So I’m on a Beauty and the Beast kick right now and I mentioned to Ted yesterday morning that if your favourite fairy tale is BatB (as mine has always been), that it is very likely that at some point quite early on you realize that having the Beast transform back into the Prince is a terrible disappointment. The thing is you (we, Beauty) have fallen in love with the *Beast*. We want the *Beast*. We don’t want a stupid prince.
Ted’s response to this was pretty much O.O
So he mentioned the topic to his (all women) gaming group last night.
(An aside: he said this morning, with a sort of weak grimness, “Talking about blood magic w/a bunch of women is…a whole different thing. Thank god I’ve been married almost 20 years. Teenage me would have run away screaming. I almost did anyway.”)
ANYWAY, not the point!
The point: he mentions the falling in love with the Beast, not the prince, thing.
The entire gaming group, at once, with explosive hand gestures, cried, “YES!!!”
Ted is like, “That story is apparently just a completely different experience for boys than girls…”
And, I mean, look: that was part of the appeal of the 1980s TV show, right? Vincent was never going to turn into the prince. He already *was* the prince, but he was *always* going to be the Beast. HOW CAN THAT BE ANYTHING BUT PERFECT?
and seriously… after going through all that angst over whether you could get past appearances and just fall for the soul…why the heck would you want him to turn back into a guy who is going to spend more time in front of a mirro then you would?
Yeah!
So is it hard at all to juxtapose your love of the story with the idea that the traditional/original story sounds like an archetypical abusive relationship? Or is that not really the case?
No. Somebody always brings that up, and I accept that it’s a legitimate interpretation of the story, but no, it doesn’t affect my love for it.
Yay!