
doesn’t work and she has no plans to marry. Consequently, she needs her father
to get by—at least for now. And so when he (and the possibility of his
invention’s prize money, which he promises will be the start of a new life for
them both) is at risk, she takes off to rescue him.
It would undoubtedly be going too far to maintain that Belle is surely a
lesbian. There are hints that this might be the case, but in the end the narrative is
less than conclusive. We know that Belle is uninterested in the men in town,