Frozen Is Cool! Elsa the Snow Queen Rules!

As I said in my essay “Through a Mirror Darkly”, Gaston is an evil counterpart to the Beast. In fact, he is virtually the first Disney Villain to be a well-rounded character and have many similarities, and some simultaneous distinct differences, with his protagonist enemy.

However, Gaston and the Beast show noteworthy differences in terms of character development as the movie unfolds.

Similarly, the people around them act as the antithesis of each other.

Fittingly, during the climax, when Gaston and the Beast battle on the castle tower, it’s a man vs. monster fight, but not the kind one may think. The Beast looks like a monster, but fights with patience and manly wits, while Gaston looks like a man, but fights like a savage, bloodthirsty beast. In fact, the two are further shown to be mirror images of one another by wearing clothes of the opposite colors (showing who is good and who is evil): the Beast wears a blue shirt and his red cape, while Gaston wears his red shirt and a blue cape.

As the two fight, Gaston continuously taunts the Beast over his appearance, but pushes the final button when he declares that Belle belongs to him and could never love a monster like the Beast. Enraged at this, the Beast overpowers Gaston and holds him by the throat as he prepares to drop him. But when Gaston drops his pride and pathetically begs for mercy, the Beast realizes that Gaston is the very monster he would have become if it wasn’t for Belle. Wanting to be better than Gaston for the sake of himself and for Belle, especially because by now he has come so close to breaking his curse, the Beast reluctantly spares Gaston and angrily yet calmly tells him to get out of his castle.

And in the end, true love finally prevails. Gaston dies as the monster he truly is, while the Beast’s curse finally breaks, and he and Belle get their happy ending. 😁😊❤️

Introduction

Among the villains in the Disney animated canon, there are those that are truly intelligent in terms of brains and intellectualism if they possess a great deal of knowledge due to being educated and having undergone many different experiences in life. Some of them are even more intelligent if they possess high skills in manipulation, calculation, and cunning, and a good example of this kind of villain is Hans. However, for other villains, even if they are manipulative, calculating, and cunning, it does not always mean they are intelligent, and one shining example of this type of villain is Gaston.

Yes, despite what anyone believes, and I cannot stress this enough, Gaston is NOT intelligent. He is calculating, cunning, and manipulative, yes, I’ll admit that. But intelligent? NO!!! Throughout the film, Belle proves herself to be far smarter than him due to her intelligence being based almost entirely on strong intellectualism, logic, knowledge, and wit. The benefits Belle has gained from reading books over the years include an elevated vocabulary, an open, unprejudiced mind, and the ability to be a quick-thinker, which proves useful when it comes to her making retorts with little hesitation. But none of these things apply to Gaston. Heck, while you can describe Belle as the one with beauty and brains, Gaston has beauty AND brawn…but no brains! He has built up all his major muscles, but his only muscle that he’s never bothered to exercise is his mind! 😆🤣

What makes Gaston stupid is how overconfident, proud, egotistical, narcissistic, and arrogant he is as a very handsome, strong, muscular man with superb skills in hunting and killing animals. He seems to believe that all he needs to be a “good” man is his handsome appearance and great physical strength, and so he dismisses reading, intelligence, ideas, and anything and everything related to intellectualism as stupid and unnecessary. Gaston carries such a high, superior opinion of himself which is further exacerbated from the townspeople admiring him and regarding him as the best, most popular man in the village. This status has him extremely convinced that he really is the best of the best, and so much so that no one can ever surpass him or refuse him for anything. He particularly has so much of this pride since his good looks and superficial charm has almost all of the young, attractive, single girls in town falling at his feet and swooning over him. (On the side, Gaston’s overconfidence and arrogance in his strength makes him foolish enough to underestimate the Beast’s great size and strength during the climax.) But while Belle is the only woman who never shows any interest in or attraction to him, Gaston is fully convinced, to the point of being extremely delusional (as part of his stupidity and another result of his overconfidence), that Belle is truly no different from the other girls and is in love with him, too.

Unlike everyone else in town, and especially unlike the Bimbettes, Belle, from the very beginning of the film, is the only person who is not immune to Gaston’s arrogant, vain, egotistical, pompous, misogynistic nature, and easily sees all of his faults behind his handsome, muscular appearance. Because of her smarts, she never judges people based on their appearance, but by their character. Despite being a handsome man, Gaston gives off a lot of personality traits that Belle easily recognizes and detests, so she does not see him as a catch nor does she want anything to do with him. But little does Belle know that she is the only woman on whom Gaston has set his sights and that he strongly desires her hand in marriage.

So now I want to talk about the moments in Beauty and the Beast that best show how Gaston isn’t smart and how his overconfidence, pride, and arrogance constantly gets the better of him, especially when he is outsmarted by Belle. It has turned out to be longer than I anticipated, so I have decided to add the “Keep reading” feature. Hold on to your hats, and enjoy reading what lies ahead! 😁😄😉

When Gaston makes his “proposal” to Belle, he describes his envisioned life as a married man, including that he and his little wife have six or seven children, all of which will be “strapping boys, like me!”, as he proudly declares. As part of his misogyny and sexism, he doesn’t appear to consider the chances of having any daughters. Now obviously, this means that Gaston doesn’t want to have girls, but I think there’s a bigger reason besides that. 

I get the impression that Gaston sees himself as a “real man”, meaning that he thinks he is the prime example of what every man should and must be, mainly based on his own incredible physical strength, muscular physique, and handsome exterior while simultaneously believing that men are superior to women and women’s only purposes are to serve and obey men. And so because Gaston thinks he is a real man, he believes real men like him ONLY produce sons, not daughters.

So it’s not simply that Gaston doesn’t want girls; it’s that he thinks he is incapable of making girls because he is a “real man”. Furthermore, he thinks making just sons will make him more manly than he is now and boost his (toxic) masculinity. Gaston feels he would be a lot stronger than ever by fathering sons, but he thinks fathering daughters would make him feel and look weak, and he clearly detests the thought of being weak in any way.

Of course, what all of this REALLY proves is just how STUPID and narrow-minded Gaston is because he doesn’t comprehend that the chances that having that many children all being the same gender is extremely remote. I mean, it’s possible, but it’s NOT something that life can guarantee. But again, because he thinks he is a “real man”, Gaston’s logic dictates that having this many children be boys, and ONLY boys, is indeed guaranteed. The proof that he believes this concept is a guarantee is when he lightly pounds his chest while boldly saying “strapping boys”, which displays his utmost confidence that there are absolutely zero chances that ANY of his six to seven children would be a mix of boys and girls, or even all girls.

But like I said, this only proves just how incredibly stupid Gaston is due to his lack of knowledge about human science and nature. He is anti-intellectual and unintelligent, so his extreme arrogance about himself is what makes him very confident that such a thing could happen. Therefore, any logic he possesses is deeply flawed and all the more stupid.

Now I’ll admit it, Gaston can be cunning, calculating, and manipulative, but just in the right circumstances. He is NOT intelligent, and Belle is always two steps ahead of him in that regard.

Stalk the Stalk

Since doing “Bride and Prejudice”, I have consciously realized that Gaston exhibits behavior like that of a stalker in his ruthless pursuit of Belle’s hand in marriage. And out of inspiration from my analysis on what makes Hans a sociopath, I wanted to write an analysis on what makes Gaston a stalker.

By definition, “stalking” is known as unwanted and/or repeated attention or surveillance by an individual or group towards another person. Stalking behavior generally consists of a person constantly following another person around and spying on them and their actions. In many stalking cases, the individual receiving the attention does not want it in the first place, and is repeatedly pursued and sought out, even after the stalker has been repeatedly told that the victim is not interested in them and/or wants to be left alone. When a person grows more committed to stalking another person, they grow more persistent and ruthless. As a result, the victim finds themself facing more frightening situations from the stalker, such as harassment and intimidation, even while not in the physical presence of the stalker.

Stalking always begins with fantasy and turns obsessive, and the most serious cases escalate to the point of being deadly. Stalkers can be anyone, from complete strangers to people we know. Female stalkers often target other women, while men primarily stalk women. Men who stalk women often do so because they have a romantic interest or infatuation towards the women they pursue. Though not all stalkers are the same, the following traits or behavior pattens are seen in most stalkers, particularly those who are romantically interested in their victims:

Most if not all of these traits fit Gaston to a T, though some only become more obvious over the course of the film as his evil nature begins to surface, so it’s safe to say he is indeed a stalker. Despite having a handsome face, muscular physique, and brutal strength ability that no other man in town can surpass, Gaston is also extremely vain, narcissistic, conceited, egotistical, and arrogant. The fact that he is so popular, admired, respected, and regarded as the best man by almost everyone else in the village (primarily by women, especially the Bimbettes) just for his handsome, muscular appearance, brute strength, and the “good” qualities that come from them is what exacerbates Gaston’s already large ego. He relies on his own traits and the villagers’ positive opinion of him for his sense of self, and the image he has created for himself in the eye of the public means everything to him. Gaston’s high opinion of himself is such that he believes he is superior to everyone around him in every way, showing perfectly that he has a massive superiority complex. In regarding himself as superior, Gaston also has a strong sense of entitlement to always have his way, especially when it comes to his own desires. In other words, he sees himself as a winner, someone who is always meant to get his way, to get whatever he wants. Gaston hates hearing “no” as an answer because such a response makes him look like a loser and a failure, which something he finds totally unacceptable and intolerable to his image. Even when he initially doesn’t get what he wants, no matter how much humiliation he receives or how much he is rebuffed, Gaston refuses to give up on his goals until he finally succeeds in getting whatever it is he wants.

Seconds after he first appears on screen, Gaston announces to LeFou that Belle is the woman he is going to marry because she is the most beautiful woman in town. Her beauty alone is the reason why Gaston shallowly believes that she is the best woman. Because she is “the best”, he feels that he and he alone deserves her, as emphasized the way he asks LeFou “And I don’t I deserve the best?” Then Gaston sings, “Right from the moment when I met her, saw her, and I said she’s gorgeous, and I fell”, which implies that he fell in love with Belle, or rather, with her beautiful face, when he first laid eyes on her.  Though Belle never outwardly show any signs of interest or attraction in him, which is a stark contrast to the Bimbettes, Gaston is so overconfident in his own outer beauty that he develops a delusion that somewhere deep within, Belle IS just like all the other women in town by having an infatuation with him. In fact, Gaston organizes an entire wedding outside Belle’s house to surprise her before he even makes his proposal. This act, along with him saying, “This is her lucky day”, shows that Gaston is totally convinced, though also lost in this delusional fantasy, that, even though she doesn’t show it, Belle is in love with him. Therefore, he is completely confident that EVERYTHING will go like he expects, and that NOTHING will go wrong. Gaston not only believes that Belle will accept his proposal in a heartbeat, but that she will agree to marry him on the spot. This is why he has the whole wedding prearranged without her knowledge and prior to his proposal. When he gets inside Belle’s house to make his proposal, Gaston says today is the day her dreams comes true, and claims he knows “Plenty!” about them right before describes his visions as a married man, which include more sexist remarks about women and housewifery. This is another moment that displays Gaston having this delusional fantasy that Belle not only has love for him, but also shares his visions of married life. And in having this delusion, he does not doubt at all that she will approve of becoming his wife.

However, when he invites Belle on a date to the tavern and makes his marriage proposal to her, Gaston gets rejected both times, though the second time is much more blunt and explicit on her part. When they have their first interaction, immediately after exchanging hellos, Gaston rudely and curtly snatches Belle’s book out of her hands and tosses it into the mud. After she picks it up and cleans it off, he takes it away again and forces her to walk with and beside him as he “invites” her to come to the tavern with him. But Belle successfully grabs her book back and walks away from Gaston as she politely tells him she can’t go, much to his disappointment. Throughout this entire scene, Gaston taking the book from Belle, trying to keep it away from her, and forcing her to walk with him and come to the tavern shows his deep-rooted desire to dominate, control, and possess her. His reason isn’t just because it’s part of his stalking behavior, but because he sees men as superior to women. To him, women are property possessions that are meant to be owned and controlled by men, especially in a marriage. If Gaston married Belle, he would see her just as his slave whose purpose would be to obey any command he gives her, without question, argument, defiance, resistance, or refusal. And since he wants to marry her, Gaston starts his pursuit Belle with ways to try and make her his property. He takes her book away and attempts to make her come with him to the tavern to try and get her to submit to him, to make her see things his way, to show her that she should do what he tells her and wants her to do (particularly since he doesn’t want her, or even any woman, to read and become smart). But Belle quickly figures out what Gaston is trying to do by being forceful with her, and she fights back because she absolutely refuses to let him do that. On the contrary, she does not view him as someone who has the right to control her and give her orders, especially if it’s to force her to do something she doesn’t want to do. So Belle manages to resist Gaston’s efforts by grabbing her book back from him and walking out of his “embrace” before she makes her way back to her home.

Besides the facts that she has to get home to help her father and that she already doesn’t like him, Gaston’s attempts to force Belle to do what he wants her to do, and even not to do, are why she refuses to go out with him. While he becomes frustrated and disappointed that he fails to charm her, he does not take this rejection very seriously. Since Belle is kind and polite when she turns him down, Gaston doesn’t not consider her rebuffs as a true rejection, or even a lack of interest in him. He is given clear evidence to the contrary by her subtly resisting, defying, and fighting his efforts to control her. But due to his delusion in thinking that Belle is in love with him, like all the other women in town, Gaston likely thinks that her refusal is just her playing a game of “being hard to get” with him. However, though he is annoyed and frustrated when she refuses going to the tavern with him, Gaston becomes totally furious when Belle rejects his marriage proposal. This is primarily because she does so by tricking him to get out of her house as she says, “I just don’t deserve you!”, and he doesn’t even realize she is leading him into a trap until it’s too late. Belle lures Gaston towards her door and after he corners her there, then he closes his eyes and tries to kiss her, making him totally unaware that she is opening the door to get rid of him. Once she opens it, he loses his footing, causing him to fall headfirst into a mud pond in front of the cottage. Since the villagers witnessed that Gaston was rejected by Belle and was the victim of a trick she played to lure him out of her home, this results in him being humiliated. He is so enraged by the rejection and resulting humiliation that by nightfall, he is still sulking about it and refuses to let it go. While sitting in his chair at the tavern, Gaston loudly complains about it, first by ranting, “Who does she think she is? That girl has tangled with the wrong man! No one says ‘No’ to Gaston!”, then he finishes with “Dismissed! Rejected! Publicly humiliated! Why, it’s more than I can bear!” As he says the final word, Gaston gets physical in displaying his rage over the situation when he throws two mugs of beer he grabs from LeFou into the lit fireplace. These words and this action perfectly display Gaston’s stalker trait of his inability to cope with and accept rejection.

So from the way his marriage proposal is turned down, Gaston finally learns the hard way that Belle is not in love with him and has no desire to marry him. But even though he learns that he was wrong about Belle, that doesn’t mean he accepts it as a final answer. Right after he is kicked out of her house, Gaston grabs LeFou and vows that he will have Belle for his wife by any means necessary, regardless of her refusals. Despite having been proven that Belle does not want to be with him, Gaston does not care what she thinks or feels. His determination to marry her even after she refuses him reveals a more possessive, persistent side of him. It drives him to obsession, and he decides to resort to more forceful measures of deception and manipulation to win her hand in marriage. Gaston comes up with a plan to have Belle’s father Maurice locked up in an asylum (due to his claims about the Beast, which no one believes) unless she agrees to marry him. But Belle refuses Gaston once again and also proves her father’s sanity by revealing the existence of the Beast to everyone. When she talks about the Beast in such a positive way despite his monstrous appearance, Gaston quickly deduces that Belle is not in love with him, but with the Beast. With this concept in mind, and enraged by a second refusal from Belle, Gaston grows extremely jealous and decides to kill the Beast just so that he can have Belle all to himself. He further displays manipulation when the speech he makes to get the mob to kill the Beast is a claim to protect the village, when in reality, it is nothing more than a ploy to get them to help him infiltrate the castle, and he cares nothing for the villagers themselves. When he is at the castle and fights with the Beast, Gaston taunts him by saying that Belle would never love a monster and that she belongs to HIM.

Stalk Like a Man

So from all of the scenes I described above, Gaston fits the profile of a stalker all too well. But just what kind of a stalker is he? 🤨

According to the article "A Study of Stalkers" by Mullen et al. (2000), five different types of stalkers have been identified:

Out of these five types of stalkers, I would classify Gaston as an incompetent suitor, though his actions against or towards Belle also make him a bit of an intimacy seeker, a resentful stalker, and a rejected stalker.

As an incompetent suitor, Gaston develops a fixation on marrying Belle, but his attempts at charming her always end poorly because his boorish, brazen behavior, combined with his inferior opinion of women, do nothing but annoy and repulse her. Additionally, Gaston’s superior views of himself, combined with the same feelings the villagers shower upon him, has given him a sense of entitlement in which he believes he deserves anything he sets to get for himself. Since he and the rest of the town view him as the best man around, Gaston thinks he is entitled to have the best woman, that being Belle, and only because he and the other townspeople regard her as the most beautiful woman, as his wife. Once he makes up his mind to marry Belle, Gaston immediately starts trying to schmooze and woo her by inviting her to the tavern with him and looking at his trophies. However, right before and as he makes his invitation, Gaston attempts to get Belle under his control by taking her book away and discourage her from reading while making sexist remarks about how it’s wrong for women to read since they shouldn’t become smart and think for themselves. Because he insults her intelligence and love of reading, Gaston ultimately fails in his attempt to court Belle, and she turns down his invitation to the tavern. Right before he makes his marriage proposal, Gaston disgusts Belle by not only dirtying her book with his mud-covered boots and smelly feet, but also by his description of married life where his wife would massage his feet and their six or seven children would only be “strapping boys, like me!” Further appalled when Gaston admits he wants her to be his wife and tells her to say she will marry him, Belle rejects his proposal, much to his fury. Gaston also fits the incompetent suitor type of stalker because he becomes consumed with jealousy when he learns that Belle is in love with someone else: the Beast, whom she describes as “kind and gentle” even though he has a hideous exterior. Refusing to lose Belle to someone he thinks is nothing more than an ugly monster, Gaston decides to kill the Beast so he can have Belle all to himself.

As an intimacy seeker, Gaston does sees Belle as his soulmate, the only woman meant for him. With his “handsomest man in town” status, and Belle being the most beautiful woman in town, Gaston thinks that he and Belle are a perfect match, that the two of them alone are meant for each other. However, Gaston is much less of an intimacy seeker than he is an incompetent suitor because he does not actually seek to have a true loving, intimate relationship with Belle. Like I’ve said before, Gaston has very misogynistic, sexist, inferior views of women, believing that their sole purposes in life are to serve and obey men, and be their sex partners. Therefore, he does not see women as people who are capable of having individual personalities and have equal rights to men, but rather as objects, possessions, and potential property that are meant to belong to men.

Gaston could also be classified as a resentful stalker because he develops a vendetta against Belle following her rejection of his proposal and tricking him out of her house, all of which humiliate him in front of the villagers. With his pride and ego damaged by her actions, Gaston feels that Belle has wronged him, so he sets out to be righted by forcing her to be his wife, regardless of what she thinks about it. While they barely have any kind of relationship, much less know each other well enough to have one in the first place, the fact that he wants to correct and avenge Belle’s rejection of him by forcing her to marry him, even if it is against her will, means that Gaston can classify as a rejected stalker, too.

Look Who’s Stalking

In most infamous stalking cases that have led to the murders or attempted murders of the victims or other intended targets, especially where the stalkers follow their victims out of a romantic interest, stalkers tend to be lonely people with few to no friends, withdrawn, unpopular, socially awkward or inept, regarded as strange or nerdy, and keep to themselves. At the same time, the victims tend to be popular, intelligent, well-liked, respected, and socially competent with a good number of friends. But Gaston and Belle are quite the opposite as the stalker and victim, respectively. Gaston is popular, respected, admired, and well-liked by virtually everyone in town, while Belle, despite being considered the town’s most beautiful woman, is unpopular, withdrawn, friendless, and regarded as odd and nerdy due to her intelligence, love of books, independence, and free spirit.

After careful consideration, one conclusion that I can make about Gaston as a stalker in regards to his pursuit of Belle is that, no matter what he would have done and how low he would stoop just to get her to be his wife, Belle would never agree to marry him. Gaston sought to kill the Beast just so he could get his competition out of the way and make Belle his once and for all. Had he succeeded in his murderous goal, I believe that Gaston would have then resorted to other forceful measures to get Belle to comply, such as physically assaulting and beating her. However, in my confidence that Belle would always refuse him, even if she was threatened with physical harm, I truly believe that if Gaston continued being told “no” as Belle’s final answer, it would make him so furious that he would decide to permanently end her refusals by killing her in a blind rage. I believe this because if Gaston felt couldn't he have Belle, then no one could, But he wouldn’t kill himself, he would kill her because she would be causing him the “suffering” by her nonstop rejections of him. Therefore, she wouldn’t deserve to live any longer.

In the film, Gaston thinks that murdering the Beast to get him out of the way would be how he could finally win and marry Belle. Though like when he underestimates her wit and intelligence the first time she rejects his proposal, Gaston also underestimates Belle’s inner strength, independence, and assertion. She has her own mind, can make her own decisions, can stand up for herself, and is confident in who she is and the decisions she makes. She hates Gaston and hates the idea of marrying him, so she would never change her mind and agree to become his wife under any circumstances. This is why I believe that, had Gaston succeeded in killing the Beast, but was still refused by Belle again and again, he would end his “suffering” caused by her unending rejections of him by murdering her.

If Gaston could not win by making Belle his wife, then he would find another way to come out on top and win. And to me, that would be by him ending her life, not his own.

Conclusion

And so there you have it on all the reasons as to what makes Gaston a stalker. Although Gaston is the Disney villain I hate the most, I do think he has a good role in the film to help the story move along, particularly with how he serves not only as a rival to the Beast, but as a dark reflection to him, too. Considering how much his obsession with Belle gradually turns him into a twisted, sadistic, ruthless, dangerous, murderous monster, it’s safe to say that he would resort to physical violence to get Belle to surrender and marry him. But since she would never give up, never change her response, never submit to his desires, I have no doubt that Gaston would gradually grow so furious about receiving umpteen rejections from Belle that he would kill her, just so he could still come out on top and win.

By the time of his death, Gaston was a true danger to both Belle and the Beast, so his death was the best way for him to be defeated. And while he fell to his death all alone, the curse on the Beast was broken because of his and Belle’s love for each other. In the end, Belle got rid of her stalker and found the true man of her dreams. ❤️❤️❤️

Hope you all enjoyed another analysis from me! Thank you all for reading, and thank you, @minervadeannabond, for coming up with my section title “Stalk Like a Man”! Until next time, everyone, and have a wonderful day! 😁😁😁

Introduction

Although I love to study, observe, and analyze fictional villains, especially those from my favorite movies, both Disney and non-Disney, Gaston has always been my least favorite (animated) villain from Disney because he is extremely vain, narcissistic, arrogant, egotistical, chauvinistic, superior, and shallow. In real life, as well as in fiction, I strongly dislike people who display snobby, condescending, supreme, and superior attitudes by obsessively thinking so highly of themselves, and believing they are better than others in everything, from their social class to their physical appearance, so much so that they coldly dismiss, insult, belittle, and/or ignore others they see as being below them and not worth their time.

But my other main reason for hating Gaston goes even beyond his attempted murder of the Beast and aggressive persistence to force Belle to marry him after she refuses his so-called “proposal”. Because I am a feminist who believes in gender equality, and that women have the ability to do almost anything men can do (even though I accept that men will always be physically stronger than women by nature), I also detest Gaston due to his prejudiced, inferior, sexist, misogynistic views of women.

Now please don’t take this the wrong way; I don’t let my hatred of him stop me from enjoying Beauty and the Beast, because I LOVE the movie, and I do think Gaston makes a great presence with his role as the main antagonist. And I’m not a misandrist, or a person who hates the male gender as a whole, so I apologize in advance to my male friends on here if you think I’m giving off that impression. But in real life, I hate prejudice and bigotry aimed towards people when it comes to their race, gender, nationality, and/or social rank. And since I am a woman with feminist beliefs, I sometimes take it personally (more so than any other types of bigotry) when men exhibit sexist beliefs about women.

So with all of his major flaws, those being his bigoted, condescending, inferior views of women, his beliefs that men are (and always will be) above women, AND his narcissistic, egotistical, conceited, self-centered personality, the overall reason I hate Gaston and announce him as my least favorite Disney villain is because he is THE epitome and archetype of the very kind of man that I despise. Now I don’t know anyone like that in person, but I know that there are still prejudiced people out there in the world today. I have seen both real (like on live talk shows) and fictional men who show these kinds of prejudiced demeanors. When real men in particular show this kind of attitude, I get very offended by it. And Gaston probably holds these thoughts at greater extremities than any other fictional prejudiced male characters (at least those of which I know or am aware).

The more I thought about how strongly Gaston’s prejudicial thoughts on women are displayed, which are what drive Belle away from him, the more that I believe that, despite setting his sights on marrying her and determining to make it happen at all costs, I believe that Gaston considered Belle a challenge, and even a threat, to his public image, to his gender, and to his own identity. I say this because her personality makes her so unconventional and atypical for a woman for the era in which the film is set. And due to these thoughts, I decided to write this analysis on how I think Gaston saw Belle as a threat to himself and his own gender, but remained set on marrying her, regardless of her refusals. And of course, I will throw in my interpretations of Gaston’s prejudiced attitude towards women since the kind of personality Belle has goes against what he thinks both men and women should be.

What Men Want

During their first meeting, Gaston insults Belle by making sexist remarks about women who read and are intelligent. He states that it’s wrong for women to read since it leads to them thinking for themselves and getting intellectually smart, which he also thinks is ridiculous (though more so for women). In their next scene together, which is when Gaston makes his “marriage proposal” to Belle, he makes more sexist remarks, this time about women and housewifery. He describes to her how he envisions his life as a married man: living in a rustic hunting lodge in which his latest animal kill would be cooking on the fire, while his “little wife” would be massaging his feet as their six or seven children (all of whom would be sons) play on the floor with their dogs. Part of Gaston’s sexism in this scene is stressed with how he doesn’t even appear to consider the possibility of fathering any daughters. He arrogantly and proudly announces that his desired number of children is six or seven “strapping boys, like me!” The manner in which Gaston makes this statement sounds as if he is 100% confident (as indicated by him lightly pounding on his chest while saying said gender) that the chances that this many children would be boys, and only boys, is absolutely and logically possible. Therefore, he is also confident that there are no chances that any of his six to seven children would be a mix of boys and girls, or even all girls.

Additionally, in both of these scenes, besides what Gaston says that offends her, Belle recoils from him in annoyance, shock, and revulsion because he is VERY brazen. He makes unwanted advances on Belle to the point that he attempts to physically force himself onto her and get her under his control. By doing so, Gaston shows a total lack of respect for Belle’s personal space and property (hinting that he doesn’t think she should even have any in the first place). This all starts in the first scene, when Gaston literally and curtly snatches Belle’s book out of her hands and keeps it out of her reach to prevent her from taking it back from him. Then he carelessly tosses the book into the mud, and even tries to prevent Belle from retrieving it by stepping in front of it and the mud puddle. While he does this, Gaston flatly tells Belle that she has to stop reading and start paying attention to more important things (namely, himself, which does not impress Belle at all). After she recovers and cleans off her book, Gaston puts his arm around Belle’s shoulder and subtly forces her to walk with him as he suggests they go to the tavern together. Before they start “walking together”, Gaston again snatches the book out of Belle’s hand and attempts to keep it out of her reach when she tries to take it back.

Now this moment interests me because I realize that Gaston was starting to use more direct force to try to get Belle to stop reading. He was trying harder to get her to do what he wants her to do and make her see things his own way. And of course, Gaston arrogantly believes that his views and ways of doing/seeing things is right, so he tries to get Belle to see that while also showing her that what she does and likes is wrong. But Belle finally succeeds in grabbing the book back from Gaston, during which she turns down going with him to the tavern since she has to get home to help her father. The fact that Belle uses physical force herself when she grabs her book out of Gaston’s hand also interests me, because I see it as her way of telling him, “I’m not gonna let you stop me from reading because it’s what I love.” What happens between the two over the book and him “inviting” her to the tavern shows me that Gaston was trying to take the reins and show Belle that he wanted to be in control of her. He wanted to be in charge of her. He wanted to dominate her by telling her what to do, and would resort to using more abrupt force if necessary, in order to make her see things his way. But Belle taking her book from Gaston and turning down going out with him showed that she ABSOLUTELY would not give him that chance to do that. She refused to let him believe that he could dominate and control her, that she would willingly submit to him, that he was in the right to tell her what to do and not to do.

Nope! Just with using her book, Belle stood up to Gaston, defied him, and resisted him. By doing so, she indirectly told him that she is capable of making her own decisions, that she is very independent and likes to do her own thing, regardless of what he and others think. To Belle, Gaston is not someone who has the right to give her orders and make her do something she doesn’t want to do…and this is why he frowns after she manages to take her book out of his grasp while saying that she cannot go out with him.

During the proposal scene, before and while he describes his visions as a married man, Gaston again displays a total disregard and disrespect for Belle’s personal space and property. This begins when he briskly opens the door to her cottage and lets himself in without waiting for her to open it first after he knocks on it (AND without even waiting for her to grant or deny him permission to come inside in the first place). Once inside, Gaston makes more advances on Belle by continuously walking towards her, as if he’s trying to make her keep her eyes on him and block her attempts to get away from him. He then dirties her book (which is placed on the table) for the second time when he sits down and slams his muddy boots on it, kicks his boots off, and stinks up the book with his feet. (The fact that Gaston puts his feet, both boot-covered and bootless, smack-dab on top of the book clearly shows that he is again telling Belle, even without words, that he will NOT stand for her reading because she is a woman, and that he hates the concept of reading entirely.) When Gaston finally makes his proposal, not only does he continue to advance on Belle by trying to corner her, he does not ask her to marry him. Rather, Gaston tells her that he wants her to be his wife, then tells Belle to say she will marry him, like he’s giving her no choice in the matter, which is fitting because by then, he has her pinned against her door.

Like their previous meeting, Belle is shocked and repulsed by Gaston’s actions throughout the whole scene (though she manages to keep a straight face when he is inside her home). She groans and makes a face of pure disgust when she first sees him outside her door. She is repulsed by Gaston’s descriptions of married life, and more so by him dirtying her book and by the odor of his feet. When he finally “proposes” to her, Belle is more appalled than ever, but keeps a cool face as she successfully tricks him into leaving her house while simultaneously telling him her words of rejection.

The things Gaston says, and even the things he DOESN’T explicitly say, and the way he acts, during these two scenes, combined with how he displays his own arrogance, narcissism, and superiority as a man, and as a person in general, provide enough information for me to decipher just how prejudiced he is when it comes to how he sees women. It is CRYSTAL clear to me that Gaston considers men to be the superior gender, that men are (and meant to be) better than women at anything and everything, not JUST physical strength. He believes that women will ALWAYS be beneath men, and that women should KNOW their place by being the inferior gender. As such, Gaston has absolutely NO respect for women at all! In fact, he doesn’t even have respect for other men, despite regarding the male gender as the superior one! The only person for whom he has ANY respect is HIMSELF!!! 😡 (As if that was hard to figure out, anyway! 😆)

As part of his belief that men are superior to women, Gaston sees women only as potential property for men. He sees them as nothing more than objects, as things, as possessions that are meant to belong to men. He does NOT see women as people who are capable of having or are meant to have their own individual personalities. In seeing them as men’s property, Gaston thinks that women are useless and worthless except for the only two significant purposes they have to men.

So while he believes he has women’s places figured out in the world, especially in married households, like I said above, Gaston believes that men are supposed to be the masters, the bosses, of women, whose primary purpose is to serve their men. This means that only men are meant to be the ones “in charge”. They are meant to be the ones who take control of things. They are meant to be the dominant person in the relationship. As the ones in control, married men have the right to tell their wives what to do and treat them any way they want. Men are supposed to make all decisions, not just for themselves, but for their wives and children. Women (and even children) do not have any sort of rights, especially if they are married. They are not meant or allowed to have any say in the matter; their opinions are never important when it comes to making decisions. Women should never even bother to voice their own opinions, and they must never even speak at all unless their husbands speak to them first and/or give them permission to speak. Since men are supposed to be dominant and the women submissive, women must never, NEVER attempt to meet or rise above men’s level by defying them, disobeying them, or standing up to them, and that includes talking back to them! As part of Gaston’s belief that women must be dutiful and obedient to their their husbands, they are not allowed to ever do anything or make any decisions without their husbands’ approval or permission first. Whatever feelings, thoughts, and desires women have or may have, none of those should matter to their men. Men can always get what they want, and do what they want, whenever they want it. But the same does not, nor should it ever even, apply to women. Men do NOT need to ask their wives’ permission for something, but women always have to ask their husbands’ permission and earn it. If the man does not allow the woman to have what she wants, then she has to drop it all together.

So in summary, in Gaston’s eyes, women were put on the earth to be nothing more than mens’ slaves and sex partners. Women cannot, are not allowed, nor should they ever even try to do anything that is regarded as being stereotyped for men, and men only. They should never try to compete with men in any way, because men are the best gender and will forever be above women. To him, women are always meant to be seen and never heard; they should not be allowed to think or speak for themselves. This essentially means that Gaston thinks women should be brainless and be lacking in any kind of intelligence or intellect, which would explain why he is so dead set on trying to discourage Belle from reading. When in the presence of other people, be it just men or men and women together, women must keep their mouths shut at all times. They are NEVER supposed to speak at all unless spoken to first, and ONLY when a MAN speaks to them first, no less! And furthermore, when a man speaks to a woman first, she must ALWAYS answer immediately, without hesitation, and not keep the man or men who spoke to her waiting for long!

Even though his appearance in Frozen II is extremely short, and his treachery is revealed only in snow figure form years after his demise, the revelation of Runeard’s true personality and how it drove him to his death reminds me SO much of those of Gaston from Beauty and the Beast.

In his life, Runeard presented himself as a noble, kind, peaceful, generous, benevolent king and was truly believed to be as such by his people and staff. When he and his kingdom made peace with the Northuldra tribe of the Enchanted Forest, he had a dam constructed in the forest, gifting it as a peace offering between both groups of people with a purpose of bringing prosperity to the Northuldra’s land. What no one knew was that this image that Runeard presented to outsiders was a complete facade. He was secretly and truly a cruel, arrogant, ruthless, obsessive, selfish, egotistical, prejudiced, sadistic, murderous tyrant who cared for nothing and no one other than himself and his position as a monarch. Runeard hated and feared magic because he viewed it as a threat to his monarchal power; therefore, he actually distrusted the Northuldra SOLELY due to their relationships with the forest’s magical elemental spirits. All of these feelings consumed him so much that he wrongly believed that their magical ties made them believe that they were too entitled and far more powerful than a monarch like Runeard himself, which made him perceive them as a very great threat to his kingly rank and legacy. Determined not to give the Northuldra a chance to ruin him using the spirits’ magic, Runeard secretly plotted to eradicate them. He carried out his plan by building the dam, which would actually weaken the forest and limit its resources, forcing the people to turn to him in their desperation, then instigated a full-out war between the tribe and the Arendellians.

Likewise, Gaston is the most admired, popular, and respected man in his village, primarily because of his handsome, muscular appearance and incredible strength. But at the same time, the villagers are completely unaware and ignorant (or perhaps just too narrow/small-minded that they are totally unable to see anything wrong with him, or they just don’t care) of his true nature, which (unlike Runeard) he doesn’t even hide very well, if he’s even trying to hide it at all. Gaston is extremely arrogant, prejudiced, egotistical, conceited, narcissistic, rude, and superior, then later becomes very sadistic and ruthless. From the very beginning, Belle is the ONLY person in the village who sees Gaston for who he truly is. She does not like what she sees in him; therefore, she knows right away that he is not the right man for her. Though ironically, she is the one and only woman Gaston is obsessively fixated on marrying. Even after Belle flat-out rejects his advances and his marriage proposal, he remains relentlessly bound and determined to make her his wife. When Belle reveals that the Beast’s existence to the town and her friendship with him, Gaston becomes consumed with jealousy upon realizing that Belle is in love with a monstrous-looking creature rather than a handsome man like himself. He becomes totally intolerant and angered at the fact that this “monster” is his competitor, the one who poses a threat to him in vying for Belle’s heart. Further enraged, and offended, after Belle calls him the true monster, Gaston plots to eliminate the Beast in order to make Belle his once and for all.

So as I just described above, Runeard and Gaston are very alike with how proud, arrogant, superior, ruthless, prejudiced, and obsessive they are, especially when it comes to their respective goals and their persistence in attempting to achieve them. In Gaston’s case, he is set on marrying Belle and refuses to lose her to the Beast, so he conspires to kill the Beast to get him out of his way. In Runeard’s case, he is set on making sure the Northuldra don’t have a chance to challenge, threaten, or ruin his position as a monarch with their magic, so he conspires to eliminate them to get them out of his way.

In the end, however, it is Gaston and Runeard’s pride, arrogance, and prejudice that ultimately proved to be their downfalls. This is because they each start a fight with the innocent individuals they see as a threat and being in their way of what they don’t want to lose. Just before their deaths, both men are so caught up in and focused on trying to kill their enemy that they aren’t paying attention to their surroundings. They don’t stop and take a moment to notice the dangerous situations in which their battles have put them…until it’s too late.

Upon seeing the Beast climb up the castle’s balcony to embrace Belle, Gaston becomes more jealous than ever and fiercely determined to kill the Beast once and for all. He follows and stabs the Beast in the back with his knife while dangling from the balcony without any kind of protection or support. Being so focused on having just stabbed the Beast while also preparing to do it again, Gaston apparently does not even realize the dangerous spot he is in…until the Beast swings his arm backward at him in pain, causing Gaston to lose his balance when trying to dodge it, fall off the castle, and plunge into the ravine below to his death.

After he murders the Northuldra leader, Runeard tries to cover his tracks by instigating a battle between the rest of the tribe and his own people. He gets so caught up in fighting with one Northuldran that he apparently does not even notice when their fighting leads to them approaching a cliff…until the Northuldran manages to dodge him, leading Runeard to stumble and lose his balance, then hitting the man as he begins to fall over him, which pushes both of them over the cliff, causing them to fall down into the depths below to their deaths.

All in all, Gaston and Runeard learned the hard way, and in quite a literal sense (just as my title says), that pride truly comes before the fall. 😉😆

After I saw it several times, I noticed how Frozen has a lot in common with Beauty and the Beast, especially with their main characters. I can especially think of a lot to compare or contrast between Elsa and the Beast.

Much like the similarities between the protagonists and antagonists of both films, Elsa definitely shares traits with the Beast. For one, both characters are royalty who are cursed with dangerous abilities. However, a major difference between them is that the Beast was a human prince who transformed into the Beast, with a hideous appearance and dangerous capabilities, while Elsa was born with her snow and ice powers. Both characters have blue eyes, wear two different capes with the same colors, and have signature clothing that is blue. The first capes of Elsa and the Beast are purple, then their second capes are blue. But their signature outfits differ because Elsa's second cape is part of her Snow Queen dress, which is crystal blue, while Beast's signature outfit is his dark blue suit without a cape.

Because of their abilities, both characters think of themselves as monsters, so they have isolated themselves from the rest of the world in fear and shame from said curses. Interestingly enough, the main events of their respective films take place when they are both twenty-one years old. When they are discovered, they are both feared and misunderstood by people, despite the films' protagonists trying to convince them that he/she is not dangerous. The theme of their stories also plays with the moral of not to judge by appearance, which is also a definite contrast played with their respective antagonists (Beast with Gaston, Elsa with Hans).

Both the Beast and Elsa are attacked by the villain and a mob for the people's "safety", and they are also provoked by an attacker and nearly kill them in a fit of rage, but then stop before they can do it, since the act makes them seem like they are truly monsters. In the case of the Beast, he nearly kills Gaston after the latter taunts the former, but realizes he no longer has the heart to do so. Elsa also tries to kill the Duke’s thugs when they try to kill her first, and Hans ironically calms her down before she can kill the men.

Additionally, both characters are nearly murdered by their respective villains, who fail to do so due to the interferences of the protagonists. However, the outcomes of these are also very different. Gaston stabs Beast, who temporarily dies due to the wound. Hans almost kills Elsa, but is stopped by Anna when she sacrifices herself to save Elsa's life, at the very moment when the ice curse takes full effect, freezing her to an ice statue. Ironically, Elsa clutching Anna's frozen body and mourning her mirrors the moment when Belle does the same upon Beast's death. But because Belle professed her love to Beast at the last moment, with him having fallen in love with her, too, his curse is finally broken and he is brought back to life in his human form. Likewise, Anna's sacrifice to save Elsa was an act of true love that cured her frozen heart, so she was revived from the curse. This act of love helped Elsa realize that love is the key to controlling her magic, so she was able to remove the winter curse on Arendelle and use them for good.