#beatb

[wegotsomeissuespodcast]

Fun-Keys @stbb492 by Ogi feel the Beat

[internmarce]

beatb0x1ng replied to your post:GUESS WHO HAS HUMMUS.

Whats a hummus??

A delicious food!

[suzie-guru]

"Bluebeard: The Anti-Beauty and the Beast?" OR "Suzie Compares Beauty and the Beast, Bluebeard, and Disney's Beauty and the Beast in a long rambling post"

So I was thinking about Disney's Beauty and the Beast, as you will, and kind of musing over how the Disney's version has the message of looking for beauty in the soul and changing to become a better person. Yet in its original telling, it was supposed to hold the message of how arranged marriages to older men were not so horrible for young ladies of that time. 

This is the fairytale that has a lot of negative sentiment attached to it, especially with the idea of Stockholm Syndrome playing into the story. But I actually think we've always had the Beauty and the Beast story that was purposefully dark, the anti-Beauty and the Beast. And that's Bluebeard. 

The more I think about it, the two fairytales act as really fascinating mirrors - both have young girls who join older, monstrous looking males. Both of the male characters give the young women permission to have run of the castle. 

In the original Beauty and the Beast, we come to find out that the Beast is inflicted with a family curse, not suffering due to personal unpleasantness. The Beast openly calls himself a monster, treats Beauty with courtesy, and tells her that she has all the power, stating that no place in his castle is forbidden to her. He is actually very honest with her, saying that he is looking for a wife, and he asks her each night, but he respects her refusal, and releases her when she wishes to return home. He is actively trying to break his curse, but he does not force Beauty into doing things against her will. Yes, she is a prisoner. She made that choice. But as soon as she tells him about her desire to see her family again, he lets her go with the words that he would die without her. Whether you see this as emotional manipulation or showing how dependent this older, powerful male character has become upon a young woman is up to you. 

Now, onto Bluebeard. In this story, Bluebeard is born with his deformity and actually marries the young woman, and starts the story of by treating her very courteously as well. But he actively forbids her from going into that one little room, but gives her a key to test and tempt her curiosity. When she succumbs, she finds out how much of a monster he really is, the corpses of his past wives beheaded and chained to the walls, the carpet sodden with blood. When he finds out she gave into her curiosity, he lets the courteous façade drop and tells her to go pray before he kills her, a ritual he has obviously done before. She honestly begs for forgiveness and mercy, but he is unmoved and is prepared to deliver the fatal blow before she is rescued by her family.  

Where the Beauty and the Beast's intent was to convey the message that arranged marriages to older gentlemen were not so horrible, Bluebeard's message seems to be much darker - do not go poking into the affair's of your husband. You won't always like what you find, and you'll likely incur some horrible punishment for doing so. 

So! This is where it gets interesting for me when I think about Disney's Beauty and the Beast - the whole idea of the forbidden West Wing is actually something found in the original Bluebeard story, not the original Beauty and the Beast tale. The Beast is a young man cursed for the ugliness in his soul, not for a family curse as in the original. When he enters Belle's life, he is not an older and wiser man, but still young and full of fury and agony.

Unlike both tales, Disney's Beast does not start out treating Belle with courtesy. He is angry and rude, verging on violence sometimes but never to her. This is what a lot of people have a problem with, and even though this my favorite movie and adaption of Beauty and the Beast, I can see where they are coming from. I think that the key point is that both he and Belle are at odds from the start, and it is only when he begins to change and treat her with respect that she begins to warm to him. He is the one adapting to her, not she to him.

There's the Bluebeard scene where she enters the forbidden West Wing, and in his anger, he reacts violently, tearing the room apart. Does Belle beg for mercy? No! She gets the hell out of there! She knows it isn't safe, so she acts in her best interest and runs away, which is the right choice. In the Bluebeard tale, Bluebeard never shies away from threatening his wife and isn't swayed in his determination to kill her. As soon as Belle flees from his rage, the Beast does realize his mistake - we get the shot if him, cradling his head in horror at what he's just done. He goes out to rescue her, and because of this, proves himself to be more than a raging Beast in Belle's eyes. 

As with the original story, he lets her go when she needs to see her family/rescue her father, and he also succumbs to grief when he thinks her gone forever. Belle also echoes the original tale by saving him from the curse while he is on the brink of death. He emerges still a young man, but changed and better due to Belle's influence. While the original had the Beast's personality stay the same throughout the whole story, Disney's take has it become a story about a transformation of the soul - such a change of personality doesn't happen in Bluebeard, and may only happen to Beauty in the original tale. 

Out of the three, the Disney one is the only tale to have the Beast character be young, have a rough personality at the beginning of the tale, and change due to the influence of the Beauty character. The other tales give the Beauty character power at the start of the tale by having run of the estate, but she other wise shows no influence over the Beast's personality. 

It's a fascinating thing to think about. 

[thebeastinsidethebeauty]

[thebeastinsidethebeauty]

Finally this blog is joining twitter...