Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Accidental Aesop:
    • Another example: The townsfolk repeatedly call her "strange" and "odd", presumably because she is a bookworm and ignores the local jerk. So the lesson of the song is, "If you are kind, chaste, and intellectual, people will think you are weird and your only friends will be talking furniture." This could, however, also be taken in the in-verse, seeing as Belle is quite clearly the protagonist and the folks are not all portrayed positively. Basically: "Remain true to yourself despite what others think."
  • Adaptation Distillation: Obviously, with the many versions of the fairy tale out there, Disney had to pick and choose what to include, what to leave out, and how to interpret it, but one interesting point: the usage of the magic rose as the vehicle of the Enchantress's curse is a wonderful Call Back to the Beaumont version, since in that the whole reason Beauty's father ends up imprisoned by the Beast and has to send his daughter to him is because he was trying to steal a rose from the Beast's garden for her. So while there isn't a whole rose garden in the film (except possibly during the "Human Again" sequence, and there seems to be wild roses growing in the forest at the beginning as well as surrounding the stained glass window at the end), it makes sense they would use a single rose as the source of the spell and the focus of the final window. It really was the center and driving point of the story, even in the Beaumont version.
  • Alternative Character Interpretation: In a departure from the original story in which the Beast was kind and gentlemanly (if very rarely hot-tempered), the Disney character starts off angry and depressed and has all the classic trappings of the villain.
    • Fans are divided between thinking the enchantress was a Well-Intentioned Extremist, a benevolent fairy, or a raging bitch who cursed an innocent child and entire castle for "a stupid reason".
    • Is Belle a well-meaning bookworm unfairly made an outcast by the villagers or is she actually a snob, and therefore deserving of being ostracised by the village?
    • Cogsworth: Is he the cliche frumpy disciplinarian present in the Disney movies like Zazu and Lawrence or is his personality based more of a child under an abusive parent, whose in fear of angering the parent and has to stop others from pissing them off in fear of what happens.
    • It's become a popular theory that Belle's falling in love with the Beast is really just some form of Stockholm Syndrome.
    • Confused Matthew has offered a truly compelling theory that the true monsters of this film are actually the Villagers. Gaston has to merely suggest that the Beast is evil and they immediately yell to "Kill the Beast!". Gaston goes between them in turn saying nothing while they invent reasons for the Beast to be evil and form into a mob. It's because of them that Gaston has any freedom to act the way he does. Unlike every other Disney film when the villain is revealed, they don't turn against the villain, they actually join him.

"The Townspeople know exactly what kind of man Gaston is. And they love the hell of him for it."

  • The fact that they willingly supported Gaston's plan to blackmail Belle into marrying him, despite his revealing enough of it to know how horrific of a plan it is, with absolutely no sign of fear, strongly supports that theory.
  • Awesome Ego: Gaston was written to seem incredibly egotistical and self-absorbed. The viewers loved this.
  • Awesome Music: "Beauty and the Beast".
    • Let's just keep it simple and say most/all songs in this are topnotch.
    • Angela Lansbury, the voice of Mrs. Potts, said in an interview that the song was originally faster and more pop-like, and she was the one who turned it into more of a slow ballad. She was at first reluctant to take the part because the song was, as she says, "not her cup of tea." (No, really, she said that.)
    • To me at least, no Disney song has ever topped "Belle".
    • Gaston's Villain Song became a meme.
    • "Something There", though not as famous as the others on this list, is what a song in a musical is supposed to do; it encapsulated a massive leap in character development that would have been incredibly awkward no matter what dialogue you tried to use.
    • No love for the Transformation? The music there takes this troper's breath away every time! SO powerful, and SO gorgeous.
    • Three words: BE OUR GUEST!!!
  • Crap Saccharine World: It's a highly-idealized rural French town which, while poor, still has lots of wide open spaces, and the castle is gorgeous on the interior. But it's still eighteenth-century France, where Maurice and Belle are shunned and seen as uncanny for being themselves because women aren't supposed to read.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Gaston has a large rather large fanbase who are willing to overlook the fact that he is a misogynistic, arrogant, murderous Yandere, some to the point that they think Belle is either crazy for rejecting him, or a stupid bitch that he didn't deserve anyway.
  • Dramatically Missing the Point: The fans who forgive Gaston or overlook the atrocities he's committed because he's "handsome" and think Beast is incurring Stockholm Syndrome in Belle when the entire movie is dedicated to showing otherwise.
    • As well as fans who dismiss Prince Adam's human form as "too ugly".
    • As well as those fans who forget that Gaston wanted to LOCK UP Belle's father in order to FORCE HER to marry him.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Variation—Chip's voice actor was so popular with the filmmakers that his tiny role was greatly expanded; he replaced another character, a music box, for the most part (the music box was only relegated to a cameo in the final version, specifically right before the battle).
  • Fountain of Memes: Gaston. In YouTube Poop he seems to occupy some sort of strange middle ground between Butt Monkey and Memetic Badass...
  • Hate Dumb: An astonishing number of detractors of the film actually say that Belle falls prey to All Girls Want Bad Boys and that an abusive relationship is portrayed positively. How did these people miss that Belle detested the Beast until he stopped being bad and abusive, and by his own choice too? Hell, it's the whole effing point of the "Something There" song! Or that she detested Gaston who has far more bad boy (including not taking no for an answer) traits than the Beast?
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Elisa and Goliath of Gargoyles once spent Halloween as Belle and the Beast. Gargoyles' equivalent of kissing is stroking their lover's hair. Think of this during the 3 times when the Beast runs his fingers through Belle's hair.
    • The film makes a very good Take That to series where the female character falls in love with the male character mostly for his looks (i.e. Twilight, years before it ever existed).
  • Ho Yay: LeFou is slavishly devoted to Gaston; some people also read a bit of subtext into Lumiere's interaction with Cogsworth (they certainly do have a bit of Tsundere-esque bickering going on).
  • Informed Attractiveness: Belle. While certainly pretty, she's described as an unparalleled beauty in the movie... which also features the THREE Bimbettes, who are easily as good looking(or better looking, really).
    • Belle's beauty may be as much to do with her being seen as unattainable, unlike the Bimbettes and note that all the attractive women in-universe are all drawn as busty and practically heaving out of their bodices, except for Belle who may intentionally have been drawn as taller and more slender. In short her beauty is meant to be more understated and natural than obvious.
      • Also, it's more of an inner beauty. Of the Disney Princesses, she's the most conservatively dressed and the only brunette, yet she's one of the kindest and most honest of the princesses.
      • Not to mention, the three bimbettes are identical. It may well be the reason that Gaston doesn't turn an eye to one of them despite their beauty—because they've got two other equals right there.
        • This troper would like to add that when he saw the movie and Belle emerged for her dance with the Beast, it is the only time he ever heard audience members whistle their approval at how attractive a cartoon character was.
  • Love to Hate: Gaston.
  • Memetic Badass / Memetic Mutation: No one [verb]s like Gaston—this is even In-Universe. It's also lampshaded in the reprise in the musical.

No one thinks up these endless refrains like Gaston!

NOBODY ORDERS DECAF LIKE GASTON!

    • "Be our guest! Be our guest! Be our guest!"
    • "GET OUT!!!!!!!!!!"
    • Videos that remix the scene where LeFou says "I'll strike up the band!" for Gaston's wedding to make the band play different songs are quite popular.
    • "How can you read this? There's no pictures!"
  • Memetic Molester: While not as well known as his Memetic Badass image, Gaston becomes this whenever Belle's involved.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Gaston. Basically, it's Evil Is Cool (of the Memetic Badass variety) meets Draco in Leather Pants.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
  • Nightmare Fuel: In the Broadway production, the servants weren't straightforwardly turned into wacky talking objects. They're cursed to live as hybrid-object-human things that are slowly turning into normal inanimate objects. One wonders whether they'd still be conscious when they've fully transformed or just dead - either is pretty disturbing. Cogsworth and Lumiere (themselves transforming into a clock and a candelabrum respectively) even joke about one man who has turned into a brick wall. Of course, it's really a concession to the fact that the parts have to be played by people - so the scene explains why the clock, candlestick, teapot and others are still "human sized", but it still makes for excellent Nightmare Fuel.
  • The Problem with Licensed Games: Some of the videogames that are licensed from the Disney movie came off as Nintendo Hard, most notably the 1994 NES version and the 1993 Sega Genesis version called Beauty & the Beast: Roar of the Beast.
  • Scenery Porn/Scenery Gorn: The castle, both before and after the transformation. Suffice it to say, the background painters had loads of fun with this place, and it shows, in every single shot.
  • So Cool It's Awesome: The film is considered to not only be the greatest of the Disney Renaissance (either this or The Lion King), but also one of the greatest animated features ever.
  • Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped : This movie puts the inner beauty message right up front, and makes it work quite well -- though not for all viewers.
  • What an Idiot!: So you're being held prisoner by a giant monster with serious temper problems who is starving you because you wouldn't eat dinner with him. So what do you do? You go into the one place in the castle he specifically told you was forbidden. But to be fair, Belle probably wouldn't have given the West Wing a second thought if Beast hadn't specifically mentioned it to her.
    • Also, Belle having to use the mirror to expose the Beast's existence, of all things, to keep her father from going to the Asylum. Honestly, Belle, did you honestly expect Gaston or the rest of the villagers, who were congregated into a lynch mob at the time, to even think that the Beast was friendly, and not try to kill him?
      • To her defense, there really wasn't a ton she could have done. No one was listening to her or her father, and he was being dragged off right then and there.
  • The Woobie:
    • The Beast becomes this right around "Something There". Prior to that, he was a Jerkass Woobie.
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