Time for one of the films everyone seems to agree is a great movie, and yet enjoys tearing apart with rabid cries of burn the witch Stockholm Syndrome. 

As a disclaimer, there is room for legitimate criticism of Beauty and the Beast, some of which does concern the notion of someone who treats you horribly will change with kindness, and this is not going to invalidate any valid criticism of the film or of Belle, but rather offer a different perspective on her film and specifically on Belle as a character. 

Also, before I begin: a word about Stockholm Syndrome. Stockholm Syndrome is not a diagnosable mental illness; it doesn’t appear in the DSM-V (or any previous DSMs) and there isn’t really a clear definition. Belle does not, however, display symptoms, which I’ll briefly touch on below. 

So. Let’s delve into one of Disney’s more emotionally complex fairy tales. 

Let’s start by talking about the Beast, aka Prince Adam according to Disney, because the primary criticism with Belle is that she falls in love with him since he imprisoned her. 

Adam is noted to have turned the enchantress away at the beginning to earn a curse that would last “until his twenty-first year.” I am to this day very confused because I don’t know if he was frozen at 21 years old or if he was actually eleven at the time of the curse (because it was said he had ten years to find someone). But if he was eleven, that wouldn’t explain the painting of him seemingly as an adult, but would explain why his staff were punished along with him, and would explain why he acts like a spoiled child, lashing out at everything around him. 

The thing about the Enchantress’s curse is that she literally bestows the same circumstances that caused him to reject her onto him. Her “haggard” appearance disguised who/what she really was. In other words, she’s trying to force empathy on him.

Want to know what’s interesting about Adam? He tries to do the same thing to Belle that the enchantress did to him. After treating Maurice just like the enchantress, Adam, who is confined to the castle by virtue of his appearance (let’s be real he couldn’t have left, the villagers’ reactions prove as much), confines Belle to the castle. She’s young and has a promising future, and he feels like his has been taken, so he hopes she’ll fall for him by experiencing the same thing. It’s messed up, obviously–and the film always portrays it as such. It’s always framed negatively. 

But the thing is, Belle doesn’t stay because she’s physically restrained. She could leave at any time, as we see when she runs away after the Beast yells at her. She stays because of her own sense of honor, which is something pretty much every other character is sorely lacking in–especially when it comes to the villagers. Of course there’s valid critique here, but it’s also like… a children’s fairy tale: don’t take it so literally. 

The opening song, “Belle,” is literally about how Belle does not want the life she’s expected to have. 

There goes the baker with his tray, like always
The same old bread and rolls to sell
Every morning just the same
Since the morning that we came
To this poor provincial town…

I want so much more than this provincial life! 

Belle is bored. She escapes in books and fantasy, but she can’t actually leave because she dearly loves her father and thinks he needs her. During this opening song, we see basically what Belle’s life would be like if she stayed in this town and married Gaston. A beautiful girl is asked how her family is.

A man leers at a woman and she asks how his wife is (you think Gaston would have been faithful? I don’t).

And a woman juggling five kids and lamenting about prices. 

What Belle expresses she wants is the story in her favorite book, which she describes as:

Far off places, daring sword fights, magic spells, a prince in disguise…

Oh, isn’t this amazing?
It’s my favorite part because — you’ll see
Here’s where she meets Prince Charming
But she won’t discover that it’s him ‘til chapter three! 

That’s the entire plot of the film. Basically, Belle’s determined to go after her dream life and does get it–not because she agreed to be some Beast’s prisoner, but because the girl has some serious boundaries. She does not tolerate disrespect. She has self-worth and self-esteem in other words, and she won’t tolerate anyone’s disrespect of herself. 

Belle knows the townspeople call her “funny” and think she’s odd, and while it bothers her that she doesn’t belong, she still stands up for her father, telling Gaston and LeFou off for calling him crazy, and when Gaston disrespects her interests by shoving her books into the mud and invading her space, she gets away as fast as she can. Not Gaston, and not Adam. 

She also displays pretty good boundaries with Adam. When Belle first arrives at the castle, she demands to know who has imprisoned her father and basically sounds like a girl about to fight a beast for her father. She isn’t naive or stupid. Before she makes any kind of agreement with him, she demands he come into the light so that she knows what she’s getting herself into. 

She makes it clear to him that he hurt her from the start, telling him off for not letting her say goodbye to Maurice. She doesn’t obey him, not ever–in good ways, like refusing to join him for dinner when he tells her it’s not a request, and in less good ways like exploring the West Wing (which is where the Beast, of course, keeps the rose, symbolic of the darker and also the more true and beautiful parts of himself). 

When he loses control and lashes out–and there is no excuse for him–Belle leaves. She says it doesn’t matter she made a promise. He is terrible and she’s out of there. She only goes back when he saves her life, and even then when he’s like “you shouldn’t have run away!” she tells him “well I wouldn’t have run away if you hadn’t frightened me!” and brings the issue back to his temper, telling him he needs to control it. She doesn’t make excuses for his raging behavior, which is what you’d expect from someone with Stockholm Syndrome. 

Belle does not change at all to please Adam. He changes to please her. And yes, I know this isn’t a good start for a relationship, but Belle is not in a romantic relationship with him at this point (though he likes her–or rather, he likes the possibility of breaking the curse to start with, and as he discovers Belle’s existence as a human being with interests of her own and loved ones of her own, he discovers his own humanity–which is frankly beautiful) and wasn’t dating him in hopes that he’d change. He changed before she fell in love with him. 

I think it’s also crucial that Belle does not express romantic feelings for Adam while she is his prisoner. He has to let her go, first, and he does so because he sees she is worried for her father, because he sees her as a human being far more important than just someone who can break the curse. She is not an object, she is not a prisoner: she is Belle. 

So regarding their relationship… in every sense it foils Belle’s relationship with Gaston. In contrast to Gaston’s disrespect of her interests (like throwing her book in the mud), Adam engages with them. He shows her a library, and he reads with her. He plays with animals like she does, and in response she empathizes with him as well, as seen in the scene where she realizes that Adam can’t eat normally, so she meets him halfway. That’s not a sign of insecurity; that’s someone who knows who she is and cares about someone.

When he asks if she’s happy and she says “yes,” but with a hesitant expression, he can read the sad look on her face, as opposed to Gaston who is completely oblivious every time he talks to Belle that she isn’t remotely interested in him. 

Like, if we want to look for a genuinely honest portrayal of an abusive character, we need look no further than Gaston. Gaston attempts to force Belle into the same situation as Adam did, only worse in some ways because marriage is a condition: he has Maurice carted off to an insane asylum with the promise to free him if Belle marries him. Belle refuses because the girl was not going to agree to just any arrangement, not even to save her father. She has more self-worth than that. And this is the end of Belle’s relationship with Gaston, the culmination of her refusal to marry him; for Adam, it was the start of their relationship, and the story is again using this foiling to condemn his actions. Adam’s objectification of Belle dismantles as the film goes on, as he learns to relate to her and as she empathizes with him. That’s a beautiful portrayal of redemption, offering the optimistic look that redemption is possible and people can change, and people who are angry are hurting–but we don’t have to accept their mistreatment, because Belle never once does. 

Thanks for reading! Up next: Jasmine, from Aladdin!

For previous entries in this series:

• Snow White’s Self-Esteem
• Cinderella’s Courage and Compassion
• Aurora’s Autonomy
• Ariel’s Adventurous Spirit