Beauty and the Beast

analysis
#21

It was pretty much straight from the Disney version(s?) – though I can’t remember if there are significant differences between the two movies.

As I was watching, I started thinking about the story Goal. Was it about the everyone Obtaining freedom from his curse? Having a Future? No, the only thing that made sense was Becoming/Changing One’s Nature — everyone is affected by the Beast’s Changed Nature, and his “Becoming” a prince again. So that of course puts the OS in Psychology.

Other examples of Psychology:

  1. The prince is dismissive the old woman/sorceress because he is repulsed by her appearance. This could be a Mind issue, but the point as presented is less about not being prejudiced against ugly people as it about not being an odious jerk and not being fooled by appearances — which sounds like Psychology to me. (Synopsis in Shmoop: “Turns out, he was rude to the wrong lady.”) She also puts a spell on the town, causing them to forget about the castle (Manipulation).

  2. The only way to get out of the curse to convince someone else to fall in love with you (Psychology/Manipulation). (That’s a cynical way of putting it, sorry).

  3. In the village, Gaston is the ultimate low-life manipulator, the kind of guy who surrounds himself with sycophants and tries to gaslight Belle into believing that she’s always been in love with him and pressure her to marry him (by staging a wedding in front of her house with the whole town watching! Spoiler: it doesn’t work).

  4. In the castle, the servants are always trying to manipulate things so that Belle and the Beast fall in love.

  5. Gaston gets a brilliant idea: if he can just convince the magistrate/authority guy to commit Belle’s father to the asylum, he’ll have leverage he can use on Belle!

  6. When Belle shows the town that the Beast actually is real, Gaston manages to turn that around too and get the village to riot against the Beast!

Etc.

OS Concern of Becoming:

Like I said, I think the whole story is about the Beast Becoming a prince again. This impacts everyone — Belle, the servants, the village etc.

MC: Mind/Subconscious

If you think about it, the provincialism of the village isn’t really a problem for the villagers — it’s a problem for Belle, because she can’t stand living in a place like this (Mind). She has bigger dreams (Subconscious/Innermost Desires). The movement and shifting of these Desires (e.g. falling in love with the Beast) is her personal problem.

I think it’s pretty clear she’s Steadfast. She certainly grows, but doesn’t fundamentally change her worldview.

IC: Universe/Situation | Future

The Beast (and he fellow IC’s the servants) are pretty clearly stick in a bad Situation.
As for Future, I’m a little less certain on this, but the choice is implied by other choices so far. I guess it makes sense: if the Beast can’t figure this out before a certain point in the near future, he’ll be stuck in this state forever.

RS: Physics/Obtaining

As always, this is the hardest for me, but Obtaining true love as the goal of relationship seems to work. Also the quads underneath — they have to learn things about each other, they have understandings and misunderstandings, things they do together — I think we could come up with examples that support all of these things either threatening the relationship or causing it to grow.

Oh, also I think it’s a clear Success/Good story.

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#22

I was entertaining this idea last night. I’m not sure about all of your examples though. I can see it with wanting to go into the forbidden West Wing, but I feel like being repulsed is more like Preconception, and Gaston would be a problem less of Temptation than Pursuit or something. What do others think?

I was going to suggest an OS Issue of Obligation – in return for releasing her father, Belle is Obliged to stay with the Beast – and then an OS Problem/Solution (don’t laugh @Gregolas ) I was going to suggest Hinder/Help. Examples: The Beast Hinders Maurice by preventing him from going home. He then prevents Belle from leaving as well. The story doesn’t start to get resolved until the Beast releases Belle and then Helps her by saving her life from the wolves. She then returns to Help him. I would need to think of some more examples.

With that OS choice, you have an MC Problem/Solution of Uncontrolled/Controlled. Because she’s Steadfast, her solution doesn’t come into play, and we see Uncontrolled (Free) as her central drive, which fits in so many ways. Her Crucial Element as a Steadfast/Stop character becomes Feeling – she falls in love with the Beast, which allows the OS solution to come into play. BTW, this puts Beast’s Symptom/Response as Uncontrolled/Control – e.g. he throws a fit when people are wandering around loose in his castle and tries to control them in one way or another.

#23

I pulled up my storyform attempt from when I saw the 2017 film. I had the same Domains/Concerns and agree on Steadfast MC etc.

I actually have the OS Issue as Responsibility, but honestly I can’t remember very well why I put that. I might have just been trying things … I’d have to see if I made some notes. Obligation sounds pretty good too.

Also, I’d hesitate to assume that the cartoon and the 2017 film have the exact same storyform. They’d probably be close, but I think for storyforming we should be careful to analyse only one version.

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#24

Hmm… OS Issue as Responsibility + implied choices looks pretty good too.

Regarding which version – should we say the 2017 version? (I think I watched it last year but I’m not sure if I could remember all the differences).

#25

I’m thinking of the animated version, which I’ve seen way more. Might have to give the live action version another watch if we start getting deep into this.

I don’t have a storyform in mind so I’m not arguing that Belle isn’t in Mind, but I want to ask the question :muscle:

Wouldn’t living in a provincial village be an external problem? And how does not liking the village cause problems for her?

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#26

It’s a problem because she perceives it to be a problem. She feels like a weirdo, but there are plenty of weirdos in the world who just are and don’t worry about fitting in. It’s not like she’s in prison, or is forbidden from reading books.

On the other hand, if she had a different mindset, couldn’t she just marry Gaston and be happy? Of course stubbornly refusing to marry Gaston leads to all kinds of conflict, including, eventually, the almost-commitment of her father and the attack on the Beast.

#27

She perceives her own mindset of not liking the village to be a problem?

#28

First: blah, blah, blah disclaimer I don’t know what I’m talking about. But here goes:

She perceives living in the village to be a problem, but this is more a matter of her own internal state than something objectively external that’s holding her back (i.e. the problem is in her internal perception). Of course we don’t see her actually trying to leave, so we don’t know just how tied down she is externally.

Now if she were a Universe character, we might see her trying to figure out how to get out of the village, but being trapped because she doesn’t have enough money to leave, or being conflicted about leaving her elderly father alone. Maybe she would be putting a lot of effort into changing the village itself – starting book clubs and promoting literacy to make it a more tolerable place to live. Instead we see her going about her day, picking up books and reacting negatively to her life, Gaston’s advances, etc.

#29

The trouble I’m having is that this seems to suggest that Belle just isn’t provincial enough. If only she’d be more provincial, she wouldn’t have a problem. But I don’t feel like that’s what the movie is saying. Instead, the movie seems to say everyone else needs to stop being so provincial…or that if everyone else wasn’t so provincial, Belle wouldn’t have a problem.

#30

Hmmm … I’m not sure that the story is actually saying that, but it’s difficult because we’re talking about the MC throughline rather than the whole story. Maybe I’m encoding it inartfully. So allow me to express it differently and maybe contradict myself :slight_smile:

According to Dramatica, if Belle is a Be-er, she can’t be in Universe. I don’t see anything that suggests she’s a Do-er rather than a Be-er. She complains, but takes no action to change her environment or escape it. She escapes internally into books and imagination.

By contrast, the Beast seems to be entirely focused on his external situation, and controlling the environment (keeping people out, threatening people, imprisoning people, etc.). When she reads to the Beast it’s actually moment of bonding for them – and is a step toward him taking on more of her Be-er approach (looking inward) and changing.

So from a storyform perspective, I think that it’s arguing that as a Be-er, if you hold out against the controlling and/or provincial Do-ers in your world who are trying to change/control you, you’ll have success and maybe even turn your Beast into a prince. Or to put it another way, don’t be swayed from who you are (Fixed Attitude).

#31

What is problematic about her Mindset? If she stopped believing _______, then she would be at peace.

What is problematic about her Universe? If she could escape _________, then she would be at peace.

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A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)
#32

Live action is pretty close to the cartoon, just with more sociopolitical activism.

Well, not in the first act, anyway.

This seems like an odd takeaway to me. Her personal problems stem from her refusal to marry Gaston?

I could see her personal problems stemming from others provincial mindsets, but I have a hard time getting that to be an internal problem for her.

She sees Phillipe return alone and sets out to find her father. When she finds him, she insists the beast take her instead-changing the environment by putting herself in her fathers place?-when the Beast demands she join him for dinner, she doesn’t change herself internally to fit into the environment, she says no, fitting the environment to her internal state.

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#34

What is problematic about her Mindset? If she stopped believing that the answers to her problems lay in books, then she would be at peace.

What is problematic about her Universe? If she could her little provincial town and the castle of the Beast, then she would be at peace.

Neither of these is really satisfying. I’m also struggling with the fact that I believe she is Steadfast. So doesn’t that mean it’s more about holding out for the environment to change than for her to stop doing something?

#35

She responds internally. Escape through books.

Lol I’m not seriously “team Gaston”. Maybe I’m arguing myself in a circle.

Well, I don’t know how else she would have responded here. The decision-making style is a preference, but when the life of her father is at stake …

So if that’s a Do-er response, you’re saying a Be-er response would be to just adjust and have dinner with the Beast?

I view that scene as an example of stubbornness. Or to put it another way, you can trap me here in this castle (external) but you can’t force me to change how I feel (internal). I may totally misunderstand the Do-er/Be-er thing, but that seems very Be-er to me.

But some of this might also be in the OS…

And I am also seeing how I could argue the opposite and have her in Universe. Nice job @Gregolas now you’ve got me all turned around :upside_down:

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#36

I think I was probably writing about do-er/be-er out of stubbornness more than anything. I really dont know if those were good examples or not.

I almost posted a couple of times that maybe the Gaston stuff was in OS. The opening question of the live action version is ‘who could learn to love a beast?’ And I think Gaston is supposed to be kind of a beast as well, a contrast to The Beast. By the way (I don’t think I’ve already posted this)after the movie is over and the Beast is a prince again, does…does Belle still just call him Beast or what?

#37

I’m skipping around here, forgive me. Thoughts on Rejection (non-acceptance) as OS Problem? The Beast rejects the sorceress and everyone is turned into an animal or inanimate object. Gastons rejection by Belle leads to various conflict (as @Lakis already pointed out). I’m not saying that’s what I think it is just yet. Just pondering.

#38

That could make sense – but it messes up the chosen concerns (so far) so we would have to revisit those.

What do you think about the Story Goal? Is there something besides Becoming that you think fits?

#39

The opening question is ‘who could ever learn to love a beast?’ Maybe ‘who could ever conceive of loving a beast?’ would have been more accurate?
Or maybe, ‘who could ever conceive of the beast as lovable?’ would be more accurate still?

#40

Aha!

I had been putting Conceiving as the Requirements, which I would stand by. “Learning (conceiving of) to love a beast” is a requirement for him to Becoming.

It’s possible to put Becoming as a requirement of Conceiving but I think the other way works better.

#41

I’m not looking at the software right now, so I don’t know if this would work, but I’m thinking Becoming would be more of a benchmark or a forewarning or something. As the servants run out of space, they become more inanimate.

Looking at the opening scene, what caused everyone’s problems? The prince becoming a beast? Or the prince failing to conceive of the beauty within the sorceress or whatever?