(no subject)
Watching Beauty and the Beast since I was in a major cartoon mode this morning. And while I really and truly love the movie, watching it with an older (and much less sappy and romantic) brain than I had as a child, I gotta say that the Beast gives up way too damned easily. I mean, yeah, so his True Love went to save her father, but that doesn't mean she would've stayed away or anything. So did he *have* to just lie down and let the towns people attack his castle without a fight? Granted, the servants put up a hell of a fight for him, so Yay Castle Servants, but he was perfectly content to let Gaston kill him. Seriously, Beast, even if you didn't think Belle loved you, you gotta admit that if she came back once after you scared the bejesus out of her - and this is when she didn't even *like* you - she would totally come back after you all had made amends just to visit as a friend. Or, you know, to take shameless advantage of your library.
And yet there you were, all ready to let Gaston and his band of Merry Cultist raze you, your castle, your servants, and the ever precious library. Not on, my furry friend.
But that's okay, cause the movie is still awesome and I'm totally blaming the lack of manliness (or would that be beastliness?) on Disney's tendency to turn most of the men into wusses. At least until they have to fight the manly fight for their One True Love, who they fall for after a whopping 20 minutes. And don't even get me *started* on some of those early Disney women, who would faun and faint in their flowy dresses while the Evil Stepmother/Stepfather/Bitter Uncle sacrificed them for... whatever reason they would have to sacrifice them (I think the running theme was jealousy in the early years, and threat to power in the later years), waiting for their Prince Charming to save them. To this day, the only Disney women I recall who could Kick Ass if necessary (or at least use their brain to outsmart the baddie when they lacked the physical training to Kick Ass) are Mulan, Princess Jasmine, and Belle (even if the Beast did have to save her eventually, that was mostly because she and Phillip were outnumbered by, like, 12 to 2 when those wolves tried to take them out. Also, she's Insanely Smart, which qualifies as a version of Kicking Ass in my book).
::wanders off to ponder buying The Fire Rose from amazon.com::
And yet there you were, all ready to let Gaston and his band of Merry Cultist raze you, your castle, your servants, and the ever precious library. Not on, my furry friend.
But that's okay, cause the movie is still awesome and I'm totally blaming the lack of manliness (or would that be beastliness?) on Disney's tendency to turn most of the men into wusses. At least until they have to fight the manly fight for their One True Love, who they fall for after a whopping 20 minutes. And don't even get me *started* on some of those early Disney women, who would faun and faint in their flowy dresses while the Evil Stepmother/Stepfather/Bitter Uncle sacrificed them for... whatever reason they would have to sacrifice them (I think the running theme was jealousy in the early years, and threat to power in the later years), waiting for their Prince Charming to save them. To this day, the only Disney women I recall who could Kick Ass if necessary (or at least use their brain to outsmart the baddie when they lacked the physical training to Kick Ass) are Mulan, Princess Jasmine, and Belle (even if the Beast did have to save her eventually, that was mostly because she and Phillip were outnumbered by, like, 12 to 2 when those wolves tried to take them out. Also, she's Insanely Smart, which qualifies as a version of Kicking Ass in my book).
::wanders off to ponder buying The Fire Rose from amazon.com::