Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 140

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Popular Culture Review
exposed. Lefou takes the belt over to Gaston and straps it on toumiquet-like,
ringing the base of Gaston’s neck. Gaston is getting excited; his juices are
starting to flow. “No one’s slick as Gaston,” sings Lefou. “No one’s neck’s as
incredibly thick as Gaston’s.” Gaston’s neck and head enlarge from the rush of
blood, and with some straining, he bursts the belt. Lefou keeps up the party,
trying further to convince Gaston that he is not alone and that he is cared for.
Hopping on top of the heads of the men seated before him, Lefou assures Gaston
that they all “play for the same team.”11 As if to prove the point, the men stand
up and begin grabbing Gaston’s phallus, literally swinging Lefou through the
air, back and forth in rhythmic unison. Lefou, highly excited now, takes a beer
and—perhaps prematurely—shoots the liquid, foamy head and all, onto
Gaston’s face, at which point Gaston finally gets into the song in earnest, lunges
at Lefou, and begins beating him. Our hero ends up in an orgiastic pile of men,
happily wrestling with them and biting the random body part thrust toward his
mouth. His boast that “every last inch of [him is] covered with hair”
undoubtedly makes everyone wonder just how many hairy inches of Gaston
there are. Lefou then proclaims, and Gaston confirms, that “no one spits like
Gaston,” though it appears that Lefou swallows (as he is seen literally
swallowing what Gaston spits). Gaston juggles and plays with some of the
“eggs” he finds in the tavern, claims that he’s eaten many of them since he was a
boy and enjoys them even more today, and then remarks that—in case anyone
was still wondering about those inches—he is, today, “roughly the size of a
barge.” Feeling more at ease in his surroundings now, Gaston reclines sideways
in his chair, lets his legs dangle over the arm, points his right foot up in the air in
a balletic, graceful arch, and proclaims his pride in his interior decorating skills.
At this point Belle’s father, Maurice, arrives—an unwelcome guest to the party.
He is worried that he has seen a real life homosexual (“a monster!”), and hopes
to find support among the men to go hunt it down and save his daughter from
such an influence. Maurice’s attitude, though, is currently unwelcome, and so he
is mocked and tossed outside. But the party is nonetheless interrupted by the old
man’s rambling intolerances; the mood is apparently and unfortunately broken.
In his hate and discrimination, Maurice at least manages inadvertently to give
Gaston a new idea for putting on a public spectacle in which Belle can once
again burst Gaston’s ego while reinforcing his heterosexuality to the outside
town at large. Gaston bends down to talk it over with Lefou, whose head, of
course, is poking out between Gaston’s legs. The two get up, embrace, and
dance all around the tavern (Gaston, naturally, leads). Everyone cheers and
laughs, Gaston is happy once again, and all pretenses are—for one final fleeting
moment—dropped as Gaston and Lefou walk arm in arm between adoring lines
of friends in a mock wedding/commitment ceremony. The oppressive mores of
the outside world are, if only for that instant, put on hold inside the tavern. And
as we see Lefou hook his arm onto Gaston’s, the two singing about marriage and