Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Beauty and the Beast - a Defense



Do you love Disney music? Do you think you know all the lyrics to Disney song? Let's find out!
I've written a lot of really serious posts lately, so it's about time to lighten up a bit.  So here's a topic that is near and dear to me, but many might find silly, immature and/or unworthy of their time.  Maybe it is.  But it's something that I NEED to get off my chest.

Beauty and the Beast is one of my favorite movies, and all the feminists out there who think that there are problems with that, well, so be it.  But their reasoning is wrong.  Just...wrong.

I am going to write this with the assumption that you have seen the Disney version of this movie, and that you are familiar with the basic plot and characters.

Ok, first, I am going to look past the obvious faults with the movie, that the Prince was only 11 years old, with no parents, in a big castle, all alone when this spell happened.  Although, to be fair, the whole "stranger danger" thing doesn't really hold when you live in a castle full of people who can look out for you.  He could have put her up in a different part of the castle, sent a guard to keep an eye on her, and send her away when it wasn't "bitter cold" out.  I am going to ignore the fact that the kingdom that he was supposedly in charge of didn't ever know what happened, nor did they bother to find out.  He was obviously in a dysfunctional kingdom.  I am going to ignore the fact that Belle's parents were not really in the picture.  Her mom was...dead?  Her dad was eccentric to the point that he was irrelevant.  Ineffective.  I am going to ignore the fact that Belle fell in love with a literal beast.

In college, I actually paid to take a class called "Disney's Women and Girls."  Thank you, CU Boulder, for my fine education.  It was a Women's Study's course, which, I just don't believe in.  But, I LOVE Disney, and since we got to watch a Disney movie DURING class every week, I thought that the class might actually be fun.  Little did I know how irritated I would become in this class.  I think that Disney is not the evil corporation that everyone thinks it is.

One thing that my class discussed was that Beauty and the Beast is a bad movie for girls because it, apparently, teaches young girls that, if they stay in abusive relationships long enough, and are nice enough, then the man will just change.  Poof.  Just because she is nice.

Belle: "By the way, thank you....for saving my life." Beast: "You're welcome."Now, I don't know if I saw a completely different movie than everyone else in the world, but when was Belle NICE to the Beast?  At what point?  Because, early on, the first night in the castle, he asks her to dinner.  A "nice" response would be to say, "ok, yes, of course, whatever you say."  But she did not.  She said no.  And she stood by her no.  She only started being nice to the Beast when he saved her life.  It was when she was about to be attacked by the wolves after she ran away, and he chased her down, fought the wolves himself, got injured, and she helped him get back to the castle and took care of his wounds.  That was the first time when she was "nice" to him.  After he earned that right.

AND EVEN THEN!!!...she STILL defended herself.  He lost his temper and growled at her, and she got in an argument with him, and she finally told him that he has to control his temper.  She totally won that argument.  Would a "nice" girl?  No!  A "nice" girl would just let him talk to her however he wanted, and she wouldn't defend herself or stand up for herself.  She wouldn't be willing to put herself out there and say what needs to change.  But, she was finally nice when she thanked him, very sincerely, for saving her life.

So did that change him?  She was nice, and POOF!  He was nice?  Nope!  Let me ask you, why do you think he wanted to fall in love?  He fell in love because he wanted to break the spell.  He changed because he knew that, in order for her to fall in love with him, he'd have to do things differently.  And so he made those changes to help, not only him, but people he truly did care about.  Lumiere, Mrs. Potts, Cogsworth...we see how these characters are important to him throughout the whole movie.  These are the people he goes to for advice.   And they coach him.  They teach him how he needs to change.  From superficial things to more meaningful things, they give him well rounded advice for winning her heart.

From IMDB...
Beast: Oh, it's no use. She's so beautiful, and I'm... Well, look at me!
Mrs. Potts: Oh, must help her to see past all that.
Beast: I don't know how.
Mrs. Potts: Well, you can start by making yourself more presentable. Straighten up. Try to act like a gentleman.
[Beast stands up straighter]
Lumiere: Ah, yes. When she comes in give her a dashing, debonair smile. Come, come, show me the smile.
[Beast gives a big, forced smile]
Mrs. Potts: But don't frighten the poor girl!
Lumiere: Impress her with your rapier wit.
Mrs. Potts: But be gentle.
Lumiere: Shower her with compliments.
Mrs. Potts: But be sincere.
Lumiere: And above all...
Mrs. PottsLumiere: You must control your temper!

I mean, you don't get much more varied advice on love than you do from asking Mrs. Potts and Lumiere!  Talk about opposing!  But, they don't oppose each other!  They balance each other.  Actually, it's more like they complete each other.   Compliment each other?  I think, in a unique way, they do all of those things!

beauty and the beast jokeHe even gets love advice from Cogsworth.  He seeks help from anybody who will give it.   Granted, Cogsworth's advice is not great, or even good.  But, at this point, the Beast has learned a thing or two, and he knows exactly what to give Belle, a library.  And she loves it, of course!  It's fits her personality, her likes, her passions, perfectly.  He gave her something that only one who truly knows and loves another can give...he paid attention.

Beauy and the Beast- "If I Can't Love Her"There is a great line from the musical version of Beauty and the Beast, that speaks so clearly about the beast.  The words say,

No beauty could move me
No goodness improve me
No power on earth, if I can't love her
No passion could reach me
No lesson could teach me
How I could have love her and made her love me too
If I can't love her, then who?

Think about that.  He recognizes that this is his only shot.  He has a chance here and now for love, but he despairs, because it's not just enough for one to fall in love with the other, they have to fall in love with each other.  Belle is a very good person.  She is beautiful, kind, loving, passionate, intelligent, and...I mean...she has such a capacity to love that she was willing to give up her freedom for someone she loves.  The Beast knows that if he can't fall in love with someone as good as she, well then there is no hope for him at all.  He has to truly love.  It has to be pure.  And, as we see, it is. He lets her go right when the spell would be broken.  As far as he was concerned, her leaving - EVEN IF SHE WAS PLANNING ON RETURNING - would be too late.  It would doom him and all of his friends, probably some family (even if "distant" family).  They were all counting on this, the pressure was on, and he let her go.  He set her free.  But he did not know that true love comes only when the person is free to love.  Free to leave.  Free to say yes.  Free to say no.  Until then, she had been his prisoner.  Once he set her free, only then could she truly love.

I believe, whole heartedly, that this movie, this story, this show, is great.  I love it.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about these things.  IS that bad though?  IS it a waste of my time?  To be fair, you can make anything have a bad message if you want.  People are out to villianize Disney.  Granted, there are some blatantly racist things in some of their earlier movies.  But, for the most part, Disney has good messages, good lessons to teach our kids.  We just have to take the time to talk to them, to help them with their critical thinking, to teach them the Truth.  They will eventually grow lenses to find it for themselves. 

Wednesday, September 2, 2015

It Moves Us All






Lions are my favorite animal.  They are strong, majestic, smart, beautiful creatures.  I love lions.  I wrote a whole retreat one time based off of the great scene in the movie The Lion King, where Mufasa comes down in the clouds to encourage Simba.  It's a great scene and a total metaphor for prayer.  It's perfect.

Cecil the Lion was killed recently to be a hunting trophy, and it is something that has created a lot of very strong and intense reactions in a lot of people across our country.

Cecil the Lion

As a Catholic who hangs out in Catholic groups and reads Catholic articles and sees Catholic friends post about Catholic issues, I have seen one very strong reaction that bothers me greatly.  The reaction that I see from Catholics is basically a response to the belief that animal conservationists are somehow "the" problem.  That animal rights and human rights somehow oppose each other, and that human rights are all that matters.  I'm sure that this happened from the other side, too.  That animal rights people claimed that animal rights is the most important. 

As far as I know, there isn't a name for people like me.  I am neither an animal conservationist, nor, well, anti-animal conservationist.  But I do love animals.  I do believe in treating them with the kind of dignity that they deserve.  They are not equal to humans by any means.  Human life has the most dignity because we are made in the Image and Likeness of God.  Therefore, we have great, unique, dignity.  But animals have dignity, too.  A certain kind of dignity.  They are not made in God's Image and Likeness, but they are made by God, and you betcha He loves them, too. We have an obligation to protect and care for God's creation, no matter if it's plants, animals, the Earth, or even space.  God gave us these things to use for our actual physical lives, for our enjoyment, for our amazement, and to give Him glory.  He did not give us these things so that we could abuse them.

Because I believe that God gave us these things to help us live, I am not opposed to hunting.  God gave us animals to eat.  But not all animals are created equally.

As a child/teen, I often heard that Taco Bell uses horse meat in its taco meat.  Appalled by this, many people claimed that they would never eat there.  I had no way of knowing if these things that I heard were true (note, I didn't hear this because of a newspaper article, or a news story, or on the radio, I heard it from my friends, who were my age, and basically knew nothing about how the world worked or what was real).  All I knew was that everyone who heard this had a very strong reaction to it.  Including myself.  And it made me curious.

Why, in the minds of so many people, is it ok to eat a chicken, but not a dog?  Why is it ok to eat a turkey, but not a cat?  Why is it ok to eat a cow, but not a horse?  Those last two are even rather similar to each other, don't you think?  I just never really understood the reasoning.  I felt the same way, though.  I felt that it is wrong to eat a dog, a cat, and a horse. 

Not all animals are created equal.  And we, humans, are a primary example of that.  We alone are animals made in the Image and Likeness of God.  If we are separate, aren't other animals kind of separate from each other as well?

Cecil the Lion died as a result of hunting.  I am not opposed to hunting.  I do believe, though, that there are animals you hunt, and animals you don't hunt.  And lions should be, in my opinion, on the "no-hunt" list.

But it's hard to understand why.  Where is that line?  When does it become ok to hunt and eat an animal, and when is that not ok?  I can't tell you.

As far as I know, the Bible is silent on this issue.  The Bible is NOT silent on the issue of protecting God's creation, though.  In fact, it says right away in the Bible, "The LORD God then took the man and settled him in the garden of Eden, to cultivate and care for it" (Genesis 2:15). 


Adam, who, at the time was ALL of mankind (Eve had yet to be created) was in charge of taking care of the Earth!  That was his job, and was/is therefore the job of all of humanity!  He was to cultivate and care for it!  It's part of being made in the Image and Likeness of God!  We have forgotten who we are...we are men and women, created in God's Image and Likeness, created with the responsibility and JOY of protecting and caring for the Earth. 

"You have forgotten who you are, and so have forgotten me...You are more than what you have become."


When people abuse this role, it becomes sinful.  So we unjustly hurt animals, people, and the most precious kinds of people...unborn babies.

I don't think that these two groups have to be on opposing teams.  And although the abortion issue is a top priority, I don't think that negates the animal and environmental issues, either.  If we don't take care of our planet, this planet will kill us.  It will become so polluted, there will be so little food left, that human kind will die off.  Taking care of the environment is part of the Pro-Life Movement!  WE ARE ON THE SAME TEAM!!!!!!!! 

When any of God's creatures/creation is abused, it SHOULD move us all!  We should all be outraged!  Not just the animal rights people.  Not just the pro-life people.  All of us, together, should be scandalized.

I think that the Cecil thing was blown out of proportion, but that doesn't matter.  What does matter is that we use this bad thing to start re-energizing us about what's important.  Picking fights about who is better or who is worse is a waste of energy.  If you are working at protecting God's creation, then you are doing a good thing.  Let's stop fighting each other and start working together to make this world a healthier, holier, better place!  We can do this!