Therapist Reacts to BEAUTY & THE BEAST (Animated)

Tale as old as time... girl becomes prisoner of terrifying beast, makes friends with his dishes and furniture, wears fancy ball gowns, falls in love...

But is it Stockholm syndrome? Licensed therapist Jonathan Decker and filmmaker Alan Seawright talk about what Stockholm syndrome is (and isn't) and whether Beauty and the Beast is an example of it. They also talk about Gaston's narcissism, Beast's redemption arc, and Belle's compassion. They also talk about the difference between love and possession, and the beautiful animation, art, music, and storytelling in this film.

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Cinema Therapy is:
Written by: Megan Seawright, Jonathan Decker and Alan Seawright
Produced by: Jonathan Decker, Megan Seawright & Alan Seawright
Edited by: Luke Mclean
Director of Photography: Bradley Olsen
English Transcription by: Anna Preis

[Agfond]

I do like how the witch turned them into how they saw each other. Like his servants saw the prince as a beast and the prince saw his servant as objects to serve him.

[qwmx]

Belle is forgiving to the sheep that ate part of the page of her book and is irritated by Gaston throwing her book into a mud puddle because she understands sheep eat anything, adults generally understand the concept of respecting people's properties.

[bpsara]

You technically cannot buy love with a library, but you can show your love and appreciation to someone by giving them a deeply personal and meaningful gift. And a library to a bookworm is kind of an ultimate life goal (source: me, a bookworm)

[joannap]

And Belle didn’t directly “teach him how to love”. She is not going out of her way to “fix” him. She just held him accountable for his bad behavior and HE changed himself. She called him out, it changed his perspective, and he improved himself. Then and only then is when she started warming up to him.

Thank you for pointing out that the nuance to this story.

[stormromerah]

“Unlike Gaston who is a jerk because he loves himself too much, Beast is awful because he hates himself, ” Damn, this statement hit me like a truck and I’m not even a minute in

[cindyhutchins]

I think Gaston wants belle for his wife because she's the one thing he can't have. That drives narcissists insane.

[Blackjack]

Belle: "Dad, do you think I'm weird?"
Dad: "No, darling, why would you think that?"
Belle: "Well, the entire village just sang a song about it"
Dad: "Oh yeah. I saw them rehearsing it, earlier today"

[patchie]

I love the subtitles referring Gaston as “No-Belle prize winner” 🤣

[Bleuryder]

A lot of people gloss over the tiny scene that happens before the library scene. The one where he's with the staff thinking about what he could do/gift her that would make her happy. He's brainstorming about it, but he says he just wants to do something nice for her. He's not out to SUPER impress her, unlike Gaston or anything of the like. He just wants to do something nice and he settles on giving her this library because she adores books.

During the library scene, he gets excited at HER reaction, you can even see his 'I did it!" face for a second. He's happy because SHE'S happy, and its basically here that both of them start to see the beast as human. It's this scene where he basically decides he's going to live as his best self.

[teamaang]

It wasn't so much the 'act of giving a library' that was special to Belle. It was because in spite of everyone making her feel like a freak for loving books so much it showed he was actively supporting her reading, making her feel truly heard and seen. Also because he knew she loved to read and had to give up books for the rest of her life to live with him and this broke his heart. making her 10x more valued than Gaston

[hannahbedington]

"You cannot buy love with a library" DONT LISTEN TO HIM, GIVE US A LIBRARY

[jotunfalls]

The library scene is AMAZING bc it's the first time someone acknowledges Belle's loves for books in a positive way. Beast isn't trying to buy her love, he's just giving this to her because he knows how much it means to her and because he wants her to feel happy.

[DecemberSfy]

*“At first I was creeped out by the talking, singing monster-house, but then the dancing BEERS showed up!”* This is the BEST fictitious Yelp review to ever exist! 😂

[bigWazaa]

- Gaston: "There are no pictures"
- Belle: "It has. A sheep has just eaten it"

[marielpare]

The Stockholm Syndrome thing always bugged me because she didn’t start coming around to him until he genuinely stopped being a dick to her and started being nice. And when he releases her as his prisoner, she actually leaves. And she may not have come back if it weren’t for the impending danger. That’s not Stockholm Syndrome.

[tylerhill]

Now that I'm older I can see that this film is actually pretty dark in certain areas. The main thing being that spell the Beast is under is not just physical but psychological as well. Its spell is slowing stripping away at his humanity and the longer he remains a beast the more beast-like he becomes. When he's first introduced, he walks on all fours like an animal, is more angry and territorial and wears only pants and a cloak for clothes but over the course of the movie he begins to regain his humanity thanks to the time he spends with Belle. 

The directors confirmed in an interview/commentary that if the Beast had never met Belle and the spell never broken then he would've stopped wearing clothes all together, would forget how to talk and would've run off to live in the woods like a wild animal. It's a pretty disturbing notion that the spell is turning him into a beast both on the outside and the inside.

[allieware]

Belle = everything Bella is not in Twilight. Beast orders him to come to dinner and she basically says she'd rather starve. I love the shot after the wolves where she's treating his wounds because he's litterally this massive, horrifying creature roar-screaming at her and she just sits, back straight, hair flying in his rage till he's done. I'd be terrified, but she just shoots back "serves you right." She has so much compassion, but she has such a healthy amount of self respect.

[wormteeth]

Something I noticed when Gaston just invited himself into Belle’s house is that she was constantly trying to put distance between herself and him, and he was constantly trying to close the distance and corner her. She was putting furniture between them- chairs, desks- and ducking under his arm when he tried to corner her. Like, talk about a red flag- dude can’t take a hint, for one thing, and it’s a nonverbal way of establishing that Gaston will never care about her boundaries or comfort, imo.

[StoryGirl]

“You can’t buy love with a library.”

Well, no, but with that library, you sure can buy a lot of goodwill.

[wardachrouaa]

Gaston's behaviour when he enters her house is just absolutely dangerous. A man forcing himself in her house, following his prey around, trying to touch her and pin her down...that's just every woman's biggest nightmare. To me, this is the reason why she wants to flee the village at that moment. She never felt like she was in place there, but now she feels that she escaped a near rape, she has lost all feeling for safety. Nobody will defend her if Gaston does it, he is the hero of the village. Nobody will believe her. And Gaston will not doubt of telling her that. He's the Weinstein of the village. God knows how many victims there are.
So when he has left, she stays inside and barrickades the door. A loooong time afterhe has left, she is brave enough to peek through the door. The emotions; humiliation, shame, anger, fear, unbelief...it is all clear as she talks to herself when going out. Then she takes a run to leave the village, but one thing keeps her from actually running away: her father. She would never want to leave her father behind. So she cannot force herself to run away, even choosing her father over her own safety, but at the same time reluctant to return to the house in which she doesn't feel safe anymore.
As a woman I always felt sick to my stomach seeing this scene.