A Feminist Perspective

“Belle is a feminist,” said Beauty and the Beast’s screenwriter and book writer Linda Woolverton in a 1990 interview. “I wanted a woman of the ’90s, someone who wanted to do something other than wait for her prince to come." Twenty-five years after Disney introduced Belle to the world, debates still flare online and in numerous scholarly papers as to whether she’s a positive role model for girls. In a town that only praises her looks and scorns her intellect, Belle decisively remains true to her principles. But though Belle reads books, her favorite involves Prince Charming. Professor June Cummins of the National Center for the Study of Children’s Literature writes, “The trait that makes Belle different, more intelligent, and more ‘liberated’ than previous Disney heroines is that she likes to read books about Disney heroines.” Later, however, when she concludes that the Beast is “no Prince Charming,” she shares another one of her favorites, a tale that better reflects her determination: young King Arthur pulling the sword from the stone. Dissatisfied with her life, Belle doesn’t look for love as a solution, deftly rebuffing the bullying attention of Gaston. And while being held prisoner in a cursed castle isn’t the “adventure in the great wide somewhere” she dreamt about, Belle responds to a crisis admirably. She takes brave action to protect her father, who is weak and childlike, and she repeatedly defies her captor. That the Beast is Belle’s captor delivers the story’s most troubling message, summed up succinctly by freelance film critic Scott Mendelson: “I’ve long joked that I was able to ruin Disney’s Beauty and the Beast for others merely by uttering two words: Stockholm Syndrome.” Woolverton counters by viewing Belle in context, part of a continuum that has led to the heroines of Frozen and The Hunger Games, or to Disney’s 2010 Alice in Wonderland, which made Woolverton the first woman to get sole writing credit on a billion dollar movie. With Belle returning to the screen in a live-action adaptation in 2017, it remains to be seen whether she will become a heroine for our times.—Marc Acito

Reprinted from OSF’s 2017 Illuminations, a 64-page guide to the season’s plays. For more information on the play, click here. To buy the full Illuminations, click here. Members at the Donor level and above and teachers who bring school groups to OSF receive a free copy of Illuminations.