Thursday, March 28, 2024

New ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Flips the Script on Gender, Race Roles

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*The new live action Beauty and the Beast succeeds on almost every level, and actually surpasses the original in a couple of key aspects.

I know.  I was shocked, too!  

I had trouble believing that Hermione from the Harry Potter franchise would be believable as one of Disney’s most engaging princesses, but within minutes, Emma Watson made me a believer. I should have known she’d be able to handle the CGI-intensive role, as she spent over a decade perfecting her gaze into a green screen in eight Harry Potter smashes.

Watson finds her vocal footing quickly and by the time she scales that clover-lined hillside singing “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere,” she gives Julie Andrews a run for her money. I fell in love with Watson’s Belle at the exact moment that the Beast did, as will every other father of a daughter. I won’t give the moment away, but have some Kleenex ready. And Watson absolutely nails that critical scene at the end that precedes Belle’s “happily ever after.”

Watson and director Bill Condon conjure up a new image in this Beauty that’s been ignored or missed by other critics. When Belle rides up on her white horse to save the day, as she does two or three times during the film, the image effortlessly reverses over a century of Hollywood’s almost exclusive positioning of men in that critical “hero” role. It’s an image that I won’t soon forget — nor will any girl who sees this film. Belle beat Hollywood’s Wonder Woman to the punch in the hero department by a month or two.

Read more at EURThisNthat.

 

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