Beauty and the Beast and Me

This new blog post series focuses on Beauty and the Beast, and I’ll be posting book recs and films and various things while I’m revising my own retelling, just for fun! (Be warned that in this post I describe some of the erotic scenes from La Bete (1975), so consider this post 18+/NSFW for that section).

I’ve already posted about the original tale, criticism of the 2016 film and Disney versions in general, and some retelling inspiration ideas here.

For more versions of this tale from around the world, this list is really good. For folklore from the African continent, this tale shows up more in the “Strange Suitor” tale type which the Mythological Africans podcast has discussed here.

I can’t stop writing (or reading) Beauty and the Beast tales. I don’t know why. I think I imprinted on it somehow like a duckling at a very young age. My novel The Crows was always a Beauty and the Beast story, but where the house itself and its avatar was the Beast – a scarred Beast bearing the marks of all its renovations, like The Phantom of the Opera. The rewrite included a new character, Ricky Porter the eldritch asexual hoodie-wearing chav lad next door, and he’s also on the aromantic spectrum but ended up as the central ‘Beast’ figure.

Now, I’ve finally given in and I’m writing a dark fantasy B&tB story called Yelen and Yelena, in which the Beast’s curse cannot be broken, they are both aromantic and allosexual, and she’s a laundress and sex worker in her 30s. Like everything I write, it started off with all the erotic, fluffy intentions, and morphed into another novel-length exploration of grief and identity and loneliness (with what I consider a HEA). Oh, and body horror. Obviously.

I’ve had a think about what I like about the story (there’s a lot to critique), and what elements attract me to it and keep me writing versions of it over and over. As a very young child, I had a picture book version, and the part where the Beast died made me feel really sad and ruined the whole story for me so I really didn’t like it at all. I think I was three or four, it’s a very early memory. I also really didn’t like the art for Where The Wild Things Are: the colour palette made me feel what I now know was desolate, lonely and sad. It was a hollow pit in my stomach when I looked at it, that I couldn’t explain. But I loved the monsters. And I came to love the story of B&tB, although that illustration has always stuck in my head.

So why B&tB and not Cinderella or Snow White? I liked them too, I just didn’t resonate with them as much, and I think the Disney film made me love the story more because Belle had brown hair (like me!) and liked books (like me!) and didn’t like Gaston (like me!) and she could make a sad Beast happy and that was the best thing ever.

He was also much better as a Beast than a Prince. Facts.

My type then became big, hairy, grumpy men who need cheering up a bit and then are really affectionate and soft, and I can’t seem to stop writing/reading/watching versions of the “making a sad bloke happy against his will” trope as a result. [INTO MY VEINS. INTO MY EYES.]

I think also being neurodivergent and not knowing, being asexual and not knowing, being on the aromantic spectrum and not knowing, being bi/pan and repressing (easy enough in my case because of the ace/aro aspects muddying the waters of attraction for me anyway), never being able to express myself because I didn’t have terms or vocab, not being allowed to learn about it because of Section 28, not having access to the internet and then not having a clue about searching for any of that anyway, all put me in a weird limbo place. I also had half of me missing – I didn’t meet my father until I was 28, and I was actively discouraged from learning about my Turkish family and heritage (except negative things about Turkey). So while I started out resonating with Belle, I also began to deeply relate to the Beast. I think that’s why this story has such a big personal hook in my life, and why explorations of identity and monstrosity are core to my work.

The Fairy Tale

My favourite versions of this story in film:

Panna a Netvor (1978)

Panna a Netvor – the Virgin and the Monster – is the Czech New Wave film from 1978 which reimagines the Beast as a carnivorous bird monster. I absolutely love this version; there’s no explanation for the curse, Netvor is responsible for Belle’s father losing all his fortune in the mercantile venture, and it’s a beautiful bit of storytelling that incorporates Belle’s sisters from the original version and their rubbish marriages they make then regret. I love it.

La Belle et la Bête (1946)

I really love this – it’s the version that inspired Disney’s animation, with actors being living statues and holding smoke in their mouths to release slowly as part of the fireplace decorations. It has some great 1940s effects, some beautiful costumes, and takes the original storylines of Belle’s materialistic sisters, the Beast smoking with gore (literally) after his kill, and so many great little moments. I liked Jean Cocteau’s take on Orpheus, too (1950), but this one is my favourite.

La Belle et la Bête (2014)

Vincent Cassel is not disappointing as a human version of the Beast in this. It does lack the whole “this is why she falls for him” storyline in detail – she’s just really into a fiery relationship with a leonine beast she wants to kiss, I guess, but she does also see the Prince in dream-visions and I think probably comes to fall for what she sees in these, while she’s watching him wooing and banging his late faerie wife. That makes a lot of sense to me, I very much understood that motivation. Honestly, really liked it, and the closure at the end. I couldn’t stand the dubbed version though, just a personal thing; I think the original French with subtitles is much better.

Beauty and the Beast (1991)

This one will always have a nostalgic hold on me and I really love it, and the songs were great. This is where I absolutely fell in love with the Beast in his monster form, and I have no regrets. I put up with the end, but it wasn’t ideal. If he’d come out like Vincent Cassel, that would have been better. The scene in the forest with the wolves was also absolutely amazing and I loved it so much that I would sometimes rewind the VHS to watch it again. Not the bit where he comes to save her, the bit where the wolves chase Maurice to the castle. I felt so bad for the poor cold little wolves attacking then being beaten up by the Beast, but also I loved the hurt/comfort part that came afterwards.

Beauty and the Beast (2016)

Yes I liked this one. I really loved the songs, I liked the Beast design, the colours, Luke Evans and the homoeroticism, so much stuff. I liked the backstory of Paris and the plague. I liked the cast. I don’t know, I just really enjoyed it. But I don’t have a lot to say about it.

La Bête (1975)

Not my favourite but an honorable mention.

I went in cold on this one, only knowing it had been banned for a long time. I didn’t know who Walerian Borowczyk was, or what he made films about. I had an idea that it was erotic. I didn’t know it was… like that. I bought it on a whim at HMV. I’ve linked a video essay on it here but feel free to check out other critiques of it instead. The Beast is not anthropomorphic, it’s a gigantic wolf thing that just growls and fucks. I was not expecting the graphic bestiality scenes (it’s actually a guy in a fursuit, but still) and my gran kept coming in so I had to hit stop not pause so she could only see blue screen and not a freeze frame of a gigantic cock dribbling precum or a half naked chick frozen mid-orgasm among the snails on the grass with a close up of her tits popping out of her ripped dress. Let’s just say it wasn’t her kind of film.

I have seen this one a couple of times now. I’m still not sure what I think about it. It’s pretty well shot. I actually liked the storyline. Now I think I get what Borowczyk was doing, and I’ve seen some other shorts of his like the one where the blonde chick masturbates with a cucumber, but also, do I want to watch the cock bobbing around taking up the majority of the frame for a while? I just don’t know. I’m not that bothered in real life, so I think I’m not the audience.

What’s your favourite film version? Let me know!