Beauty and the Beast

On Saturday, February 13th, I attended a play titled Beauty and the Beast at the Providence Performing Arts Center. I was really surprised Dr. Bogad allowed our class to view this for our Social Justice Event. I thought this was excellent as I already had tickets to see this with my girlfriend so I was going anyways. Now I clearly see how this is considered a Social Justice Event.

I had not seen Beauty and the Beast in years. I was shocked at how sexist it was. The songs were very sexist. The villain of the play, Gaston, was the embodiment of sexist ideology. He sang a song specifically about what the roles of women and men should be. He believed women were to be homemakers, take care of the children and also attend to every need of the husband when they came home. In his opinion, men were to work and/or hunt and that was it. All of these ideas were expressed in this song. However this play helps to also counter this "secret education" as Gaston falls to his death in the end. This symbolizes sexism being negative and losing at the end of the battle.

In the play ten years had passed since the enchanted castle had been placed under the witch's spell. The entire castle felt as though they were outcasts to the whole world. This is much like Rodriguez felt in his article. When Belle first arrived at the castle it gave the inhabitants a ray of hope. If the Beast and her fell in love the spell would be broken and everyone would be human again. However the beast forgot had to be a gentleman and was trying to force Belle to have dinner with him rather than ask her. The "culture of power" teaches a man to ask a woman instead. Also the fact that the Beast was trying to force Belle to love him and vice versa was the wrong thing to do. It has to naturally happen. The same concept goes with homosexuality. Heterosexual people just need to see homosexuals as equals. This will not come about if they force themselves to think it but if they genuinely feel that everybody is equal.

Overall I learned much more than I thought I would about this play. I never expected I would be able to connect texts that we read to this. Sexism, isolation, secret education and the culture of power all appear in Beauty and the Beast. Thank you Dr. Bogad for allowing me to learn this through my social justice event.