Why Belle Should Have Chosen Gaston
March 28, 2017 7:43 AM   Subscribe

Why Belle Should Have Chosen Gaston, "A PowerPoint presentation by me" (warning: douchey automatic video plays on this page) is a scholarly but accessible look at factors, both personal and socioeconomic, that lead to the controversial and explosive conclusion that Belle should have opted to marry Gaston instead of the Beast.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl (50 comments total) 15 users marked this as a favorite
 
Who looks at a PowerPoint and thinks, "there must be a way to make this worse...I know, autoplaying video!"?
posted by thelonius at 7:49 AM on March 28, 2017 [7 favorites]


Gaston is described as being completely covered in hair and roughly the size of a barge, which makes me wonder if there's actually a difference between her relationship choices beyond personality.
posted by selfnoise at 7:49 AM on March 28, 2017 [50 favorites]


Who looks at a PowerPoint and thinks, "there must be a way to make this worse...I know, autoplaying video!"?

They needed something you could complain about to distract you from the overwhelming majesty of the article's conclusions or you would be unable to process it appropriately and your brain would explode. It's for your own good.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 7:51 AM on March 28, 2017 [18 favorites]


Hmm. 24 is a goodly amount of time for Belle to have sickened of the Prince, secretly joined the revolutionary movement, plotted from the inside on the takedown of the nobility and made off with now mature and therefore nuanced non-evil Gaston and all the cash for the purpose of distribution amongst the poor.

Or, have done with the lot of them and migrated to the new world with her own damn self in 1773 to support the war of independence.
posted by freya_lamb at 7:55 AM on March 28, 2017 [9 favorites]


Plan c) escape to another movie. Beast and Gaston have comparable disrespect for the autonomy of women. Sebastian the crab would be a better choice.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 7:57 AM on March 28, 2017 [34 favorites]


escape to another movie

I'm all for AnnaBelle.
posted by Pendragon at 8:03 AM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


Point of Order: Liberty Leading the People doesn't happen until the much-later July Revolution of 1830, and is much more suited not to Beauty and the Beast, but Les Miserables. This pedantry is brought to you by a Delacroix fan. Carry on.
posted by Capt. Renault at 8:03 AM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]


This PowerPoint fundamentally misunderstands both Disney and the basic purpose of 'Magic' in Disney universe. Similar to how, in Watchmen, the appearance of superheroes led to an alteration of history in favor of traditional establishment power, the purpose of magic in Disney is to suppress progressive egalitarian elements in favor of traditional monarchy and aristocracy.

That's because monarchy produces more Disney Princesses, which are both the source of and the product of Disney 'Magic'. Just as the enchanted decorations of Beast's castle defeated the storming rabble (a clear echo of the future revolutionaries), here undoubtedly the Sorceress would have deployed some enchantments to defeat the future revolutionaries and to preserve the Ancien Regime.
posted by leotrotsky at 8:14 AM on March 28, 2017 [38 favorites]


With the Beast, at least you get exciting foods: "try the grey stuff, it's delicious".

Life with Gaston = very egg-focused.
posted by threetwentytwo at 8:19 AM on March 28, 2017 [35 favorites]


This PowerPoint fundamentally misunderstands both Disney and the basic purpose of 'Magic' in Disney universe. Similar to how, in Watchmen, the appearance of superheroes led to an alteration of history in favor of traditional establishment power, the purpose of magic in Disney is to suppress progressive egalitarian elements in favor of traditional monarchy and aristocracy.

The Disney world is, like Middle Earth, fundamentally statist and unchanging, with a belief in predestination and a hostility towards those who would seek to better themselves via industry and commerce (e.g. Saruman, Cruella DeVille).
posted by leotrotsky at 8:22 AM on March 28, 2017 [12 favorites]


Life with Gaston = very egg-focused.

Oh my God I just imagined sleeping next to him and I never want to imagine that again

The Disney world is, like Middle Earth, fundamentally statist and unchanging, with a belief in predestination and a hostility towards those who would seek to better themselves via industry and commerce (e.g. Saruman, Cruella DeVille).

This is true, but I think it's not just historical artifact; it's also a reflection of the way children see the world. The whole world operates on the level of the family drama, to children, and why shouldn't it -- what else do they know? Can they understand the delicate balance between encouraging a partner towards inner growth and being a doormat to him in hopes that you can change him? Between industrial innovation and deforestation? Not until puberty, at best.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:38 AM on March 28, 2017 [14 favorites]


I've said it before, but the best version of "Beauty and the Beast" is still pretty much Jane Eyre.
posted by thivaia at 8:43 AM on March 28, 2017 [27 favorites]


If we can widen our scope a little, the Marquis de Condorcet was single and ready to mingle in 1764.
posted by Iridic at 8:43 AM on March 28, 2017 [8 favorites]


Belle, in both the animated and live-action versions, very clearly chooses the Beast for the awesomeness of his library. French history/the revolution are irrelevant. Belle chose the right guy. Because BOOKS!
posted by pjsky at 8:54 AM on March 28, 2017 [20 favorites]


I now fully support the idea of Belle moving to America to help the Revolution along, as this increases her chances of taking up with a shy, liberal American librarian. brb off to write fanfic
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:55 AM on March 28, 2017 [10 favorites]


now mature and therefore nuanced non-evil Gaston

I mean, the more likely scenario is that Gaston leads a cult-of-personality totalitarian society under the guise of a people's revolution. Even if you apply a veneer of populist wealth redistribution, I'm pretty sure the core is still evil.
posted by pwnguin at 9:00 AM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]


brb off to write fanfic

and we inch closer to a Hamilton crossover
posted by Countess Elena at 9:00 AM on March 28, 2017 [17 favorites]


cjelli: Look, all I'm asking for is a PowerPoint presentation that would be persuasive to a fictional character in pseudo-historical-France-but-with-magic...

THESIS: If Charles Bovary was clairvoyant, and knew his wife's intentions, he would not have married her in the first place. Discuss.
posted by wenestvedt at 9:12 AM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


This seems an appropriate place to link to a great recent question on r/askhistorians:

How many 16th century French laying hens would be required to feed Gaston his five dozen eggs?

TL;DR: 140+ chickens.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:12 AM on March 28, 2017 [16 favorites]


Belle, in both the animated and live-action versions, very clearly chooses the Beast for the awesomeness of his library.

And in the live-action version the Beast quotes Shakespeare, which surprises and impresses Belle. But what I haven't seen remarked on yet is that in both versions Gaston also quotes Shakespeare ("Screw your courage to the sticking place," in the song "Kill the Beast," taken from Macbeth.)

Not that that should change Belle's opinion of Gaston, but maybe he's not quite the illiterate imbecile he pretends to be, and maybe Belle shouldn't be quite so impressed with the Beast's intellect or his library.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:24 AM on March 28, 2017 [13 favorites]


DevilsAdvocate - you are right that perhaps Belle should not necessarily be impressed with the Beast's intellect just because he quotes Shakespeare. However, his library is amazing regardless and I stand by my assertion that Belle made the right choice. Books over Bros. If Gaston had the amazing library, he would have been the better choice. Because BOOKS.
posted by pjsky at 9:29 AM on March 28, 2017 [11 favorites]


One more for team "There were a lot of other fish in the sea; surely some of them not lycanthropes or total d-bags."
posted by aspersioncast at 9:31 AM on March 28, 2017 [12 favorites]


gaston? ducky shoulda got the girl.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:35 AM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


This presentation fundamentally misunderstands the timeline of Beauty and the Beast.

Obviously, the film is set post-Revolution. The Beast was cursed during the Revolution, which explains why the castle is outfitted in 18thc furnishings and decor, and also why nobody noticed a member of the nobility and his entire staff and castle going missing. The Beast was cursed in his late teens (since the damaged portrait shows him with a more or less adult appearance); the rose began to wilt 3-5 years in, but took much longer to lose its petals completely.

I would also put forth that the castle residents have not been keeping track of the passage of time accurately (unsurprising, given that the castle and grounds are apparently subject to random seasonal fluctuations), so Lumiere's claim that 'ten years we've been rusting' is suspect at best. My guess is closer to twenty-five years since the rose began to wilt, putting the story somewhere in the early 1820s. This setting is a passable match to the clothing worn by the villagers, is a time when steam engines were a developing technology, and also neatly skips over the Napoleonic period.

(how's that for a plate of beans?)
posted by nonasuch at 9:46 AM on March 28, 2017 [37 favorites]


THESIS: If Charles Bovary was clairvoyant, and knew his wife's intentions, he would not have married her in the first place. Discuss.

Disagree. See: young Charles' hat. Even knowing that the hat was a humiliation to him and his reputation, he was unable to throw it on the ground. He would be equally incapable of not choosing a wife who seems to elevate his station, even as she actually confirms his contemptibility.

Also, I feel like any discussion of any Disney adaptations is incomplete without discussion of Robin McKinley's Beauty, which is obviously the pinnacle of B&theB adaptations. One of its greatest innovations is a sentient library that contains every book ever written, including books that have yet to be written. I would marry almost anyone-- including Charles Bovary!-- for access to that.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:47 AM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


HERMIONE SHOULD HAVE CHOSE HARRY!!!


(no, not really.)
posted by asteria at 10:00 AM on March 28, 2017


However, his library is amazing regardless and I stand by my assertion that Belle made the right choice. Books over Bros.

If the library is the important thing, she could have just killed the Beast herself and taken the castle and the library as her own, especially considering that the townspeople don't know about the castle. I think it's reasonable to assume that if the Beast dies all the servants take on their inanimate forms — after all, that's just another way in which the Beast fails to lift the curse. So Belle doesn't have to worry about them after the Beast is dead; on the other hand, if they realize what she's up to, they'll try to stop her.

So the question, then, is how? She can't overpower the Beast physically. Poison might be a traditional choice, except for all that pesky sentient tableware which might alert the Beast to such an attempt. Hmmm. You know, those really high staircases out in front of the castle looked really icy in the ever-winter which seems to be part of the curse, and I'm not sure how much traction even a Beast with mighty claws would have on them...
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:07 AM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Both a little scared
Neither one prepared
Beauty and the Grandson of the Guy who Runs the Local Bookstore Priest
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:23 AM on March 28, 2017 [11 favorites]


Lumiere's claim that 'ten years we've been rusting' is suspect at best. My guess is closer to twenty-five years

Right; they could have been hanging around for 15 years before the rust started setting in.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 10:26 AM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


Certainly, no one fights like him.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:35 AM on March 28, 2017


Beauty and the Grandson of the Guy who Runs the Local Bookstore Priest

And you thought Southern Baptists had a problem with Lefou's gay moment...
posted by Talez at 10:50 AM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


Beauty and She's Just Fine Living On Her Own Thanks, Would You Please Stop Trying To Fix Her Up With People?
posted by Chrysostom at 10:56 AM on March 28, 2017 [21 favorites]


Beauty and She's Just Fine Living On Her Own Thanks, Would You Please Stop Trying To Fix Her Up With People?

She's from a town where anyone who deviates from restrictive social norms or even dreams of the possibility gets hunted down and thrown in an abusive asylum! I certainly can't blame her for agreeing to a political match with someone who has battlements.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 11:00 AM on March 28, 2017 [14 favorites]


I have an attractive hairy chest! Maybe that's why my wife chose me over that thing in the garage.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:06 AM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]


I think it's important to bear in mind that the Beast is apparently a bison, and therefore stands a good chance of being infected with brucellosis.
posted by irrelephant at 11:21 AM on March 28, 2017 [12 favorites]


No. My personal headcanon is that Belle moves to the city and becomes a key ally of the Marquis de Condorcet and Lafayette, where, guided by their tutelage, she enlists the aid of Alexandre Dumas. Together they offset the Jacobins, stabilize the National Assembly, and a new belle epoque is established as a cultural consequence of the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage across the Hegemony of the 1st Republique of France.
There may be some discreet romancing of Mary Wollstonecraft, as well.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 11:39 AM on March 28, 2017 [10 favorites]


who cares who Belle picks? Gaston should pick the blond triplets who are throwing themselves at him.
posted by jrishel at 11:55 AM on March 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


What's this nonsense about Belle being a populist. Her opening number is literally about how dull and provincial she finds all the poor villagers around her.
posted by Emily's Fist at 12:36 PM on March 28, 2017 [10 favorites]


OK, so apparently I can neither access any meme generators from work nor figure out how to make the political compass look right with just text, so I'll just spell it out:

Left Authoritarian: Gaston
Right Authoritarian: Beast
Left Libertarian: Maurice
Right Libertarian: Belle
posted by Copronymus at 12:50 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


What's this nonsense about Belle being a populist. Her opening number is literally about how dull and provincial she finds all the poor villagers around her.

Which is why Belle, not Ariel, has always been the true Disney hipster.
posted by leotrotsky at 2:00 PM on March 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


Linking reddit but not askme?
posted by Carillon at 2:00 PM on March 28, 2017 [5 favorites]


Her opening number is literally about how dull and provincial she finds all the poor villagers around her.

"Every morning just the same, since the morning that we came / to this poor provincial town." Where did Belle and Maurice come from, then? Are they Parisians? If the story does take place in the 1820s, then perhap the reactionary violence of the Second White Terror drove them into rural seclusion.
posted by Iridic at 3:23 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]


I didn't want to be the one to tell you this, but the Beast's library is filled with copies of Atlas Shrugged and The Art of the Deal.
posted by Sparx at 3:42 PM on March 28, 2017 [15 favorites]


"Every morning just the same, since the morning that we came / to this poor provincial town." Where did Belle and Maurice come from, then? Are they Parisians? If the story does take place in the 1820s, then perhap the reactionary violence of the Second White Terror drove them into rural seclusion.

...this is explained in the new movie as plague (with plague doctors even!), which screws up the time period even more.
posted by leotrotsky at 3:43 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


it's also a reflection of the way children see the world. The whole world operates on the level of the family drama, to children, and why shouldn't it -- what else do they know? Can they understand the delicate balance between encouraging a partner towards inner growth and being a doormat to him in hopes that you can change him? Between industrial innovation and deforestation? Not until puberty, at best.

I strongly disagree. Children can be taught about stuff like consent, sharing, communication, understanding and being able to articulate their own emotions, empathy with others, respect for their peers, and other not-being-a-doormat skills from a very young age Such skills then help even relatively young kids distinguish between eg. helpful strangers they might need to rely on in an emergency versus dangerous strangers, and well as between kind and loving adult relatives versus abusive adult relatives; and can give the kids the necessary confidence to bring problems with an abusive adult to another non-abusive adult, and other forms of sticking up for themselves against adults.

Then for industrial innovation, you've got the Richard Scarry books; and for deforestation, you've got The Lorax.
posted by eviemath at 6:03 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


although if the plague fled is in the environs of the Great Plague of Marseilles, that occurred during 1720, which puts us back in the early to mid 1700s again.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 6:11 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's charming how optimistic those slides are. The author thinks they survive for 25 years or more? Try a week.

The whole court used to be furniture. Now, they have to eat. None of those plates and dishes looked much like soldiers or hunters to me -- these were fops. Now they're hungry fops, and getting hungrier.

The only conceivable course that could preserve the Beast and Belle as nobles would be to set out immediately, before they all get any hungrier, to the king, and throw themselves on the mercy of the crown. Maybe there would be some political reason for the king to restore the Beast, who knows?

Otherwise, they're doomed. Selling off trinkets in the marketplace and buy food there? You'll draw back that angry mob again, looking for more. Sell stuff to other nobles? Same thing, but with an army instead. Turn the servants to farming, and try to run the thing as a commune? Sorry, bud, but you're on someone else's land, and if they know you've got a going concern, they'll come take it over.

Beauty and the Beast is awful because it's the Stockholm Syndrome Princess Movie, but it has a certain bleak loveliness to it. As you watch the dancers sway in the final seconds, you can be almost certain they'll be dead within days. Deep down, I think they know it, too.
posted by gurple at 10:23 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]


Beast/Gaston 4 eva
posted by Joseph Gurl at 1:58 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


Gaston is the most attractive/desired man in the village. Every last inch of him's covered in hair. Therefore Belle has learned that hairy is beautiful. So, it is no wonder that she fell for the Beast- hairiest one!
posted by freethefeet at 5:19 AM on March 29, 2017 [3 favorites]


although if the plague fled is in the environs of the Great Plague of Marseilles, that occurred during 1720, which puts us back in the early to mid 1700s again.

Except they flee Paris. Montmartre, specifically. The last major plague in Paris was in 1668. The plague doctor outfit invented by Charles de L'Orme in 1619.
posted by leotrotsky at 6:32 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]


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