11 November 2014
Re-thinking Beauty and the Beast
In Europe, the 1700s was a different time than present day America in which Marie Le Prince de Beaumont’s and Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast was written and made. Europe in the 1700s was very religion based, meaning that God always came first no matter the situation and has been a dominant thought in shaping the future for Europe. The order of priorities in that time in Europe was God, the Monarchy or royal family, and then the rest of a person’s priorities. A monarchy always has a royal family in which there is a king or queen, princes and princesses, and they do little to no work while the poor do all the work. In present day America, there are no monarchies in a democracy, and the harder a person works in life then the better off that person will be in succeeding. The Disney version of Beauty and the Beast it follows the original text of de Beaumont is almost scene by scene just by glancing at the two. Each is aimed at the same audience, which is young kids, both follow the same plot line and they also have a happy ending. The further the audience looks into the culture of the film and the text, the audience will then notice that each of these stories has little to nothing in common with each other. In the original “Beauty and the Beast” she uses the culture from the time period and place in which she wrote the story which was the 1730s in Europe. She uses this culture to relate to her audience at the time. The Disney version of the story uses cultures from all over the world to relate to the audience and give them a perspective of how Americans view the rest of the world as a society; however the underline message from each of the stories is different and is conflicting from the original text to the Disney film.
Beauty and The Beast has been a part of our culture for many years as are many fairytales. It is...