Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 141

Yep, Gaston’s Gay
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walking down the makeshift aisle, the camera pulls back to reveal that the rice
everyone seems to be throwing is really the snow falling outside. Snow falling
on the cold, judgmental, surrounding world outside.
Mounting the Beast
It’s not easy being Gaston. Yet, who is to blame when one is in the
closet? The intolerance of society at large is certainly the main evil, but is there
any culpability on the part of those who live the lie, those—like Gaston and the
new Beast—who accept the evil and by accepting it in some form perpetuate it?
Or is such denial merely a necessary evil for survival’s sake? Classically put, in
ethical terms this is a question of active versus passive duties—perhaps a
question of moral heroism as well. To participate actively in hateful
discrimination is indefensible. For many, it is less clear that morality also
demands one harm one’s self in the name of changing the system as a whole for
others.12 This is not an easy dilemma. Gaston’s is not an easy dilemma.
The truth of the matter is that the distinction between active and passive
duty is perhaps a construct in many cases, thus making the moral language
dubious and the moral debate muddled in cases such as these. We all have our
sins—of omission and commission and many points in between. To their credit,
the Disney filmmakers do not avoid wading into these waters. Gaston is neither
the pure hero in a corrupt world nor the weak villain unwilling to fight for what
is right. He is conflicted. He is a victim, surely, but also a victimizer. Gaston is
morally troubled and morally troubling. And when he meets his downfall, we
are angry with him for having chosen poorly, but we feel for him as well.
It all begins to fall apart when Gaston sees the Beast for the first time.
There is an attraction there, to be sure. The film has already set up the meaning
of the mirror. Gaston looks into mirrors throughout the movie and feigns love
for what he sees. Now the magic mirror, when Gaston looks into it, shows him
the Beast—of course he will love what he sees. But more troubling is the fact
that the eerie reflection is itself a depiction of one possible version of Gaston.
The Beast is Gaston out of the closet, and at first Gaston hates the Beast for his
courage and his openness: Even if the price is being