Beauty and The Beast

Summary: An arrogant and handsome young Prince is transformed into a Beast after being unkind to an enchantress posed as a beggar woman. His whole palace is put under a spell and the Beast lives in isolation. Belle, a bright, young, brave and adventurous villager, starts to change the Beast's heart and teach him to be gentle again, after she takes her father's place as captive. Belle must also deal with village's most eligible bachelor, Gaston, an intolerable man, who values Belle only for her beauty and not her brains.

It is evident from the out-set that Belle is part of the 2nd wave pdeudo-feminist Disney Princesses. She is intelligent and loves to read, she longs for more in life and is not content to simply be a wife and mother - which was the primary role of the previous first-wave Princesses, Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora. Quite the contrary, Belle is repulsed by the supposedly most eligible bachelor in town, Gaston, who plots to marry her. He doesn't respect her intelligence, thinking, as the villagers do, that Belle is strange for reading. But, Belle is the prettiest girl in town, so Gaston feels entitled to her. Here, Disney uses - just as they do in many films - the villain to speak in a misogynistic way. This is the fine line between perpetuating old-fashioned ideas of inequality and highlighting them as bad as it is the villain who most noticeably criticizes Belle for reading, and he is the baddie, so what he says is bad and shouldn't be agreed with. In a child's mind, the latter is arguably the case; Good characters say good things, bad characters say bad things and shouldn't be trusted. As children like Belle, the heroin of the story, they'll think she's right, and defend her views of the villagers disapproval of reading. After all, these same villagers mock Belle's father and later come to send him to an asylum and kill the Beast, who the children have now viewed as a gentler and more loving character. So again, villagers are bad and shouldn't be paid attention to. Despite this notion, it can't simply be ignored that there remains a perpetual oppression of women throughout Disney films...and perhaps it is damaging for young children to constantly hear, for example, that women are strange if they read. Even subliminally, this seed is then planted in their minds and may becoming more apparent around middle-school age, when children are desperate to 'fit in'.

Though Gaston's views are very far out there, and he is intentionally mocked by Belle and throughout the film.

Gaston: It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting *ideas*, and *thinking*... 
Belle: Gaston, you are positively primeval. 
Gaston: Why thank you, Belle. What would you say if you and I took a walk over to the tavern and took a look at my trophies? 

He thinks takes being called "primeval" as a compliment, though it is clearly meant to mean that he is backward and stuck in the past, and he is also repulsively arrogant, "I'd like to thank you all for coming to my wedding. But first I'd better go in there and propose to the girl.". Which only backfires on him, as Belle refuses and kicks him out her house, and Gaston is left in the mud with the pigs. 

So, Gaston is our "primeval" villain who arrogantly spouts misogynistic garbage, and he is the baddy who the children will not identify with...but the villagers all love Gaston, they hang on his every word, and he is idealized. So yes, although the villagers are also seen as naive, persuasive figures who become wrapped up in Gaston's scheming, this ties in directly with children as they grow up. When they reach middle-school age, they want to fit in, and naively follow the popular opinion, lead by the idol of the area.....so now Gaston's harmless misogyny doesn't quite seem so easy to shrug off.