The way he treats Belle is a stepping stone to further the plot in the movie as Belle is not interested in Gaston which only promotes his hostility. This character, Gaston, is the conventional image of a male that is typically aggressive, as he is very belligerent towards Belle and anyone who crosses his path. She is the embodiment of a self-sufficient female, until one of the main male characters comes into play. In “Beauty and the Beast”, Belle is a young independent woman who doesn’t seem to need the attention from any male figure in her life other than her father. “But her sense of possible destinies for woman is based on romances.” Therefore the bookish heroine had been created to try and keep up with the actual changes to how women have been viewed, but she had still been seen as a weird female character. One of Disney’s most prominent offenders is “Beauty and the Beast” which came out in 1991, which is a good sign that this is not a new issue.īelle is seen as a strange character and this is because she doesn’t want to get married and be a housewife like Snow White or Cinderella, instead she is the type of character that is “Supposedly a “smart” woman who reads books,” and wants to travel. This only further brought to light by making the female’s roles in their movies as innocent, pure, and whilst very rarely independent, while the men are big, burly, aggressive and pushy.
One of the culprits to presenting these stereotypes and making them “normal” is Disney, who can be infamous for instilling this into little girls and even boys minds. This is not only taught by our society, but also our media starting with movies shown to children.
“Shame leads to silence the silence that keeps other people believing that we actually approve of the things that are done to women…”. As a young child, girls are taught that if a boy belittles her and relentlessly harrases her, that he must like her and she should just shut up, accept it, and be happy to let it happen and to hide her shame. They mature, starting from being expected to playing with and nursing dolls, or destroying toys and playing in the mud, and from there never seem to end. Growing up means growing up with stereotypes and gender roles following behind like an annoying friend.