Tale as old as time...

Beauty and The Beast…

Can I just say that I love Beauty and the Beast. Of all the Disney movies it is by far my favorite. I love the fact that Belle is an intellectual in a time that women were under strict social norms and had to comply with these norms unquestionably. She is uninfluenced by society, she thinks and acts for herself, even when it’s looked down on. She falls in love with someone based on what is on the inside, not what their appearance is on the outside.  She rescues the Beast, so to speak…in most Disney movies it is the man rescuing the woman.  So, when I found out they were bringing this movie back I could not wait to take my little girl to see it.

Until….

Insert suspenseful drumroll

...I reactivated my Facebook after a year. Unfortunately I did so on the week that everyone on the planet learned that Le Fou was going to be represented as an openly gay character. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many people say so many terrible things about a Disney movie. Are. You. Kidding. Me? Of all the positives that this movie brings….we’re going to boycott it because it has a gay character. I literally laughed a little, rolled my eyes, and said Aaron, you’re not going to believe this. Initially my thought was, am I the only person that while watching the cartoon as an adult didn’t kind of maybe, just a little, think that Le Fou was gay? He’s clearly all about Gaston….and yet no uproar.

I thought, surely it has to be more than just that for an entire movie theatre to boycott the movie? After reading a little more into people’s statuses, it seems the majority of people’s reasoning is this “We aren’t ready to have that conversation with our child yet.”  Ok, I get that…kind of. There are definitely certain topics that are not age appropriate for my children, and I try to shield them from the world as much as possible. However, there are things that are going to be a part of the world they live in and to me homosexuality is the least of my concern.  

I know, people are going to shake their head and say, “I know that homosexuality is a part of the world we live in, but that doesn’t mean that I have to introduce it to my child at such a young age” I get it, and I’m not the parent to your child, and you have the right to raise them in whichever manner you choose, isn’t that great! However, I do want you to know that your child probably already knows more than you think he/she knows. For example, the other day on the drive home, Paislee, five years old, enlightened me on the fact that she never wanted to get married because she wanted to keep her last name and she didn’t want anyone telling her what to do. I laughed and told her that if she never chooses to get married that it was just fine with me. Kai, seven, piped up and quickly exclaimed that “girls could marry girls and boy could marry boys”.  Very matter of fact. 

Here are three things that I did NOT do.…

1. *GASP* 
2.  Say, “where did you learn that?!”
3. Go into a long detailed explanation of what that means.  

I just simply said, yes you are correct, they sure can. That was the end of the conversation. Nothing more than a simple affirmation of yes that is true, and we moved on.

At 7 and 5 I believe that is as far in depth as I need to go.  What is the point of me mentioning this you might ask? What is the relevance in that story and Beauty and the Beast? My point is this, while you are avoiding this situation that is minutely in a Disney movie….your children are at school everyday and they are hearing these conversations. I know your argument will be, I can’t protect them all the time, but in situations I can control, I will. That’s great, and I agree, but what I’m saying to you is that if your child is in Kindergarten they probably already know that women can marry women and men can marry men. If the basis of your argument is that you’re not ready to have this conversation I just want to let you know that they’ve probably already heard this information and are processing it in their own way. The same way they process that men can marry women and women can marry men. 

In conclusion, the way I look at it (and I understand maybe in this area of the country I am in the minority) that if the only scene out of Beauty and the Beast my children remember, is the few seconds of Le Fou being openly gay, then I will use it as an opportunity to have an honest conversation about that scene. I’d much rather be the one that this topic is brought to with questions than another 7 year old at the cafeteria table. However, I feel like as adults we turn molehills into mountains and the chance of Kai or Paislee noticing Le Fou is gay is slim to none….so we will enjoy this Disney movie just as we’ve enjoyed so many others. 

I'll leave you with a few of my favorite Beauty and the Beast memes to lighten the mood...