Poof Machine

A Gay Devil's Advocate

[dannibals]

im banking on the luigi’s b plot being like beauty and the beast. Luigi fixing bowser and them bonding. By the end mario is like Ive come to save you! Then it cuts to luigi and bowser making friendship bracelets and making out

[mydollyaviana]

[oak23]

Beauty And The Beast (1991)

[dragonflavoredcake]

In Defense of Beauty and the Beast

It makes me mad to still see people talking about how Beauty and the Beast is about Stockholm Syndrome. No. Just no. The story doesn't line up with Stockholm Syndrome. Belle does not fall for Adam (aka the Beast) while he's still being horrible to her. Early example:

She does not give him an INCH. He's bellowing and demanding she come to dinner or starve, and she stands her ground. Most people would give in. Belle is not most people. She will not be forced to do anything she doesn't want to, and if you try, you're gonna end up facedown in the mud.

She only starts being nice to Adam after he risks and nearly sacrifices his life to save hers. They had the option to completely split and forget about each other after the West Wing scene (and may I say Belle is hella manipulative in tricking Cogsworth and Lumiere to head off without her, she would be a terrifying villain). Adam could've let Belle vanish into the night, but he didn't. Belle could've left Adam to die in the snow and gone back to her father, but she didn't.

This is a major turning point in their relationship, but even then, she isn't nice when he's mean. When he yells at her while she's patching him up, she yells right back, and he can't even argue that the whole issue started because of his refusal to control his temper.

Since it's Disney, they fall in love over the course of a song.

Early movie Adam would never try to feed the birds. It's not a completely 180, he still gets frustrated when the birds won't fly into his hands, but Belle helps him out and helps him get that one bird to eat from his hands before he's covered in them. Belle watches from behind a tree for a part of this. Adam doesn't realize she's watching him, but he still entertains the birds. He doesn't become uninterested or shoo them away when he thinks she's not watching.

Belle throws a snowball and starts a snowball fight. Again, early movie Adam would never. Midmovie Adam joins in enthusiastically.

(Perhaps a little too enthusiastically, if that giant snowball is anything to go by.)

And can we talk about this little scene?

They're having porridge, Belle is eating it with a spoon like a proper French lady, and Adam is basically eating like a dog. Belle averts her eyes because awkward, and Adam sees her reaction and picks up his own spoon. A spoon that's much too small for his giant paws. A spoon he's visibly uncomfortable picking up. He can't effectively eat with it, and he looks absolutely ridiculous, but he tries.

And Belle sees him trying, so she finds a middle ground: drinking the porridge. No need for silverware, but still more suitable for polite society than eating like a dog.

Again, Adam is making a genuine effort for unselfish reasons, and that is when Belle really warms up to him. They spend the whole of Something There becoming friends and then falling in love. 

Tale as Old as Time is the big romantic number, and you know what? Belle leads most of it. The dance was her idea; Adam agreed and arranged for it to happen. She comes down the staircase first, and Adam has to meet her where she stands.

They eat dinner beforehand (where Adam successfully uses a spoon!), and Belle's the one who pulls Adam to the dance floor. Yes, she's in following position, but she's guiding him, placing his hands as they get into position. When Adam gets over his nerves and is ready to take the lead, she lets him.

There's the thing about ballroom dance: you can't dance with an unwilling partner. You also can't dance with a control freak. If I'm in lead position, I have to trust that my partner will understand what I want them to do and execute it well. If I'm in following position, I have to trust that my partner will correctly signal what moves they want and won't try to make me do anything that makes me uncomfortable. There's no micromanaging in dance—if you try to control someone else's movement, you're going to completely ruin both their part of the dance and yours.

All this makes the big emotional moment hurt: when Adam lets Belle go. This is also where the Stockholm Syndrome theory entirely shatters: everything leading up to this point has involved Adam completely relinquishing what little control he had over Belle and losing the drive to demand that control. He respects her and doesn't want to control her. When she passes through the castle gates, she leaves Adam's influence entirely.

Adam really doesn't leave the castle. He never really expects Belle to come back. He lets her go because Maurice is important to Belle, and he can't find it in him anymore to force her to stay. It's hardly even a question of whether to let her go, even though it's such a searing loss that he won't even defend himself or give order to defend the castle from Gaston's army.

He won't even defend himself against Gaston until he sees Belle down in the courtyard. As he's lying there, dying, he expresses shock that Belle came back. And it's THEN that we get the magic "I love you."

That's also why the end isn't completely cheap. No, I don't really like Adam's human design, I think it's a little too symmetrical and "perfect" (especially in the "big reveal" turnaround shot), but the whole "stare into his eyes" shot is meant to establish that Belle can tell that he's the same person she saw grow from a selfish brat into a respectful and selfless man. If he'd just been some handsome rando or a reset to pre-curse Adam, she wouldn't have kissed him.

When the transformation first happens, she's scared. She backs away because she doesn't recognize him. She reaches out to him, but draws her hand back because she doesn't know if that's her Adam. But then . . .

"It is you!"

That's the line that seals it. Belle wants the Adam she fell in love with, the Adam who struggled with spoons, the Adam who gave her a library, the Adam who worked to improve himself and let her take the lead.

She completely left his sphere of influence and came back on her own. If Belle didn't love Adam, she could've let Gaston's army kill him. If Adam didn't love Belle, he wouldn't have agreed so quickly to let her go care for Maurice when it clearly hurt him so much.

Belle doesn't love Adam because she was manipulated or because he turned handsome. She loves him because he grew into a better person who was her perfect partner and complement.

I will now get off my soapbox

[magickingdom1901]

| Beauty and the Beast (1991)

[batb-source]

Happy 30th anniversary, Beauty and the Beast released on 22nd of November, 1991

[astudyinchocolate]

Upcoming BatB Merch- 30th Anniversary

Hello, fellow Beauty and the Beast fans. 30th anniversary of the movie is approaching, and so is new merchandise. 

First is 30th Anniversary Limited Edition Dolls. These are 17″ and there are a rumored only 1,800 being made worldwide. 11/8 at 7 am PST is the US release date, but I have not heard anything yet about international dates.

The dolls are likely either $500 or $750, and I anticipate them selling out very quickly. If you have interest in these, I recommend following the Disney Limited Edition Dolls Facebook page and checking on Instagram accounts like mmdisney200 and the.cursed.prince for updates. For general tips on buying these dolls, see this post I made last year about LE Rapunzel.

It’s based on this concept art:

There is also a 12″ 30th Anniversary Hasbro Style Series Belle at Saks Fifth Avenue for $315. A lot of LE doll collectors don’t like her or that Hasbro was the one to make it, so I’m anticipating greater interest in the 17″ dolls as a result. Belle is currently listed as sold out, but apparently every year this happens and the dolls always come back in stock.

The one piece of merch currently available at shopDisney US is an ornament:

Beauty and the Beast Legacy Sketchbook Ornament – 30th Anniversary- $24.99

It looks really nice here, but the reviews say otherwise… see this and tons of Japanese merch (maybe coming elsewhere?) under the cut!

Keep reading

[poofmachine]

Mine turned out good thank christ.

[kingdomheartsgifs]

Never forget the iconic moment where Belle hits Xaldin then runs off with a look of joy on her face and everyone is shook.

[dailyflicks]

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1991) dir. Gary Trousdale & Kirk Wise

[brickme]

Tenku no shiro Laputa letter set – Fukuyama Keiko (Animage November 1986)

[thewaltcrew]

Howard Ashman directing Paige O’Hara (Belle), Richard White (Gaston), Jerry Orbach (Lumiere), and Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Potts) during a music recording session for Beauty and the Beast on June 8, 1990

“There was just an incredibly thrill to be able to walk into that studio in New York and have this full orchestra and this full chorus performing this stuff live. I mean, we created the soundtrack for Beauty and the Beast like, like a Broadway cast album! What I admired about Howard was he never gave vague direction. He never gave any direction that was, like, kind of namby-pamby or wishy-washy. He was very specific right down to, to, ‘When we get to this word, could you stress this word more than the previous word?’ He was just extremely specific and focused as to what he wanted.” - Kirk Wise, one of the directors of Beauty and the Beast

footage from the documentary Howard (2018), dir. Don Hahn

for @oswlld

[poofmachine]

My Tribute to Marina and Sergei Olifirenko’s Persephone

[disney-universes]

Slides from Journey into Imagination’s development, of which 85 are up for auction.

[merry-mer]

Honestly Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid goes the hardest I think, he spends three days with this girl, doesnt even kiss her once and is still ready to straight up murder a SEA WITCH to keep her safe...like damn, get you a prince that looks at you like that and is down to clown immediately

[raeynbowboi]

Dating Disney: Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast features my favorite love story and my favorite Disney Princess, so it holds a very special spot in my heart. So, it’s worth looking into the film to decide when the Movie is supposed to be set.

During the opening musical number “Belle”, Belle is telling the Baker about the book she’s been reading. She’s clearly describing Jack and the Beanstalk, the earliest version being the tale of “Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean” in 1734. But she also deliberately mentions an ogre, not a giant. Near as I could find, the only version with an ogre was written by Joseph Jacobs in 1890, making Belle nearly contemporary to modernity. Belle’s excitement over the book is likely a sign that this is a new story.

During the same musical number, we see a sign depicting a tobacco pipe, but unlike with the Calabash pipe from the Little Mermaid movie. I could place it to possibly be a Billiard type, but the exact era of creation escapes me. However, tobacco pipes have been around as long as Tobacco has been introduced to European trade, starting in the 16th century.

The history of colored printing goes as far back as the 16th century, and there are illustrations from the early 1700s with an impressive variety of color that help establish a stronger time period. The book also shows the words Le Prince Charmant or Prince Charming. Prince Charming started being used in 1697 in Charles Perrault’s version of Sleeping Beauty, although there, Prince Charming was not a name. Rather, Perrault stated that the Prince was charmed by her words. The first story to use Prince Charming as a name is the Tale of Pretty Goldilocks. It was written at some point in the 17th Century by Madame d’Aulnoy, but in her version the hero was named Avenant. It wasn’t until 1889 when Andrew Lang retold the story that Avenant was dubbed as Charming. One year later in 1890, Oscar Wilde used the term “Prince Charming” sarcastically in his novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, meaning that the term had gotten its more modern meaning by this point in time.

Gaston’s musket is a Blunderbuss, which was invented in the early 1600′s and remained popular through the 18th century before falling out of fashion in the middle of the 19th century. However, considering Belle states that this is a backwards town and Gaston is an old-fashioned, Primeval man, it’s possible he’s using a largely outdated weapon.

While there are no street lamps in the city, we can see in the background lanterns on the sides of buildings, which might allude to the movie taking place before the invention of gas lamps. However, gas lamps were invented in 1809, and if the version of Jack and the Beanstalk is from 1890, then by all accounts the town should have gas lamps. What this amounting evidence is leading me to believe is that the film is directly following the plot of the original fairy tale.

In the story, Beauty’s father is a merchant who loses his fortune due to a storm destroying his cargo. They’re forced to live on a farm until the merchant stumbles upon the Beast’s castle and kick starts the plot. In the opening song, Belle says “every morning’s just the same, since the morning that we came, to this poor, provincial town.” This could mean that she grew up in a much more modern, urban, and progressive town. Possibly even Paris. But that after Maurice suffered severe financial trouble, he was forced to move them to the small, backwards town that was practically living an entire century behind the rest of France, which is why she’s so bored and unimpressed by the little town. It helps explain why she’s so eager to want to get out of this town and see the world. She wants to be part of the modern world again.

Interestingly, I can support this theory with background information. According to some of my research, Belle’s village was based on the little town of Riquewihr, France, which still looks like it did in the 16th century to this day. So the idea that Belle’s little village lacks so many modern elements could be a nod to the architecture of this sleepy French village that has remained largely untouched by the march of time. Hence why it looks more like something out of the 1700s despite the many elements from the 1800s being present.

During the song “Be Our Guest”, Lumiere dances with a match stick. Match sticks were invented in 1805. Assuming the film still takes place in the 1890s, this would be concurrent with the other evidence we’ve seen thus far. Later in the same song, the silverware makes an Eiffel tower, which was constructed in 1889. Since Jack and the Beanstalk was written after that, it still fits within the suspected time frame.

During the climax of the battle, Cogsworth is wearing military garments reflective of Napoleonic styles. Napoleon was coronated in 1804 until 1814, had a brief return to power in 1815, and eventually died in 1821. So this is also congruent to the established time period.

In the Youtube Video “Fashion Expert Fact Checks Belle from Beauty and the Beast’s Costumes” by Glamour, April Calahan, a Fashion Historian from the Fashion Institute of Technology directly noted that Belle’s yellow gown lacks the shape of a proper 18th century dress, and more closely resembles the shape of 19th century dresses, fitting into the evidence that’s been mounting in support of a late 19th century setting.

As a part of his primary costume, Lefou wears a waistcoat and tailcoats, which came into vogue in the 1800s, namely from the 1840s through the 1850s.

But if the film is set in the 1800s, how can the Beast still be a prince after the French Revolution? Well something worth noting is that when he finds out that Belle isn’t coming to dinner, the Beast storms through the halls to her room as Cogsworth calls after him as “Your Eminence” and “Your Grace”. The address of “Your Eminence” is reserved for Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church, and is an ecclesiastical style of address. “Your Grace” is noticeably an English style of address, but it’s being used by Cogsworth who is British, so I can chalk that up to just part of his culture. Although it was used for British monarchs, it fell out of use during the reign of King Henry VIII (1509-1547) and after that, the use of “Your Grace” became used to address archbishops and non-royal Dukes and Duchesses. Now clearly the Beast is not a cardinal or a bishop, especially if he is looking for the love of a woman to make him human, since it’s forbidden for Catholic priests to marry. So clearly that is not what is meant here. But the other answer actually does hold a bit of weight. Beast’s father was in fact, a Duke. So how is the Beast a prince? He’s not. Not entirely. See, there’s more than one kind of Prince in French nobility. There’s a Prince du Sang, or a Prince by Blood. Effectively, the Crown Prince, the sons of ruling monarchs. But the title is also given to lords in charge of a Principality, one of the smallest territorial sizes. The Beast’s principality probably only extends to having power over the little unnamed village. And with it being after the revolution, Beast might not even have the proper use of his title anymore. He’s effectively a rich kid in a fancy house with no real authority or power. He’s just old money from a by-gone era of human history. But if Beast’s address of “Your Grace” is accurate, that would mean that he’s a non-royal Duke, meaning he would not likely have been executed during the Revolution, as his family would have essentially been governors or senators than actual monarchs. They just had jurisdiction over a small piece of the Kingdom of France and reported back to and obeyed the orders of their King. Thus, he would not have been important enough to be killed or chased out of power by the townsfolk.

CONCLUSION

The movie is set between the late autumn and early-to-mid winter of 1890. Although the snow is gone when Belle returns to the village, the trees are still bare, signaling that it may just be unseasonably warm, though it could be the very early spring of 1891 between the receding of the snow and the blossoming of new spring foliage. Between the books, clothing, and references made, my conclusion is that Belle is a very modern girl living in a backwards little town stuck in the past, thus why a village in 1890 looks so completely lacking in modern technology despite the era. The Prince is nothing more than a fancy title as the son of a Duke, and he likely has very little if any actual government authority. Essentially, Belle married into wealth, not power, and will never be a proper queen, and I’m not sure if the wife of a lord ruling a principality is a princess or not, but I suspect the answer is no. Making Belle, like Mulan, a Disney Princess who did not marry royalty, was not born royalty, and thus, cannot be called a Disney Princess. She’s definitely a noblewoman, but she’s not royal by any means.

SETTING: Riquewihr, France

KINGDOM: The French Republic (France)

YEAR: Autumn, 1890 - Spring, 1891

PERIOD: The Third Republic (1870-1940)

LANGUAGE: French

[therobotmonster]

This would also explain why no one in the town seems to care that their regent hasn’t been seen in years. 

[ayellowbirds]

i’m losing my mind at the concept that Belle will very likely live to see the first World War, barring other catastrophe.

[disney-universes]

You see, I just pegged the Eiffel Tower bit as an example of “Magical Anachronisms” like the Witch from Brave setting up a cauldron answering machine or the entire schtick of Merlin and the Genie.

But now you got me imagining Belle’s yearning for “adventure in the great wide somewhere” turning into a S.E.A. membership and Maurice inventions going full steampunk with the Prince’s resources.

[poofmachine]

So I like this comic, but dude... they need to tighten the pacing badly. This story is moving so slow it feels like a Dragon Ball Z battle. The fact we have to wait a week for the story to possibly inch closer to something actually happening is really grating on me. Great art, interesting characters, just really really slow pacing.

[poofmachine]

My Tribute to Marina and Sergei Olifirenko’s Persephone