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S i d e b a r
Decent Entertainment
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This Rock
Volume 13, Number 1
 January 2002 
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Beauty and the Beast, a 1991 film that was nominated for an Academy Award for best picture, is considered by some the most accomplished animated film of all time. The emotional and moral resonances of its source material ring truer in this film than in any Disney adaptation since Bambi.
Like most folk and fairy tales, Beauty and the Beast makes literal truths that a realistic narrative could only suggest by figures of speech. In a realistic narrative, a man who is a selfish boor might be called a beast. In this story, he actually becomes one. When we first meet the Beast, his behavior corresponds to his appearance: He is savage, selfish, and brutal, and by enchantment can be redeemed only through the liberating power of love.
By contrast, Belle, a devoted and loyal daughter who is courteous and charitable to everyone, has an outward beauty that reflects her inner virtue. Belle lives with her father in a domestic and social context, while the Beast lives in a dark, frightening wood far from any village or town, separated from all human contact.
In its two principals, Beauty and the Beast show us the true face of virtue and the true face of egotism. At the same time, few parents will want their children raised on stories in which sympathetic characters are always attractive and ugly ones are always bad. We want our children to love beauty rather than ugliness, but we also want them to know that a malicious or shallow heart can wear a pretty face (as is the case with the film’s swaggering lout, Gaston), while a repellent visage can belie a sensitive, loving soul (as becomes the case with the gradually rehabilitated Beast).
Besides its moral dimension, Beauty also has the qualities described by Inter Mirifica: "value as decent entertainment, humane culture, [and] art." As cultural and aesthetic beings, we are enriched by well-made and enjoyable entertainment, and for that, it’s hard to beat Beauty and the Beast. The animation is lavish, and the plot line is a skillful blend of melodrama and humor.
That’s not to say that Beauty is perfect. But it does have wholesome themes that, if reinforced by a regular diet of other wholesome stories and influences, can help shape a child’s imaginative and moral outlook in beneficial ways.
On the other hand, a regular diet of less wholesome fare—including many recent Disney films—can create negative recurring patterns; in that context, even a generally decent story like Beauty and the Beast can be part of the problem outlined in this article.
—S.D.G.
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