Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A quick, ranty ramble on Beauty and the Beast.

You know those mornings when you wake up with a song playing in your head you haven't heard in a while? That totally happened to me today. Not that that's in any way relevant to what I was going to write about. I just thought I'd bring that up briefly. I can't be relevant all the time. You might get suspicious and stop reading. And let's not pretend. Half the reason you keep reading is because you have no idea what I'll say next, regardless of what the title of the post is.

I'm really in the mood for some painting again, but I don't think I'll get round to it until after I get back from Wisconsin.

Anyways. I was just putting laundry away and singing obnoxiously loud when I started thinking about Beauty and the Beast. It's one of my favorite Disney movies. That transitioned into the other adaptations of the story that I've seen and read. And you know what I noticed?

Also, someone should really explain to me how he's cursed. Because he looks awesome, 
much better than when he's not.

How exactly does getting with some gorgeous chick cure the prince of being a shallow douchebag? There's no guarantee there that he learned anything. Because it's easy to hold a double standard. Why didn't the curse make him love someone ugly? I feel like that would've accomplished more in the way of correcting his personal flaws.

Which is really the main message there. Magic can fix people who suck.

Wouldn't that be awesome? I want to be a vengeful fairy enchantress thing that goes around cursing all the stupid people.

So I think a much better curse would have been to just take everything from the prince until he fell in love with someone not traditionally lovely. Or maybe blinding him. Then he couldn't base anything on someone's appearance. That would free the entire population of the castle from being collateral too. I always thought it was unfair that all the servants and such got cursed as well, because they really had nothing to do with this. What were they gonna do? Rebel against the aristocracy and take off? That way lies starvation, boys and girls.

I feel like I need to write something like this sometime. Prince Hobo. No Beauty, no Beast. At least not at first glance. Monsters come in all forms, and beauty can be in unexpected places. That seems like it should be the real message to that story.

Has anyone tried role reversal? What about a sweet, hapless prince cursed by a random witch or whatever and saddled with a psychotic wench? That'd be a fun revision of Beauty and the Beast.

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