1
Lollie
Katie Lollie
Dr. Abigail Heiniger
FRE 2991/GER 2991
March 26, 2014
A Tale as Old as Time
What is the main goal every good woman should have? According to the majority of princess fairytales, it is to follow the morals of the culture in which the stories were written in order to win the prize at the end, a prince. This prince charming is usually a tall, dark, and handsome male, with few speaking opportunities. He seems to be this beautiful, two-dimensional portrait waiting to be bought by the right behavior, which in turn transforms that “buyer,” or princess in this case, into the two-dimensional portrait. However, “Beauty and the Beast”does quite the opposite, with the prince as the victim of a magical curse, which is usually associated with the female, and also seeking love. For this reason, many people including author Jerry Griswold in his book, The Meanings of “Beauty and the Beast”: A Handbook, believe that this story has a certain appeal to modern society that the others do not.By adding this equality between the female and male characters’ importance and misfortune, the tale makes for a whole new opportunity to make modern versions of the story. These versions don’t just empower women, but also include men in the journey, rather than having them be the conclusion of one. Therefore, throughout many different adaptations of "Beauty and the Beast" such as the movieBeastly,the role of the Beast in the story often transforms in order to reflect the ideals of the society in which the version was created. These transformations are especially important regardingthe external situation surrounding the Beast, his responsibility for his own "re-humanization," andthe Beast's changing relationship with Beauty, because they demonstrate what is important at that time period, as well as what is expected of the male gender in regards to finding love and treating others.
As author Betsy Hearne notes in her article about the many revisions of the tale, the importance of the flexible moral of “Beauty and the Beast” is what has helped the tale to have “survived cultural, historical, economic, and aesthetic change.” It is also the moral that inspired the movie Beastly, almost three centuries after the first version of the story was written. However, because of the gigantic time gap between the two versions, the external situation surrounding the Beast in the stories is much different. This change in environment can be attributed to the many differences between the cultures in which the two stories were developed.
Of course, there are similarities between Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s 1757 version of “Beauty and the Beast” and the movie Beastly,but they are primarily at the foundation of the story. Belle’s selfless nature, her father being the cause of her move, Beast’s desire for love despite his curse, and ultimately, the love that develops between the two of them are still included in the new version. “Beauty and the Beast” is essentially a love story like many other fairy tales, and that part of the moral does not change regardless of the time period. However, unlike many of the other tales, as author June Cummins notes in her article,“in many ways it is not even Belle's love story as much as it is the Beast's. We can schematize it as beast gets girl, beast loses girl, and beast gets girl back.” This fact is especially true in the movie Beastly. Though many older versions can still be analyzed as a story about a female heroine, such as versions that authors Claire Malarte-Feldman and Martha Hixon wrote their articles about, Beastly has the male character, Kyle, as the main character of the story. This gives the viewer a totally different side of the story from that given in Leprince de Beaumont’s version and emphasizes the importance of equality between genders. This change of view also indicates that men are allowed to have feelings and desire love too. Older versions of the story make it seem as though men only want love if it benefits them, whether it breaks a curse or just gives them something pretty to obey them and to look at.
In addition, to these primary differences in external situation, there are also many secondary differences. For instance, in Beastly,the beast is not actually a prince like he is in Leprince de Beaumont’s version of the fairy tale. However, Kyle is the equivalent to a prince in American society where we do not have a royal family; he is a handsome and rich young man with a well-known family. He is a popular high school student who ultimately becomes cursed by a witch because of his shallow behavior, whereas in the original tale, an evil fairy curses him with little to no lesson to learn. It is more of a test of the others around the Beast in Leprince de Beaumont’s version as opposed to the test Kyle is given in Beastly. Kyle also has people who his father hired to be with him at his house and work for him. They still help him with his curse and with Lindy (Beauty), despite the fact that they do not have to stay with him like the servants do in the original version. This shows a change in the culture, which values helping others when they are in need, even when it is not required and that person is not always kind.
Not only have things changed around Kyle in Beastly in comparison to the original version of “Beauty and the Beast” by Leprince de Beaumont, but there have also been changes within the beast. Beast’s responsibility for his own re-humanization has evolved from a short courtship, followed by a marriage acceptance, to Beauty having to admit her love for beast. This exemplifies culture’s growing desire for true love, rather than a mere courtship. This could be because marriage is no longer seen as a necessity in today’s culture but as an option. Kyle is given a year to get Lindy to fall in love with him, which is a much longer time than “Beauty and the Beast” gives Beauty to want to marry the Beast. Ultimately, it should take longer than two weeks for anyone to find their true love, which is one aspect of many older tales that makes the “love” found seem superficial. In this year that Kyle is given inBeastly,Kyle is shown trying as hard as he can to make Lindy love him. It reveals the inner struggle that he has to overcome in order to even believe that someone could love someone with a curse like his, which we don’t see in “Beauty and the Beast” because it is not from the Beast’s point of view.
Also, in Beastly, Kyle must get over his own shallow ways in order to understand what can make someone as selfless as Lindy happy. This change shows that men are expected to put in effort when they are trying to find love now, rather than it just coming to him encased in glass. Women are seen as individuals who have the choice to marry or not, and who can now make their own living rather than needing a man to care for them. Therefore, a man must be comfortable with himself and selfless with the woman that he loves, because they now need each other equally rather than the woman being the only one who truly needs a companion. This necessity to put in an effort now has caused a sense of selflessness within Kyle. He now has to think of what Lindy wants rather than what he wants, which ultimately changes him on the inside and makes the curse breaking possible. He no longer thinks about himself first, but starts to realize that he is capable of caring for others, and would put their desires before his if he could. This selflessness causes him to want to allow Lindy to go on her trip, even though it will result in him being stuck with his curse forever. This implies that the Beast’s re-humanization no longer has to do with his appearance, but what is on the inside. In “Beauty and the Beast,” the beast is unable to show his true personality until after he is transformed back into a prince whereas Kyle showing his true personality is what helps him to get Lindy to love him. The beast’s true personality beneath his beastly appearance in the original tale is much like the personality that Kyle is attempting to find within himself in the film. His finding this good in himself is part of his responsibility of his own re-humanization, which the witch reminds him when he goes to talk to her. When the witch says, “So he cares now” it shows that he has made a crucial step in his own re-humanization; he has learned to care about other people. This ability to care for others rather than just himself is an important characteristic for him to have in order to get someone like Lindy to love him, because she is always putting others before herself just as Beauty does in the original tale.
Kyle knows that Lindy has a tendency to put others before herself because unlike in the tale by Leprince de Beaumont, Kyle and Lindy know each other before he becomes a beast. This is one of the primary aspects of the relationship between Beauty and the beast that changes with this version. Obviously Lindy does not recognize him once he is cursed, but the feelings that Kyle had for her still remain with him once he becomes the beast. He had met her at school and started to feel like there was something different about her. Once he is a beast, he follows her at nighttime while she goes to care for the homeless, and realizes that he really likes her. His close watch on her is why when her father gets into trouble with some gang members over drugs, Kyle is there to save both Lindy and her father from harm. Kyle then tells Lindy’s father that it would be best if she comes to stay with him for her safety since her father had killed one of the men and they said that they would be back. This is different from the original tale because Beast did not know Beauty before she came to his castle, and she only comes to the castle because Beast was going to kill her father and said that one of his children could trade places with him. She chose to come to his palace because she wanted to save her father, whereas in the movie, her father chooses to take her to the beast’s home in order to keep her safe. Though Lindy is still a little unnerved by a man that she does not know requesting that she comes to stay with him for her safety, she is not afraid of him like Beauty is of the beast in the beginning of her stay. In addition, it also gives Kyle the opportunity to realize that she liked him before he turned into a beast, and also helps him to see that he may be able to make her fall in love with him since it was possible before. This is shown in the scene in Lindy’s bedroom when Kyle brings her the CDs that he retrieved for her. He notices that there is a picture of Lindy and him on her computer, and then she starts to talk about him to Kyle, obviously not knowing that he is the same guy because of his transformation. She admits to falling for him, but also notes that he was shallow and that it would not have worked out between them because of that. This conversation gives Kyle the opportunity to start fresh with Lindy, which is something that Beast does not get in “Beauty and the Beast.” He must live with his harshness in the beginning towards her father, while Kyle can change his behavior according to what he now knows will work.
Kyle is able to befriend Lindy, and to impress her with his talents, most of which he learns to impress her. This is different than the original story in that the beast in Leprince de Beaumont’s version the beast is not able to show his true skills and personality as part of the curse. He does however get the opportunity to do something that Kyle does as well, which is to let her go see her father when there is an emergency at home. This gives Lindy and Beauty the chance to realize that they have fallen for their beasts and that they want to return to them. However, in Beastly, before Lindy leaves to see her father, she tells Kyle that he is a good friend, which makes him think that she will never actually love him as more than a friend. This causes him to ignore Lindy after her visit with her father, especially because he had given her a letter revealing his feelings for her, which she just seemed to have said she does not have. This seems to be a big fear for men in culture today, being labeled as a friend by a girl that they like, which shows that men cannot just swoop in and take whatever girls they want now, but have to be wanted in return as well. Fortunately for Kyle, when he goes to see Lindy at the school before she leaves for her trip, she admits that she was so upset by his ignoring her that she realized that she loves him. Kyle had thought that it was too late for his curse to break because the last flower of his curse tattoo had bloomed, but when she told him that she loved him, he changed back into what he looked like before. This seems to exemplify that even if it takes more time than expected, it is better to put in every last amount of effort in order to win over the love of someone truly important to you than to not try at all.
All of these changes between the versions, and more, seem to exemplify the changing values of gender roles for male characters. Specifically, they show that men are expected to put in just as much effort in order to find love as women are. They are also expected to treat people well regardless of the difference in status that there may be between them. In the original versions of the fairy tales, the prince always seems to only be obtainable if the princess does something that impresses him. However, in newer versions of the fairy tale, it seems to be equally as important for the male character to impress the female character. For example, rather than Lindy having to impress Kyle in order to find true love, it is Kyle who is searching for love in the movie. He must do things to impress her, such as build a greenhouse and study poetry, and ultimately he must wait for her to want him. This is an extremely different concept than that of older fairy tales. The process of re-humanization, as mentioned, also requires the beast to learn to care for others besides him and beauty. In the original version of “Beauty and the Beast,” the only responsibility that the beast has is to get Beauty to agree to marry him. In Beastly, Kyle must learn to care for others such as Zola his maid and Will his tutor. In the end, it is not only him who gets out of his curse, but his love for them allows them to get that which they each desired the most, which for Zola was her children and for Will, it was his eyesight. Though giving them what they want most that was not part of his curse, it shows that culture today values people who care for others and that they will be rewarded for doing so.
With there being so many versions of the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast,” there are changes within the story that are constantly occurring. It is important to consider what culture that they are written in, in order to understand why the different changes are happening. With the movie Beastly, many of the changes have occurred based on the idea that men are now supposed to desire love and try to find love as much as women are. Men are also expected to care for people other than themselves, which before was what women were responsible for doing. That is why this story is such an important part of fairy tale culture; because like Hearne and Griswold note, the moral of the story is so flexible that it is easily adapted to many different cultures and is also appealing to both genders. Because of this flexibility, the changes in external situation surrounding the Beast, the differences in his responsibility for his own "re-humanization," and hischanging relationship with Beauty all help to reveal what is crucial to the time period that the version of the tale is made in. Also, because it can be written from the male perspective, it allows the reader, or viewer, to understand what is important for both genders rather than expecting the women to always undergo the hardship and the men to always be at then end of it. Versions of fairy tales that are able to do something like this are the types of stories that open up the opportunity for future stories to go beyond the fairy tale norms.