Disney Princess Analysis - Part 5: Belle

Click for Part 1 (Snow White), Part 2 (Cinderella), Part 3 (Aurora), and Part 4 (Ariel).

By default, I started answering that Belle was my favorite Disney princess because she, like me, has brown hair and brown eyes and she also reads. And I suppose, when I was younger, I did relate to her sense of longing, a longing for an indefinable something.

Like Ariel, Belle came from what we would consider a more modern age, as compared with the 30's or 50's. Two years after The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast came out in 1991 (which also happens to be the year I was born, which further links me with this film). So Belle shares some of the feistiness of Ariel. For instance, she doesn't feel compelled to accept Gaston, she defends her father against Gaston and LeFou, and she talks back to the Beast when he shouts at her. Further, though, I find that Belle's feistiness, if that's what we're calling it, is grounded better than Ariel's teenage rebellion.

For one thing, Belle is a little older than Ariel. While Ariel is a teenager, Belle seems to be more of an adult (technically, it seems that Belle is only 17, but that still makes her older than majority of the princesses). She picks her battles better than Ariel does, as well: she defends herself and she defends the people she cares about (let's take a moment to appreciate Belle's good relationship with her father). And for the first time, instead of simply stressing good virtues, this story introduces the idea of intelligence. Belle reads constantly and her father is an inventor, so she is used to thinking about various ideas (note that when her father asks her to hand him a tool, she knows it by name--therefore we can assume that she is familiar with the work he does). This is in fact the most significant contribution Belle gave to the princess group--after all, if you want the princesses to make good/admirable decisions, then they have to be characters capable of making those decisions.

Belle's weakness goes hand in hand with her strength. Because she is a thinking person, she is also curious--and sometimes that curiosity takes her too far. With her head so stuck in novels (similar to Catherine in Northanger Abbey), she wants to see what's going on in the castle and so ventures into the forbidden West Wing. I can never forgive Belle for this. She has free range of the entire castle except for this one section (which can, and in fact is, simply be the Beast's quarters), and yet she just has to go snooping over there. Still, it worked out in the end: her argument with the Beast led to their making up and trying to be nicer to each other. And what would a character be without some faults?

I complained, in my analysis  of Aurora, about how one of the gifts from the fairies was beauty. So perhaps I should also be complaining that so much is made of Belle's looks? But this brings us to an interesting topic. Consider who talks about Belle's looks and in what context. Primarily it's the villagers: they bemoan the fact that Belle is so good-looking and yet so odd (remember, her name does mean beauty and many English translations of the story also choose to translate her name from the French Belle and call her Beauty--so the film had to address her looks, one way or another). Gaston also talks about how Belle is the most beautiful girl in town and that's why he wants to marry her. So the obsession with looks is paired with triviality, and there is also a comparison made between how someone looks and how they act. Even LeFou basically tells Gaston that, yes, Belle is beautiful, but isn't her personality ill-suited for you? Belle sees it--she tells her father that Gaston is "handsome alright" and yet "he's not for me." This, of course, in turn leads us to the theme of the movie--the whole "beauty is found within" concept.

Now, then, I have one more big issue to try and cover in a short space: the fact that Belle falls in love with her temper tantrum captor. Here is also the part where I start rolling my eyes because I think that people make far more of a fuss about this than they need to. Beauty and the Beast doesn't encourage abusive relationships; it encourages intelligence. Here is what's really going on. A sorceress decided to teach a spoiled prince a lesson by putting a spell on him that would only break if he could overcome the concept of looks. He looks like a beast but he has to act kinder than he did when he was a (probably good-looking) boy/young man. Belle eventually has enough generosity to give him a chance (remember, she knows from the start that there is a spell--she doesn't know exactly what it is but the fact that the furniture talk shows that there is something going on--and the fact that Belle is used to reading fantasy stories prepares her for possibilities). And he does take this chance: he lets her go. You heard that, right? This means that when Belle tells the Beast that she loves him, she is not his captive--she has instead chosen to return to the castle to protect him from Gaston and the angry mob. He, too, chose to turn his back on the past by literally turning his back on Gaston instead of fighting him back.

So the lesson that the Beast had to learn (to look at the person inside rather than the outer shell) is a lesson that Belle shared in--only it took her a few days or weeks (I'm always confused about how much time passes in the movie) instead of several years like it did for him. And for those who complain about Snow White or Aurora's lack of agency, Belle has agency. The Beast fell in love with her first, making the declaration to his servants after he let her leave the castle. But it is Belle's declaration that is the last piece, the piece that breaks the spell and frees him.

I'm therefore naming Belle as one of the most well-rounded of the Disney princesses.

Is Belle a Social Climber?

While I do think that Beauty and the Beast is a wonderful movie and one of Disney's best, I've started to have a problem with something in it. It has to do with the song "Belle (Little Town)" at the start of the movie.

This movie has good songs, this one included. But as someone who has chosen to live in a little town because I like it here, I'm pausing over the lyrics more than I used to. The question is, why does Belle have a problem with this town? Is it because it's small? Does she just want the chance to go to the theatre at night and a bigger book store during the day? Or does she want to pretend she's fancy folk? After all, the movie puts Belle in an ambiguous social standing. Traditionally, she is the story of a merchant, but Disney made her father into an inventor. He and Belle live alone in what appears to be a humble cottage home (they do have chickens, too) and seem to be counting very highly on his invention being successful. So Belle, in the movie, doesn't seem to have a very high social status--so why does she complain about the "little town" she lives in?

Admittedly, there is the problem of culture. Belle appreciates culture. She likes to read and think and come up with ideas. She's surrounded by farmers and bakers and hunters who don't understand her fascination with books. She simply wants people she can have a conversation with, and that's understandable. But that feeling of isolation can happen anywhere, even in a city. Why does she have to complain that the baker bakes bread every day? Then she's just acting like him, complaining that she reads books every day.

Then there is the desire, which often comes with youth, for adventure. Belle sees the town as little because she is just at the start of her life. She wants to travel, to see places, to meet people--to have adventures. Such a desire often implies that there will be a Wizard of Oz ending. You know, where Dorothy has a series of adventures that teach her that everything she wanted could be found within herself, wherever she happened to be. In Beauty and the Beast, I feel like there is no resolution for Belle's condemnation of the town.

In theory, Belle learns about what is most important. She learns that beauty is found within. She learns that a true connection between two people has nothing to do with outward circumstances. But this is also what Belle does: she leaves a small town to marry a rich prince in a big castle. True, he happened to be a beast when they met--but she always knew that he was cursed. What would have been the story if he were a cursed farmer? Would any of Belle's desires to get away from the "little town" have been satisfied then?

My next question is, should I even be complaining? What if we decide that this is an issue where there is no resolution within the movie. Does it really matter? Not everyone likes small towns. Some people like "to see the world." Belle decided she wanted something more and she went for it. What's wrong with that?

The Refreshing Elegance of Belle

I have mixed feelings about period movies and shows. I like many of them. But I'm also cautious about them. I used to, like many people, like them just because I liked to see historical times. I liked the clothing, the settings, the habits, all of that--so just seeing it all was enough to add interest to a movie. But it isn't anymore. I still like a good historical setting, but I need the movie to stand on its own now.

Belle stands on its own.

This is one of those films that's had different release dates, so I hadn't even heard of it until I was checking my theatre's schedule. The period is the late eighteenth century. The heroine is the "illegitimate mixed race daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay." She is raised according to her social standing--except where her race comes into conflict. In summary, the film certainly approaches issues we've seen before. Class status, race, social standing, politics, slavery, marriage, inheritance, gender. It approaches these things, but not I think like any other film does.

Belle was a completely refreshing movie, in more than one way. When I watched the trailer, I was thinking about how pretty Gugu Mbatha-Raw looked as Dido (Belle is her last name). Then I realized that we usually only see very pale people in the extravagant, colorfully pastel outfits of the eighteenth century aristocracy. And the dresses look so nice with her rich skin tone.

I also, of course, mean that the movie was refreshing as a whole. It was elegant, pure elegance that has nothing to do with snobbery. The style of the movie, visuals and cinematography and music, was soft and lovely. The characters were real: there were nice people and not so nice people, but not fake-perfect people. Dido is very likeable in her intelligence, beauty, and honesty, but she is not set out to be some angel--and that makes her all the better. There is politics about slavery in the movie, but not like a repeat of Amazing Grace (I did love that movie, but I don't need a duplicate of it). It's more like it comes in the way that it comes into a person's life: from time to time.

That's kind of what this movie felt like to me, a piece of a person's life. The movie places Dido right at that age of entering adulthood, so she is learning about many issues in the world. Her place is not an easy one, yet she handles it gracefully. That grace, in the face of whatever is in the world, is something most admirable. And that is why this movie was so refreshing.

Beauty and the Beast 3D

Beauty and the Beast is one of the Disney films to which I have always had a connection. It and I are the same age, and it was one of the few movies my family owned when I was young (my parents were more likely to buy us books than movies, for which I'm grateful--I think this also made us better appreciate the movies we did own). While Snow White has black hair, Cinderella has blonde, and Ariel has red, Belle has brown hair like mine. She also reads; books I have always (I think) valued, and they were a particularly important part of my life from fifth grade on. Then at probably about the time of middle school, I could also relate to Belle's wishes for something more.

The movie was originally supposed to come out in 3D a year or two ago, wasn't it? But that's okay, I waited and was positively exultant at entering my usual theatre yesterday to watch this movie both classic and personal. Fare thee well, school books and writing assignments: you can wait a couple of hours for my attention.

What's wonderful about seeing a familiar movie in a new format is that it makes you aware of new things. I noticed many paintings in the background of the castle that I had never seen before; I smiled at each new discovery. Watching this movie in 3D also allowed me to better appreciate the artistry of it. I do love traditional animation. The castle and the opening sequence benefited in particular from the added dimension. Beauty and the Beast is lovely, visually, in a way that reminds me of the gorgeous Sleeping Beauty.

Perhaps Sleeping Beauty will be next to return to the big screen?