Psyche in Pigtails (DeDisneyfication, Part 4)

Beauty and the Beast marked a transition for Disney’s animation studio: the film featured a modern female protagonist, one who, rather than attending to household chores, prefers to educate herself through reading. By and large, these things are quite positive and a welcome change from the frankly ditzy Little Mermaid.

The key message of the film is about people’s appearances versus their true natures—bracketed by Gaston (Richard White), a good-looking creep, and the Beast (Robby Benson), whose appearance is beastly, but who is actually good—which also feels spot on.

The comic relief is good, the songs are good, its early integration of 3D CG is done well. Indeed, Beauty and the Beast was to become the mold for the studio’s films for the next decade with greater and lesser degrees of success.

Admittedly, there are some niggles I feel worth mentioning: Belle’s (Paige O’Hara) thirst for reading apparently extends only to fairy tales—the song she sings about her favorite book says it contains Prince Charming, and this is the only example we are given of her reading matter. While she seems to be of marriageable age—whatever that might be in medieval(?) France—she also wears her hair in pigtails, so it’s hard to figure out just how old she’s meant to be.

Also, while it’s great she’s not a domestic drudge, she also has no real responsibilities—she reads and hopes for adventure and does not have a great deal of agency. Her father (Rex Everhart) is an unsuccessful tinkerer; his gadgets’ lack of success is part of the case made for throwing him in an asylum, so it’s difficult to understand her independence.

When it comes to the relationship between the two titular characters, some have characterized it as Stockholm Syndrome, but I think Disney managed to successfully navigate those waters: Belle volunteers to stay in the Beast’s castle as a substitute for her father, the Beast generally treats her well, and even lets her go when confronted with the fact she is effectively his prisoner. Overall, it’s actually a pretty great film, so I’ll mainly be discussing its origins.

In folkloric categorization, Beauty and the Beast is known as ATU-425C. The first three letters merely mark the classification within the Aarne-Thompson-Uther system, the last one marks a variant type, and the number, one which applies to a large body of tales, refers to its actual motif, known as The Lost Husband.

A well-known example, and perhaps my favorite, is “East of the Sun and West of the Moon”¹ ATU-425A; the main form of the tale. Kay Nielsen’s illustrations probably have a lot to do with this. Later in life, he worked for Walt and contributed to some of the more outstanding scenes of Fantasia.

In any case, the tale is very nearly as old as time; some estimates place the prototype of this tale in the Neolithic at roughly 4,000 years old.

One of the earliest known written versions of the trope is the myth of Cupid and Psyche, images of which appear in Greek art as early as the fourth century BCE, but which we mainly know today from the second century CE version in Numidian-Roman writer Apuleius’ Metamorphoses²—a different variant of ATU-425C.

In this version, an uncannily beautiful princess is given in marriage to a monster to avert the wrath of Venus. This monster is Cupid, hiding his identity from his bride, but taking fantastic care of her, as a disembodied voice in the daylight and in physical form only in complete darkness.

Psyche’s jealous sisters get her to use a lamp to find out who her husband is—shades of “Cinderella”, as such siblings are another well-used folkloric trope. She sees Cupid, is cast out, and has to complete four tasks to expiate this breach of trust.

Cupid has reasons for hiding his identity from Psyche: he is defying his mother—Venus—who ordered him to make her fall in love with some loathsome creature, and he also doesn’t want his bride to freak out, which she promptly does.

The oral tradition was eventually to spawn La Belle et la Bête, by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, in 1740.³ This version was shortened and rewritten 16 years later by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont to create the most widely known version of the tale.⁴ As with many of the subjects Disney was to take up, there were dozens of retellings in various media for them to draw on.

In particular, surrealist Jean Cocteau’s 1946 film adaptation seems to have provided a strong kernel for the animation studio’s work. Disney’s expansion of the cast beyond the two main characters was done very much on the model of the Cocteau version, wherein Belle (Josette Day) gained a boorish Gaston analogue, Avenant (Jean Marais), and the Château de la Bête included objects magically imbued with life.

Cocteau was multitalented: a celebrated writer, designer, playwright, artist, and filmmaker. His black-and-white film’s excellence is still apparent today, particularly in its practical effects, and Disney’s Beast bears a more-than-passing resemblance to Jean Marais’ Bête.

Sadly, I must end on a less positive note: there is an upcoming live-action version, which, from what I’ve seen, is a nearly shot-for-shot redux of the animated film, and which is therefore completely unneeded artistically and motivated entirely by a quite different beast: mammon.

Read subsequent articles in the DeDisneyfication series

Part 4 Addendum: The Enchanted and the Postmodern

Part 5: Putting “Pocahontas” to Rest

Part 5 Addendum: Powhatan’s Mantle

Part 6: Trouble with “Tarzan”

Part 7A: The Wrong Rabbit Hole

Part 7A Addendum A: Curious Curation

Part 7A Addendum B: “Alice” in Revolt

Part 7A Addendum C: How “Alice” Grew Big in Japan

Part 7B: Alice’s Adventures in the Cousins’ War

Part 7B Addendum: Repainting the Roses

Part 8: Guerrillas and the “Jungle”

Part 9A: Through a Magic Mirror Marred

Part 9A Addendum: The Woods “Over the Wall”

Part 9B: The Sum of its Versions

Part 9C: The “Snow White” Studio

Part 9D: Snowhaus

Part 10: The Little Less-Than

Part 11: Batmouse 3D

Part 12: Mork & Scheherazade

Read previous articles in the DeDisneyfication series

Part 1: Straightening out “Hunchback”

Part 2: Making over “Mulan”

Part 2 Addendum B: Your Western Wuxia Is Weak

Part 3A: “Hercules”: Myths and Mistakes

Part 3B: Doing Hera’s Work on “Hercules”

Notes

Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe, “East of the Sun and West of the Moon”, East of the Sun and West of the Moon: Old Tales from the North, 1914.
Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis, Metamorphoses, sometimes called Asinus aureus (The Golden Ass), late second century. Numidia is today spilt across Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia.
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, La Belle et la Bête, La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins (Young American and Marine Tales), 1740.
Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, La Belle et la Bête, Magasin des enfants (Children’s Collection), 1756.

Lightening up a legend (DeDisneyfication, Part 3B)

Hercules’ place in the Disney animated film studio’s chronology comes following The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Pocahontas. Both earlier films were criticized for being too dark, serious, and generally inappropriate for young audiences, so the studio decided to do something lighter.

How they landed on the myth of Herakles (Ἡρακλῆς) as the right vehicle to accomplish this boggles the mind: in order to do any justice at all to the tales, you’d have to go very dark indeed.

The tale of Herakles is an unhappy one from the start: although it’s often been Bowdlerized, Zeus (Ζεύς) disguising himself as Alkmene’s (Ἀλκμήνη) husband to get into her bed can only be described as rape. 1981’s R-rated Excalibur contains such a scene for Arthur’s (Nigel Terry) conception and it’s hardly Disney fare.

Next, Hera (Ἥρα) gets Eileithyia (Εἰλείθυια), the goddess of childbirth, to attempt to prevent Herakles from ever being born: Eileithyia sits at the door with her arms and legs crossed, thus staying the birth, which would ultimately kill both mother and child. But Alkmene’s handmaiden Galinthias (Γαλινθιάς) tricks her, shouting “a son is born!” Surprised, Eileithyia jumps to her feet, so releasing her hold on Alkmene’s womb, so she can finally give birth. Of course, the goddess was furious at being tricked and transforms Galinthias into a polecat.

When he is born, Alkmene leaves Herakles in the wilderness to die so she may escape Hera’s wrath—an example of ancient victim blaming—which he manages to survive with help from his divine sibling(s). Then Hera sends serpents to kill the infant.

And this continues to be the dominant feature throughout Herakles’ life, and the madness she causes in him during which he kills his children, a couple of his brothers’, and possibly his wife is just the icing on the hate cake Hera bakes for her husband’s bastard son.

And even apart from the trouble brought on him because of his divine birth, Herakles is also a hothead—Hera has nothing to do with him murdering his music teacher Linus (Λῖνος), or lopping the noses and ears off the Orchomenian (Ὀρχομένιος) tribute collectors, precipitating a war in which his foster father dies.

He’s a monster slayer, but also leaves a bloody trail of homicides in his wake. He’s also sexually voracious, and, for that matter, omnivorous—Philoktetes (Φιλοκτήτης), much altered in the Disney version—is much more than a pal in the myths, and was actually one of the demigod’s several male lovers.

So, although simply choosing a more light-hearted tale would seem a much better choice, Disney wades directly into this minefield. And then, in order to make this myth fit the bill, they essentially gut it, which is why the matter I dealt with in Part 3A was so lengthy.

There are some specific strategies they seem to have applied: the first revolves around simply making fun of the myths, the second is equating heroism with modern sports, and the last is applying Judeo-Christian cosmology and morality to the tale.

It seems overall Disney chose an approach that was snarky and reductive: Hermes (Ἑρμῆς) appears as a caricature of Paul Shaffer who voices him/ the FTD logo, the Muses (Μοῦσαι, Lillias White, Cheryl Freeman, LaChanze, Roz Ryan, Vaneese Thomas) are a Motown/ Gospel girl group, Pegasus (Πήγασος, Frank Welker) thinks he’s a dog, several of the characters toss out Borscht-Belt one-liners, the comedy relief is both unneeded, as the film is nearly never serious, and goofier than ever: Roman and Greek elements are conflated, the Easter eggs fly thick and fast, and Thebes (Θῆβαι) is presented as an ancient New York, complete with Yiddish quipping.

All this does indeed have the effect of keeping the film light, but it also means we have zero investment in anything that’s happening. Instead, these larger-than-life gods, heroes, and deeds are made small, safe, and perhaps worthy of an occasional sympathetic chuckle.

Professional sports fame was chosen as the corollary to heroism in Greek myth. This again is pretty far off base—product endorsements like Air-Herc sandals ring false as a reward for doing in monsters terrorizing the countryside. Yes, of course I understand it’s the film’s point that this does not represent true heroism, but it’s not well made.

Everyone takes to calling Hercules (Tate Donovan) “Wonderboy”, itself a reference to the 1984 baseball film, The Natural. The all-too-familiar training montage is employed, including a phoned-in Mr.-Miyagi-crane-kick scene, and backed by the song, Go the Distance, which is pretty much a dress rehearsal for “I’ll Make a Man out of You”.

Next, Hades (James Woods) is presented as being a toga-wearing version of a cartoonishly evil Satan: he plots to overthrow Zeus (Rip Torn), he makes deals—the deal Haides (Ἁιδης) made with Herakles regarding Kerberos (Κέρβερος), which I mentioned in the previous article, was a rare exception in the myths—his head is on fire, everything around him is decorated with skulls, and he enjoys slurping worms and torturing his henchmen. His underworld is a gloomy place full of tormented souls—in short, it’s hell.

And it contrasts in black-and-white-morality fashion with the cloud palace of Olympus (Ὄλυμπος), inhabited by glowing, floating folk; a gate with St. Peter standing guard would not feel out of place here. And finally, the idea self sacrifice is the only true heroism appears, as it does nearly nowhere in Greek myth.

The one bright spot in the film to me was Megara (Μέγαρα, “Meg”, Susan Egan), who is perhaps the most real female person in any Disney movie. Sure, she’s a bit of a femme fatale, but her response to Hercules when he finds her in Nessus’ (Νέσσος, Jim Cummings) clutches is brilliant:

Hercules: Aren’t you… a damsel in distress?
Meg: I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day.

Unlike the wry remarks the other characters bandy about, hers land:

Meg: I’m a big tough girl. I tie my own sandals and everything.

Unfortunately, not only does the film fail the Bechdel test—as most from the studio do—she’s also alone in every regard: none of the other characters are ones we remotely care about.

Some will no doubt say all this is just a reimagining; the recontextualizations¹ are meant to make sense of these myths for a modern audience, and the simplifications do the same for a younger audience.

But none of that is true. This is a self-indulgent and empty film, where pop culture references stand in for real comedic writing. Jason and the Argonauts, released in 1963, even though it was rated G, and its effects are quite crude compared to today’s, contained a much greater sense of the peril and wonder of the myths.