An example of Beauty and the Beast's male-bashing in a comic adaptation
2 Comments Published by Avi Green on Tuesday, August 08, 2023 at 8:53 PM.
I once wrote about the problems with the PC elements in Disney's Beauty and the Beast cartoon of 1991 and its live action remake, and here's a page sample from a comic adaptation from around 1992 ("New Adventures") to ponder:
So in this, Belle can be seen running the gamut of man-hating, and even for its time, it's not so subtle. I guess this could provide a clue to how woke ideologies came about: they begin in what may have been considered "overlooked mediums", and use this as a weapon for stealthing in all this propaganda.
As appalling as this is in hindsight, I don't think Disney themselves have published many comics under their own company divisions for a long time, and didn't sell them at theme parks by the turn of the century. But that doesn't mean leftist exploitation of the medium isn't a problem, and till this day, there's still plenty of it around, littering up and tainting the perception of comicdom. You can't be surprised if families in the know will be discouraged from buying stuff like this for their children if they believe the whole medium's little more than a woke wasteland full of propaganda.
As appalling as this is in hindsight, I don't think Disney themselves have published many comics under their own company divisions for a long time, and didn't sell them at theme parks by the turn of the century. But that doesn't mean leftist exploitation of the medium isn't a problem, and till this day, there's still plenty of it around, littering up and tainting the perception of comicdom. You can't be surprised if families in the know will be discouraged from buying stuff like this for their children if they believe the whole medium's little more than a woke wasteland full of propaganda.
Given that this lasted only two issues, and Disney Comics seemed to fold shortly afterward, I wouldn't be surprised if "Get Woke, Go Broke" was a concept back then, and probably would explain why Belle was significantly toned down in overall characterization in the DTV sequels (probably one of the few good things about that notorious element of Eisner's era). Too bad people didn't seem to pick up on it with the movie itself since it's still cited as a beloved classic despite arguably helping set up a large part of the problems plaguing Disney today (heck, overall storytelling means anyways, Beauty and the Beast actually seemed to have more of a connection to Dreamworks films than to Disney due to coming across as more contemporary when you think about it.).
I was hoping for commentary on development of the film itself especially regarding Katzenberg's involvement (such as nixing Jim Cox and Richard Purdum's renditions for trivial reasons or even any reason at all, not to mention hiring Linda Woolverton purely because she left behind Running Before the Wind, a YA book whose contents DEFINITELY weren't remotely suitable for a company like Disney) like I earlier requested (since he's the reason why Linda Woolverton was hired into Disney, not to mention why Belle was written the way she was back then since he demanded a feminist twist to the tale that mandated a huge rewriting even by Disney standards, in fact, probably closer to the scale that the Verhoeven-directed Starship Troopers fell victim to where it was an in-name-only adaptation. For a comparison point, the only other Disney movie before then to do that extensive of a rewrite is The Jungle Book, and even THAT was specifically because the content of that book wasn't exactly child friendly), but hey, this works as well. Still would like to see that bit, though, especially when THAT movie was arguably an early sign of wokeness that may have in effect been a poison pill for Disney's Renaissance (not just the feminism and male bashing in the form of Gaston and to a lesser extent Beast and Maurice, but even traditional feminine bashing in the form of those triplets, and bashing marriage as a concept, which was extreme even for that time period [Aladdin, Pocahontas, and Mulan might have had some negativity towards marriage as a theme, but at least those movies specifically condemned arranged marriages and, at least in Aladdin's case, still promoted marriage in a good light due to Jasmine actually going for Aladdin after actually being allowed to choose her groom, and even Mulan at least ATTEMPTED to go through the matchmaking process for the sake of her family despite her personal misgivings towards whether she could even fit well into the concept.].). Heck, the Bimbettes bit (Fifi to a lesser extent, maybe also the "How is your wife" lady as well) is particularly relevant since it was an early instance of body bashing that's plaguing comics and video games right now where any superhero/character with well-endowed features are mocked as being bimboes or stuff like that (you know, what Boobs of Steel got into).
I'll try to write more about the other details of the cartoon in time; I was so busy lately, I was only able to write something short. But, I'll do my best to follow up on this post when I can, thanks for asking.