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Film and Literary Review

24 September 2018

DISNEY’S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST:

AN ANALYSIS OF GENDER STEREOTYPE

The Walt Disney Corporation is a leading corporation in children's films. Famous

Disney films loaded with gender stereotypes. However, Disney's classic "Beauty and the

Beast" seems to deviate from this path by portraying the characters of nerdy women,

handsome and rude "evil guy" as "Charming Prince." Nonetheless, further analysis revealed

that the film was actually no different from its predecessor.

The Walt Disney Company is one of the largest media companies in the world. This

has dominated the children's film world for decades (Lamb & Brown 2007). Children's

ideas about appropriate gender roles and behaviors have been continually reinforced by

Disney films. Parents and educators have recently begun to challenge Disney about their

stereotyped products (Guenther, 2009). Many people believe that because of its immovable

influence on children's imaginations, Disney's task should be to ensure their films are free

of gender stereotypes and racial or religious discrimination. The 1991 Disney film "Beauty

and the Beast" appeared initially to oppose traditional gender stereotypes. Nevertheless, a

careful analysis of the film reveals that this film is full of stereotypes, especially about

gender.

Gender Stereotypes

A gender stereotype is a generalised view or preconception about attributes, or

characteristics that are or ought to be possessed by women and men or the roles that are or

should be performed by men and women (Section, 2014). Gender stereotypes can be both
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positive and negative for example, “women are nurturing” or “women are weak”. Gender

stereotyping is the practice of ascribing to an individual woman or man specific attributes,

characteristics, or roles by reason only of her or his membership in the social group of

women or men. A gender stereotype is, at its core, a belief and that belief may cause its

holder to make assumptions about members of the subject group, women and/or men. In

contrast, gender stereotyping is the practice of applying that stereotypical belief to a person.

The protagonist in "Beauty and the Beast" has several characteristics that go beyond

the typical characterization of Disney from "Disney Princess" and "Prince Charming."

Belle is a bookworm introvert who likes to read. What's more, his dream is to get out of his

provincial city and seek adventure. Also, Belle is not deceived by appearance. He

constantly refused Gaston, the most wanted bachelor in town. Even though he is handsome,

handsome, muscular, rich and respected by all city dwellers, Belle is not at all interested in

him. She saw Gaston as rude, arrogant and stupid who only wanted to marry her to make

her his "little wife". He believed: "It is inappropriate for a woman to read. Soon, she will

begin to get ideas, and think." When Belle called her "ancient" she replied by saying

"Thank you." Belle was also very brave. When she saw her father disappeared, he went

looking for him at night in the most dangerous part of the forest alone, besides, he did not

hesitate to sacrifice himself and offered to exchange places with his sick father as a Beast

prisoner.

Both male leaders also broke traditional gender stereotypes. Gaston is described as

"tall, dark, strong and handsome." He is loved by all city dwellers and has many admirers

for women. Even so, he turned out to be a "bad guy". On the other hand, the Beast was very

disgusting and turned into "Prince Charming." For the first time in a Disney film, the
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message that what was inside was more important than strengthened appearance. Gaston is

rude, insensitive, and disrespectful to Belle's father. He wanted to marry Belle because

"nobody said no to Gaston." He doesn't care about his feelings, or what he really wants and

is rejected by Belle. The Beast is sensitive, caring and loving Belle so he lets her go. He

finally married her.

Belle

Gender stereotypes in “Beauty and the Beast” the main character in this film is

Belle. She as the stereotypes who is kind, loves reading books, and takes care of everyone

before herself, she has a high curiousity and she brave. She wants to life away from her

town and do the adventure. The people of her town think that Belle is odd because of her

habbit, most of women in her town were just being a wife, take care of their husband and

children, and just do the home work. Belle is nothing like the “little people” in her poor

provincial town. They were talking about Belle, they think that read book is odd for

women. We would be unlikely to forget this because she never shuts up about it. She

litterally walks through the streets singing about how uniqe she is. She asked to her father

“papa do you think that i’m odd?” she humblebarags “it’s just that i’m not fit in here.”

Not like all the other young women of the town, Belle is tall, white, she has a brown

hair, she is the pretty girl. She also smart, reads all books of the time. The other young

women in her town just admire the handsome guy and the women as the wife did the wife

works like shopping in the market, take care of their children. This is not about one’s social

position but one’s inner identity. When Gaston come to Belle’s house he wants her to be his

wife but Belle rejcted Gaston’s offer because Belle thinks that Gaston just arrogant man

unless he is handsome. Gaston just wants belle to be his wife and take care of him like
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massage his legs, and prepare the food for him. Belle doesn’t want treated like demeaning

woman by the man. Gaston said:

“Plenty! Here, picture this: A rustic hunting lodge, my latest kill roasting on the fire,
and my little wife massaging my feet, while the little ones play on the floor with the
dogs. We'll have six or seven.” “Strapping boys, like me” “And do you know who
that little wife will be?” “You, Belle!”

Belle is kind woman, When she go to the castil to save her father, she offer her life

to the beast, she promise that if the beast set free her father she wants to stay and

accompany the beast in the castil forever. She bet her life for saving her father’s life.

“There's nothing you can do. He's my prisoner.”

“Oh, there must be some way I can...wait! Take me, instead!
“You! You would take his place?”
“If I did, would you let him go?”

Belle really likes read books, she is going to the library everyday and borrow the

book that she already read then the old man gives that book to Belle. When she is on castle,

the Beat gives her a little surprise, he shows his big library, Belle so interested and Beast

gives the library to Belle.

Belle is the smart girl, not just reading a book to the Beast she also teach the Beast

to reads a book, because the Beast told Belle that he a bit forget how to read.

Not only pretty and smart, Belle is the brave woman, when she leaving the castle

she be blocked by the wolves, and when she stuck she brave to hit the wolves use twigs.

And when she defend her father when the people in her town thought that her father was

crazy and wanted to take her father, and she also brave to defend the Beast when the people
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in her town thought that the Beast was dangerous. She comes to the castle to save the Beast

when Gaston and the people of her town attack the castle.

The Beast

In all of Disney's prince's films, it is always depicted in a very beautiful, handsome,

charming form, and everything that belongs to it looks perfect, that's the image of the

prince owned by Disney's. However, at this film production Disney's created a different

character that is a prince who is not the same as most people's thoughts. The movie "Beauty

and the Beast" depicts the figure of a prince who is not handsome, unattractive and can

even be said to be ugly. The event is a gander stereotype which is found in the journal

"Gander stereotypes are generalized beliefs about the characteristics and qualities attributed

to men and women in society"(Eagly, 1987). In this stereotype gander discusses the ability

of someone to judge something based on form and things that are natural, so many people

who imagine a prince are only positive things to challenge and all its perfection. But it is

different from the story in the movie "Beauty and the Beast" the departure of this film is not

a prince in fact as many people think.

At first a prince in the movie "Beauty and the Beast" was very handsome, charming,

rich, and liked by many women. But it is the prince's nature and behavior that makes him

regret and must bear the consequences of his actions. At that time, told in the movie

"Beauty and the Beast" the prince was holding a party, and then an old woman came to

intend to ask for shelter. However, with arrogance the prince expelled the old woman, and

the old woman was transformed into a beautiful woman and gave advice (if you meet

someone please don’t ever to see and judge someone from the outside). Then the handsome

prince immediately turned into a beast and ugly. The witch's curse not only happened to the
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prince. The curse also occurs throughout the palace, they all turn into complementary

objects of the palace.

As a result of the incident the prince dubbed the Beast and his beautiful life

immediately turned gloomy and filled with anger. The situation when a prince should have

a safe, comfortable and peaceful life must accept the fact that he is cursed to be ugly and

very angry. A man's behavior is also shown by the journal "In general, is characterized as

aggressive, risk-taking, decisive, and autonomous (agentic attributes)"(Skidar & Mitra,

2008). Then, can also affect a person's mental condition. In the movie "Beauty and the

Beast" the character changes in the Beast. He was very angry, temperament and did not

want to receive guests in any form in his palace. The Beast lived alone away from the

villagers, because he knew his existence would be very disturbing to the villagers. The

villagers certainly would not have thought if the royals were not the princes in the shadow

of the villagers.

The movie "Beauty and the Beast" also tells us that everything changed when Belle

stayed with Beast. Changes in the nature and behavior of Beast were very visible, who is

often angry, rude and impatient and now became more patient and not angry anymore.

Even when Belle became a prisoner of Beast, and Belle wanted to meet her father, Beast

also allowed her to be heavyhearted. Until the fight between Gaston and Beast, Belle

returned to save Beast. Beast revealed his love for Belle and Belle replied, and then

returned to the original form, Prince Charming.

Gaston

Gaston is a famous and handsome man in the Film of Beauty and The Beast. All of

the villagers were amazed by him, especially for the women who saw him will fall in love
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with him. He was handsome and charming, but he was an arrogant person. Everything

which he wants must be fulfilled. Gaston were already recognized, so he was admired by

all the girls all over the village. Gaston likes a beautiful girl from the ordinary class named

Belle. he wanted to marry her, Belle refused. Gaston's jealousy of being rejected, he

influenced the villagers to kill the Beast for the reason to save Belle.

Gaston hides who he truly is behind a handsome face. The Disney animators even

used the template for earlier hero characters to emphasize his good looks. They still slip in

a few tell-tale signs that this guy isn't the paragon of virtue everyone thinks he is. There's a

cruelty to his smile, some self-absorption in the eyes: things Belle (and we) clearly pick up

on, but the rest of the town doesn't. Appearances can be deceiving, but in this case at least,

we see everything we need to know with the characters' looks. Watch Gaston as he

proposes to Belle: it's practically an assault. Belle glides through town with her nose in a

book, letting us know that she's an avid reader, interested in life beyond her own world.

Even LeFou gets into the act, as the ultimate toady does everything Gaston commands,

even to the detriment of his own health and safety. Because Gaston’s feeling is just a

feeling of wanting to have Belle, not really falling in love. He just wants to take advantage

of his face. because Belle is considered the most beautiful woman in the Village. This is the

reason that makes Gaston increasingly challenged. But, when Belle refused, she felt

insulted and angry.

Remaining Evidence of Gender Stereotype

Despite the characteristics mentioned earlier, the analysis of Belle's character

reveals that she is actually a stereotypical representation of Disney heroes. First, the name

itself literally translates to "Beauty." In addition, Belle's appearance matches the ideals of
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Disney's beauty. She is white with long straight hair and wide eyes. She is thin, with a

small waist and soft hands. Her voice was charming and he sang beautifully. Also, it seems

that she has an inherent need to look after a man who is important to her. She is constantly

caring for her ditzy father and tends to the animal after the wolf is injured. In addition,

Belle is described as "weird", "funny" and "weird" by city dwellers because she likes to

read. They were stunned by her love for books. They seem to think it's useless for a

beautiful girl to read. Also, even though Belle likes to read, her favorite chapter is one

where heroin meets Prince Charming: "Ohhh, isn't this amazing. This is my favorite part

because, you will see, this is where she met Prince Charming. "The film shows that even

though she likes adventure, the most important boost in Belle's life is to find" Prince

Charming "and marry him. So, just like the previous Disney princess, Belle can be reduced

to a happy housewife looking for a husband (Maio, 1998). All Disney daughters are

incomplete without men, and Belle is no exception (Lamb & Brown, 2007).

Conclusion

Famous Disney films loaded with gender stereotypes. A first glimpse of the 1991

Disney classic "Beauty and the Beast" can lead us to believe that is an exception, with its

portrayal of nerdy female characters, handsome "bad guys" and ugly "Prince Charming".

After a closer look, viewers realized that all traditional gender stereotypes were present

throughout the film. Because gender is a social construction that is strengthened by society

(Guenther, 2009), it is important for parents and educators to monitor what is presented by

our children.
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Works Cited

Eagly, A. H. Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation. Hillsdale, NJ:

Erlbaum. Web. 1987.

Guenther, Sam. A Beauty or a Beast? Textual Analysis of Stereotypes and Discrimination

in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. BMC 277: Media and Diversity. 2009.

Lamb, S. & Brown, L.M. Packaging Childhood.Rescuing our Daughters from Marketers’

Schemes. St. Martin’s Press. 2007.

Maio, K. Disney’s Dolls. New Internationalist Magazine, 308. 1998.

Sikidar, Arijit & Mitra, Sumit. An Exploration of Gander Stereotypes in Preception and

Practice of Leadership. Web. 2008.

Women’s Rights and Gender Section. Gender Stereotypes and Stereotyping and Women’s

Rights. Office of the High Commissioner Human Rights United Nation. 2014.

Wynn, Earl S. An Analysis of Stereotypes in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Hubpages.

2010.

“New Statesman America”. How Feminist was Disney’s Original Beauty and the Beast.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/feminism/2017/03/how-feminist-was-

disneys-original-beauty-and-beast/. Accessed 3 Sep. 2018.