Beauty and the Beast: Celebrating Love and Monster Lovers 35 Years Later

Disney’s Beauty and the Beast celebrates its 35th anniversary this year. This film is part of the Disney Renaissance era that turned Disney into a powerhouse animation studio. Over the years, Beauty and the Beast received various sequels, Broadway musicals, television series, and a live-action film musical.

Beauty and the Beast is based on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s novel of the same name that served as a guide for young women and children who were forced into marriages with older men in the 18th century. The most popular version of this story is the one by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont who shortened Barbot’s original text. Throughout the years, Beaumont’s novel has been adapted into various books, films, TV shows, and video games.

60 Years In The Making

The production for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast began sometime in the 1930s or ’40s. When the team couldn’t figure out how to move the film forward, they shelved the project. It wasn’t until the team brought in the composers Menken and Ashman to help bring the shelved project to life.

The Disney film follows Belle, the daughter of an inventor who happens to be one of the only literate people in her little provincial town. This makes her the target for constant bullying. When her father leaves to submit his latest creation to the local fair, he becomes lost in the forest and takes refuge in a castle. Unbeknownst to her father, the castle is occupied by the Beast, who locks up the elderly man for trespassing. Belle finds out and offers herself in exchange for her father. Over time, the two learn about each other and gradually fall in love. This turns the Beast into a human, and the couple lives happily ever after.

In classic Disney Renaissance era fashion, this film has amazing music, art, and animation. It’s a film many look fondly upon. Now that the children who watched this movie growing up in the ’90s are adults, we’ve had time to think critically about it. I don’t think Disney ever considered that they would unintentionally groom a generation of monster lovers.

Monster Lovers 101 

Every kid has a movie they watched that unlocked something in their psyche. I think Beauty and the Beast was that film for a lot of monster lovers. This is a movie that humanized a so-called monster. It showed the trials and tribulations of what it’s like to love someone who has been deemed an Other by polite society.

When the Beast turns into a human at the end of the film, Belle becomes cautious of him. She wonders if the man before her is the beast she loves. Her reaction to Beast’s transformation sparked discussions about Belle liking his appearance more as a beast than a human. For a while, this was a theory brought on by the animation.

When the 2017 live-action version starring Emma Watson rolled around, the discussions came back with ammunition. At the end of the film, Belle asks the newly human Beast if he’d grow out a beard, to which he responds with a growl of sorts. This does not help Belle’s case, but in her defense, he’s educated, rich, and actually cares about her. Get your man, girl.

If we take a look at similar movies with monster-human romances such as Warm Bodies (2013), The Shape of Water (2017), and Edward Scissorhands (1990), it’s easy to find a link between Beauty and the Beast and this generation’s appreciation for monster romance. While vampires, werewolves, and human-presenting creatures are commonly accepted by the masses, more monstrous creatures earn a bit of a side-eye from the average person. However, Beauty and the Beast flies under the radar because the Beast turns human at the end of the film, so he doesn’t count (he does).