On March 16, the film adaptation of the 1991 Disney cartoon “Beauty and the Beast” was released in Russia. A fairy tale known to everyone since childhood is rethought in a modern way. The villain Gaston changed from a hunter to a soldier, his henchman LeFou turned out to be a latent homosexual, and the servants in the monster’s castle live in happy interracial marriages. Belle has completely turned from just a resourceful and courageous girl into a “strong female character.”
Once upon a time there lived in an ordinary French town a girl named Belle (Emma Watson). What distinguished her from the illiterate townspeople was her love of books, namely the plays of Shakespeare. In the village she was considered obstinate and strange, but attractive. Retired military man Gaston (Luke Evans) fell for her beauty and, without further ado, asked Belle to marry him. The girl politely refused the offer, because Gaston is a rude and ignorant person.
One day her father Maurice (Kevin Kline) went on a small voyage. His daughter asked him to bring a rose from his trip. On the way, Maurice lost his way and ended up in the possession of an impoverished aristocrat, whose castle fell into disrepair. Its inhabitant has become overgrown and wild, talks to the furniture, but remembers his rights. For stealing a rose from his garden, the aristocrat threw Maurice into prison for life imprisonment. Permitted by law. Belle came to her father's aid and took his place behind bars. However, she didn’t have to sit there for long - the servants, who decided that it was time for the master to get married, pulled Belle out of confinement and began to actively push her towards the owner. Their efforts were crowned with success - over time, the girl began to warm to her jailer.
As you can see, the plot is quite relevant - and not at all due to the LGBT topic, which everyone is discussing so vigorously. The fairy tale itself is a rather patriarchal genre, and any attempts to introduce progressive notes into it are doomed to failure. Both Gaston and the monster are faithful to the ideals of machismo and assert their worth in the eyes of the girl primarily through brute force. A telling moment is when Belle begins to see the monster as a human when he saves her from the wolves. He deftly throws the animals to the sides, and at the end of the fight he emits a menacing roar, putting them to flight. Then he falls exhausted - appreciate how attractive this combination of strength and weakness is. And, despite all Emma Watson’s statements, Belle is in no way emancipated and happily takes on the role of nurse to her former tormentor.
The monster captivates the girl not only with his courage, but also with his erudition. An excellent education cannot be hidden behind a long beard and horns - the aristocrat quotes Shakespeare without any problems, and in his spare time reads chivalric novels. Gaston, in turn, most likely does not know how to read. He received a simple upbringing, went through the war, where, apparently, those same nobles with a good education sent him. Belle is not choosing between two men, she is choosing a lifestyle - an aristocratic one, which she is familiar with only from Shakespeare's plays, or a traditional one, known to her from personal experience. The latter in the world of “Beauty and the Beast” certainly loses - the townspeople are shown as illiterate obscurantists, whose life consists only of food, laundry and a tavern. They can hardly be blamed for this - the film directly states that a plague epidemic swept across France not so long ago.
Belle's choice is understandable, and, most likely, modern women would do the same. But it’s better to check this statement, so we suggest you vote for the candidates for Belle’s hand, having first read their dossier.
Gaston
First guy in town
Characteristics: stately and powerful (like a dragon), spits accurately, capable of eating several hundred raw eggs in one go, a skilled hunter.
Achievements: went through a war (which one is not specified), shot a number of animals while hunting, won the love of all the townspeople and his henchman LeFou.
Flaws: selfish, narcissistic, boastful.
A hot brunette and a promising domestic tyrant. Behind Gaston you will be like behind a stone wall - the former warrior is capable of killing anyone.
Monster
Well-read bearded man
Characteristics: aristocrat, literary connoisseur, caring, affectionate, attentive, witty.
Achievements: organized the best balls in the province.
Flaws: selfish, narcissistic, hot-tempered.
Long-haired brown-haired man with the makings of a domestic tyrant. Unlike Gaston, he is ready to provide not a metaphorical stone wall, but a completely real one, since he is the owner of a decent country castle. He suffers from bipolar disorder - sometimes he behaves like a real animal, sometimes like an affectionate and gentle animal.
This sweet lady is the housewife of the castle. A good-natured woman was turned into a teapot by a spell. And her large number of children are in teacups. Such a unique family tea service. Madame Pott, like the rest of the Beast's servants, are trying to help Belle adapt to the new environment, because she can help them all lift the spell.
Le Fou
Gaston's friend, or rather his "six". A frail, short boy. Not very smart, stupid. He often commits rash acts, for which Gaston scolds him, giving him “pretzels”. Translated from French (and our heroes live in a French town), “le fou” means “fool.”
Maurice
This good-natured old man is actually the father of our heroine, Belle. Maurice's small stature hides enormous talent; he is an inventor. Like a good parent, the old man loves his daughter very much. Maurice tries to support all her hobbies and interests. For some non-standard and extraordinary inventions, the residents of this small French town consider the old man strange, and some even crazy. He has a dream to create a good invention and become rich. He really hopes that the new invention will be able to turn his life with Belle for the better.
In some interpretations you can hear that this heroine is called Babette. She serves the Beast as a maid. A spell cast on all the inhabitants of the castle turned her into a dust broom. Fifi is the lover of Lumiere, the French head waiter of the castle. This beautiful couple, like no other, pleases the eye. Despite the fact that Fifi appears to the viewer in the form of a broom, she has a white cap and a flirtatious mole above her lips.
Miss Potts' son was turned into a cup when the spell began to take effect. He tries in every possible way to help Belle brighten up her loneliness and supports her as best he can. Kind and mischievous, as a boy of his age should be, he became very friendly with the cartoon heroine.
Cogsworth
Butler of the Beast's castle. He loves order very much and always tries to maintain it: everything should be in its place. Constantly trying to please his master. Cogsworth is German by nationality; in addition to his accent, this is also manifested in his pedantry. After casting the spell, it was turned into a mantel clock.
Lumiere
He works for the Beast as the head waiter of the castle. When the spell began to take effect, he turned into a candelabra. Lumiere is very hospitable. He can be recognized in the cartoon by his strong French accent. Loves to put on beautiful shows. Can turn an ordinary meal into an entire Broadway production on the table.
1. In the 1988 script for Beauty and the Beast, there was no Gaston as such: there were three admirers of Belle, fighting for her hand and heart. All three had Gaston's qualities and shortcomings. At the end of the cartoon, the Enchantress turned them into animals (along with the evil Belle sisters) for their misdeeds and for trying to kill the Beast.
2. In the 1989 script, Belle's three suitors were combined into one character - the Marquis of Gaston. In this version, the nobleman Gaston shared the role of villain with Marguerite, Belle's aunt, who chose him as a groom for her niece in revenge on her brother Maurice, a merchant who lost his wealth at sea. At the end of the cartoon, Gaston and his henchmen stole Belle's self-propelled carriage (in the final version of Beauty and the Beast, this carriage took Maurice home from the castle) and rode in it to the Beast's castle to kill him. The role of the carriage was cut by Jeffrey Katzenberg, who was the initiator of reworking the entire script and changing the director. 
3. In the approved 1990 script, written by Linda Woolverton, Gaston becomes a hunter and local hero with whom all the village girls, except Belle, are in love. Gaston's character and appearance were significantly influenced by Brom Bones from the short film "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (the second part of the cartoon "The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad"), Sir Kay from "The Sword in the Stone", stereotypes about tough football players from an American high school and former Linda's own boys ("boobs"). 
4. In the final version of Beauty and the Beast, Gaston wears red (Disney's villain color). However, in one of the early concepts, the Marquis Gaston wears a blue doublet. 
5. There is still debate about Gaston's last name: in the 1989 script, Aunt Marguerite introduces him as Gaston LeHume. In the final version, the girls in love with Gaston call him "Monsieur Gaston", and Belle ironically calls herself "Madame Gaston". Opinions are divided: some still consider him LeHum, others - a man named Gaston with an unknown name. 
6. In one of the scenarios, Gaston had to fight the Beast in the forest on the edge of a cliff. He wounded him with a sword, knocked him to the ground and was pulling a blunderbuss from his belt to finish him off when Belle hit him on the head with a stone. The impact caused Gaston to fall off a cliff, break his leg, and notice that the wolves that had previously attacked Maurice and Belle were approaching him. They decided to abandon this idea for the finale due to excessive cruelty. As a result, a similar ending was realized in The Lion King.
7. Also in one of the versions of the cartoon, Gaston committed suicide after inflicting a fatal wound on the Beast’s back. It was assumed that by stabbing the Beast in the back, Gaston would jump from the tower, laughing madly. Like, he realized that he couldn’t win Belle’s heart, which means the Beast shouldn’t be with her; and having killed him, there is no need to live further. 
8. To animate some scenes with Gaston, Andreas Deja relied on the performance of a live actor, and in others he relied solely on his own imagination. Robert Wright, who voiced the character, also helped a lot. Interestingly, this role was originally supposed to go to Rupert Everett, but he was eventually turned down due to his voice not being brutal enough. Moral compensation for this failure for Everett was the role of Prince Charming in the second and third Shreks.
9. The most complex detail of Gaston's appearance was his hairy chest. Andreas Deja's assistants and other animators who worked on the character came up with about twenty different options for Gaston's chest. These are three of them. 
10. Both the Beast and Gaston have blue eyes. Such a coincidence does not occur in any other Disney cartoon. 
11. In the trailer for the cartoon, there is a hint that Gaston is the only villager aware of the Beast's curse. It literally says this: “This is the only person who wants the spell to live.” This explains Gaston's rather calm reaction to the news of the enchanted castle and the Beast, while the rest of the villagers were beside themselves with fear and anger.
The tale, known in France as “Beauty and the Beast” (and in Russia as “The Scarlet Flower”), certainly contains considerable erotic potential, fully exploited by the major French director Valerian Borowczyk in the quasi-pornographic 1976 version of “The Beast.” And the completely innocent versions of Jean Cocteau (1946) and Christophe Gance (2014) cannot be called purely children's films - these are serious stories about love, sometimes accompanied by traumatic experiences.
Ironically, the 16+ rating in Russia went to the company’s new project Walt Disney Pictures- the lightest and most harmless film adaptation, almost a musical, also based on the 1991 cartoon. This is because director Bill Condon (author of Gods and Monsters, the final part of Twilight, Breaking Dawn, and the provocative biopic Dr. Kinsey) in one of his interviews recklessly named the henchman of the main villain Gaston, the eccentric LeFou (that is, in translation from French - fool) - gay.
The most concerned State Duma deputies heard him and made a fuss, as a result of which the Ministry of Culture gave the children's film an adult release. If it weren’t for the director’s explanations, hardly anyone would seriously think about LeFou’s orientation - there is no more gayness in this character than in some Yagupop from the “Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors” (in general, if you just take a closer look at the Soviet children’s film classics, it still doesn’t you will see this). Finding adult episodes in the new Beauty and the Beast was not an easy task. But we tried to highlight what deputies and officials of the Ministry of Culture may consider “propaganda of sin” unacceptable for children.
1. In the hands of the peasants, singing (some with envy, some with admiration) about the unusual girl Belle, flashes a real Buch de Chevre - goat cheese in a mold crust. There is no imminent lifting of sanctions, so there is no need to poison the souls of the younger generation with pictures of delicacies banned in Russia.
2. The gloomy director of the village school forbids Belle to teach girls to read and write, they say, it’s enough for you alone, you’re too smart, and the people don’t need innovations, they take them with hostility. Why should children look at this and think about various reforms?
3. “I so want to know what I can become, it’s too early for me to get married.” It is possible that the censors dreamed of feminists on this freedom-loving song by Belle. Such desires are not far from protests.
4. The Beast's enchanted castle is inhabited by living objects. During the dance, the gallant candelabra Lumiere (played by Ewan McGregor, by the way) embraces Plumette, a snow-white dusting brush that looks more like a dove. And he sings “Your very presence sets me on fire”! Isn't this too sensual for our country?
5. The villain Gaston comes out of his state of anger only by remembering the fields of bloody battles. A parody of military valor and honor, nothing less.
6. “There are no more beautiful people in the world than Gaston! No one will bite you like Gaston!” sings the fool LeFou, willingly showing the marks of the overlord’s teeth on his thick belly. The episode can be mistaken for an absurd joke. But State Duma deputies know better what circumstances leave such marks on the body.
7. Under the influence of the clever manipulator Gaston, a crowd of superstitious peasants sets out to storm the castle. Are there any unnecessary associations here with the revolutionary movement of the masses? And it doesn’t matter that the film’s authors are on the side of the Beast and his aristocratic servants - it’s better not to touch on the explosive topic in any way. Especially in the year of the centenary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
8. Gaston gets rid of Belle's father, sending the old man to a mental hospital. Direct association with the punitive psychiatry that flourished in the USSR.
9. To the song “Sunshine, you're no longer in my life,” Belle finds herself at her mother's deathbed - and this is the only, no joke, non-children's episode of the film.
10. In “Beauty” there is a dubious chant: “Let everything that we are waiting for come by night” - how to explain this to teenagers who are waiting for only one thing by night?
In the film "Beauty and the Beast" the characters look realistic and complete. The authors of the film tried to convey the entire story as fully as possible, which they achieved thanks to the excellent acting of each fictional personality. All of them showed the characters and experiences of the characters in the plot at the highest level.
main character
In the film “Beauty and the Beast” the characters are remembered by the audience, but it is the main character named Belle who gets into the soul. Her role was played by young actress Emma Watson. A brave, smart and caring girl with a passion for reading, a loving daughter, always ready to come to the rescue of her family - this is exactly how the main character is shown to the audience in all her glory.
When her own father got lost and was captured by the Beast, she immediately rushed to the rescue of her loved one. Despite the unknown magic and the need to be in the same building with the monster, the girl asks to be locked up instead of the man. From that moment on, she began to live in a huge castle, where she encountered many unprecedented miracles and met true love.
Two rivals
In the film "Beauty and the Beast" the characters are different from each other, and this allows you to remember each of them. For example, Prince Adam, aka the Beast, is shown to be an arrogant creature at the beginning of the film. He believes that his orders must be carried out immediately, but after meeting Belle, he begins to change. The girl taught him emotions and feelings that he had never experienced before.
Over the course of the entire film, his character transforms, although other characters in the film “Beauty and the Beast” remain in their positions. Prince Adam is opposed in this story by a young and strong youth named Gaston. He is considered a handsome man in the village near the castle, although in reality he is a narcissistic and evil man. This antagonist decides to use his power and free Belle from her apparent captivity. In this way he wanted to attract her attention and take her as his wife. During the course of the film, these two heroes clashed with each other, and the fight looked quite realistic. Prince Adam eventually won, because at that time he was fighting for his true love.
Castle residents
Fans of the film should know that in the story of "Beauty and the Beast" there are some rather unusual characters. The reason for this lies in the spell of a witch who cursed the entire castle of Prince Adam with all its inhabitants. It is because of this that there is a chief head waiter of the Lumiere fortress, who became a candelabra. The same fate befell the butler Cogsworth, who was very fond of cleanliness and tried in every possible way to stand out in front of his master in the past. With the advent of the curse, he was destined to become a large clock.
Madame Potts is the good-natured housewife of the castle. Magic made her a teapot, and her son became an ordinary cup that should not be broken. The head waiter had a beloved maid, Fifi. The curse did not pass by the young innocent girl. Since she was constantly cleaning, her body turned into a small broom. In the film, as in the cartoon "Beauty and the Beast", the characters from this list complement the plot and make it more attractive. It will be interesting for the viewer to watch the development of their stories and the relationship between Belle and the Beast.
Gaston's companions
Every film should have a hero who will only cause laughter with his failures and ridiculous behavior. This is the character Lefou in the film “Beauty and the Beast”. This short man always follows Gaston everywhere. The main antagonist does not deny him this, but on the contrary, made him his assistant. By this word he means that Lefou carries out everything Gaston comes and any of his orders. Only this guy is distinguished by his lack of intelligence, which often leads him to
For his antics and constant failures, he suffers bullying and teachings from Gaston. This does not prevent him from following the popular young man, because this way he also remains in sight of all people. Another accomplice of the antagonist in the film was the evil and greedy official Monsieur d'Arc. He agreed to help Gaston in his plan to get Belle's attention. He appears only in a few scenes, but with all his appearance he shows his frail nature and love of money. Gold coins are his main love in this world.
