Typical superficial Disney fare

Rating: 4/10 (25 October 2002)

I've finally discovered what happened to all the bad boys who were turned into donkeys in Disney's "Pinocchio": they went to live in Belle's town. Disney's anti-male bias is very much in evidence in "Beauty and the Beast": the perfect heroine is surrounded by the most grotesque collection of males ever found in one movie. Most of them are slobby-looking pigs, the ones who aren't dried-up old scarecrows. Even the lone good one, her father, is a bumbling, fat old fool incapable of even driving a broken-down farmhorse to the fair without getting lost. The one goodlooking man she knows is Gaston, a selfish, narcissistic brute, which leaves only the Beast, whose table manners leave much to be desired. But eventually he learns to "behave like a gentleman", which is all that is necessary to win the heroine in this very superficial retelling of the fairy tale. Watch the Cocteau version if you want a real story with some depth.