Tale as old as time? It’s old, alright. True as it can be? Hmm, about that...
Beauty and the Beast is an old and not-so-necessary model for romantic love.
Hiding in the remarkable Howard Ashman score to this 1991 film is a not-like-other-girls feminism and a reified classism that isolates poor Belle and gives her no choice but to fall for her captor. The sisters grapple with the conditioning from this movie (and so many other sources) that invites us to find meaning and satisfaction in providing kindness and accommodation to beasts in order to transform them into husbands.
The Disney version of the story, with its animated inanimate objects, provides a classism that is deeply essentialist. To wit: a clock can never climb the social ladder, and obviously the clock’s owner doesn’t consider its well-being when making major life decisions. Tracie & Emily spend some time lamenting the fact that this curse was rendered, originally on an 11-year-old, but they find some comfort when imagining the beast as an allegory for self-hatred.
Be our guest, and throw on some headphones for some deep thoughts about Disney’s Beauty & the Beast.
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.
We both have super-serious personas in our "day jobs." No, really. Emily is a Finance writer who used to be a classroom teacher. Tracie writes and consults on social justice and mindfulness and works as a copywriter and project manager for non-profits. If you really need to see the bona fides, please visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
For our work together, what you need to know is that Tracie is older (3 years), Emily is funnier (by at least 3 percent), and we're both hella smart, often over-literal, and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction and murder mysteries, good storytelling with liberal amounts of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find there.
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video version, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
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