Our first discussion question dealt with Belle and how her being an outsider left her more predisposed to accept Beast. The class seemed to generally agree with this idea and I my self thought so too. The tale was set around a small french village were being different was bad and although belle was most beloved by her neighbors and village for her beauty and unjudgmental innocence, she herself was isolated and without a true companion besides father. This in my mind definetly left her predisposed to eventually accept the beast for who he truly is inside.
Gaston was the topic of my last blog and he was also a main focus in the discussion questions. We talked about his role in the story and how he potentially aids in delivering Disney's message on external versus internal beauty. I found that Gaston was well utlized as a character and the idea of having him portray a contrast to the Beast seemed to work too. As i found out from researching his character, he was specifically redesigned to reflect less of a classical macho and instead was supposed to look charming and handsome to make his evil personality particularly shocking. This concept should be perceivable to children although they might not be fully aware of this, if at all.
The last discussion question we dealt with had to do with expectations of men and how these might have changed over the past two decades. As a class we seemed to feel that much more emphasis is places on a deep sense of character, and being not just a great strong man but also having a sensitive and compassionate side that others can identify with and potentially exemplify such behavior. This trend seems to appear in many aspects of society, even with respect to the newly elected predisent of the United States, a man that is arguable more of a family oriented and sensitive individual, very educated in all aspects of his leadership and also notably the first president of african descent. But its not just in the political world that we can observe this, popular movies are no longer focused around a great big, perfectly chizled white male protagonist. Instead we have seen great characters like Denzel Washinton emerge to be characters that as we mentioned in class truly make a movie and not the other way around. I feel as though society has grown bored of the stereotypical white male characters and we are all craving for new creative ideas to emerge out of the huge pool of media that has evolved over the last few decades.
In conclusion, although our class has shrunk to only fifteen remaining students, our discussions are still strong and the Beaty and the Beast critics class was no exceptions. We analyzed the questions well and ended up drawing quite valuable information on how society seems to have changed and indeed is changing ever so fast into a world were race, gender and origin no longer effect judgement, and we are free to experiance the full palette of talent that our world as a whole has to offer. This phenomenon in my mind is long overdue and has sadly been greatly restricted in the past. People of all origins have been oppressed through overpowerful religions and corrupt political policy and it has crippled our society with rediculous stereotypes and great amounts of indefensible bias. I will finish my blog with a particularly hideous picture of Germany's potential next Foreign Minister, a man who is openly gay, married to his partner and wears lots of pink ties. None of these things however have kept him from having a successful political career based on his actual skill and experience, without being rendered completely irrelevant and uncompetitive because of his sexual preferences. I think this shows a step in the right direction and exemplifies a future that is hopefully free from such bias, and relies on actual skill, knowledge and experience instead.
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