'Beauty and the Beast' Featurette Makes a Case for Feminist Belle
Disney is working overtime to prove that the heroine of Beauty and the Beast (in theaters March 17) is a strong role model for girls. The new film, a remake of the 1991 animated musical, has the same basic plot: The beautiful bookworm Belle makes a deal to be the prisoner of a mysterious Beast, and they gradually fall in love. And while plenty of critics over the years have cried “Stockholm syndrome” — a charge that the new film’s star Emma Watson has specifically refuted — director Bill Condon appears to be taking pains to show that Belle’s actions are her own choice. The new featurette “Empowered Belle” (above) focuses on the courage and resilience of the character, as inspired by the original film.
Related: ‘Beauty and the Beast’: Watch Emma Watson Perform Film’s Opening Number
“She really is the first modern Disney princess who doesn’t want to be a princess: someone who’s more interested in figuring out who she is than in finding a guy and getting married,” says Condon. “And that was so much a part of the casting of Emma Watson.”
Related: Watch ‘Beauty and the Beast’ Star Luke Evans Describe What It Takes to Play Gaston
Watson, an advocate of feminist causes, had a great deal of input in her character, insisting that she wear practical clothes (she asked for pockets in her dress and sturdier shoes) and signing off on the idea that Belle should be an inventor herself, instead of just an inventor’s daughter.
“I know what she meant to me as a young girl,” Watson says of her character. “When you love something that much, you really want to do it justice.”
Watch Belle get an uninviting dinner invitation in a scene from ‘Beauty and the Beast:’
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