Sometimes my inner English major stirs back to life and I feel the need to make a queer feminist analysis of Gaston from Disney’s beauty and the beast
A lot of the way Gaston interacts with gender is deeply performative but in the mundane way that most men don’t think about.
Near the beginning of the movie when he says to Belle “how can you read this? There’s no pictures” and throws her book in the mud that’s probably not him actually being stupid.
It’s a performative idiocy. No less performative than a woman pretending to be a ditz to flirt. It’s flirting, but it’s drastically ineffective flirting if the person you’re talking to just isn’t that into you.
Gaston does everything correctly. He’s a natural leader, he knows how to inspire both admiration and fear.
This caricature of masculinity he puts forward is a very useful tool against most people in general. He’s strong, he’s a provider, he reacts to upsetting situations with anger. It’s always gotten him his way before but it doesn’t get him his way now.
There’s this view of gender performance by some people as your ticket to getting what you want. It’s often seen as the realm of women, but Gaston is an example of the cisgender male version of this. His gun pointing and using antlers in all of his decorating isn’t any less of a coordinated dance than the trio of girls pretending to faint to get his attention.
He plays his dance perfectly, but Belle isn’t interested in participating in the way that he wants her to. Ideally from his point of view she’d also play dumb but in a womanly way and they’d both go on to play this game for the rest of their lives.
The difference between Gaston and Belle is that Belle just does what she wants. She’s not interested in playing the game of gendered stupidity. She just is the kind of woman that she is and isn’t interested in exaggerating any of that.
That, ultimately, is why Gaston fails. He does the thing that is expected of him and manipulates societal expectations as brilliantly as he ever has but that is not enough to find happiness. A show of happiness and a play at what one thinks that a perfect life ought to be is in the end no substitute for simply living how one would prefer to regardless of expectation.
How would you contrast this to the Beast?
The beast tries at this same performance of masculinity in a few different ways at a few different times but can never quite get himself to stick to it. He tries anger, locking people up, intimidation, but it never quite sticks to him.
In the end he always finds more happiness when he meets people where they are. While Gaston spends the movie trying to hold onto control, the beast spends the movie slowly learning to let go of control, to trust people that he loves and be trusted himself. He’s willing in the end to give up his last hope at regaining his humanity to make Belle happy.
His goals over time shift to wanting her to be happy and just to enjoy her and the life he has. He’s happy when he gifts her a library, he’s happy when she teaches him how to dance, sharing responsibility and expressing joy. He may not fully have the life he wants, but he’s learning to enjoy the life he has with the person he wants.
Instead of playing the gender dance and owning Belle he slowly comes to be a part of an equal partnership, or realizes that he wants to be a part of an equal partnership and that can’t be possible if he keeps her imprisoned, so he lets her go.
Gaston could not let her go and he also couldn’t let go of his masculine obligation to gain control. The beast could, and in the end he’s rewarded with both the person he wants and the life he wants, lived being a kinder and gentler man than he was before he was cursed. One who’s more willing to trust and give up full control of others.
I really appreciate this reading of Gaston, because I think he too often gets reduced to haha-big-dumb-guy. He's canonically not stupid. He uses big words and quotes Macbeth! He comes up with a clever plan to get Belle on the spot, and when he later implements that plan and it starts going off the rails, immediately comes up with a new plan and knows how to get everyone on his side. He's intelligent! So yeah, I can buy into the idea that the dumb masculine things he does are more for show.
One of the actors who played Gaston on Broadway said that when he thanks Belle for calling him "positively primeval" it is not because he's dumb and doesn't know what it means, it's because he knows exactly what it means but thinks it's a compliment, and I've adopted this interpretation of this exchange. It goes along perfectly with your analysis. He's trying to appear like Big Strong Primal Man and then Belle (to his mind) titters and essentially says "ooh yes you're such a Primal Man," so he's happy that it worked, thanks her, and immediately suggests they got look at his trophies (dead animals) for more evidence of how primal he is.
He also thinks Belle is playing along during his proposal, because she does. When he cages her in—which is a total bodice-ripper romance trope that you still will see in fanfic constantly because lots of women really do love that performance on masculine aggression (as is their right—I find it hot in the right context too, no kink shaming) and Gaston totally knows this—she flutters her eyelashes at him and gives him the stock Demure Lady response.
I will take issue with the idea that Beast tries to perform masculinity with his anger and intimidation. I don't think this is a performance; these are his genuine reactions and sincerely chosen behaviors. That's the real him. And the point is that the real him simply changes to not want to do these things anymore. (Though I headcanon he will still have a bit of a temper for his whole life because that's just part of his personality and no one is perfect.)
But otherwise, I agree with everything you said about Beast's arc! Yes, he does reject masculine displays as the movie goes on. Beast is given the chance to play Typical Man by Cogsworth when he suggests Beast give her "the usual things: flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep." It's not malicious, of course, but it is stereotypical. Beast rejects this idea and decides to be unconventional and give her the library.
He doesn't do the typical Tough Guy and fight back against Gaston at first—which, granted, is just because he wants to die, not because he thinks it's morally wrong. But then when he does fight back and has the chance to deliver the killing blow, he shows mercy and gentleness and lets Gaston go, again eschewing Tough Guy behavior specifically because he knows it's wrong.
Gaston, of course, does the opposite, and dies for it.
Great analysis OP! Thanks for sharing this!
