Beauty and The Beast Unloced...

One of my all time favorite Disney movies is Beauty and The Beast. It was one of the first times Disney showed a girl who had her own mind and wasn’t spending all her time focused on finding a “prince.” Belle was smart, headstrong, stubborn, and resilient. She loved her father and her books and she knew that there was more to life than what she saw every day in her town. Belle was me and I was Belle. I know, I know. I have really over analyzed this movie, but hey, I am a 90s kid. Disney was everything then! 

Now for me, this movie had so many beautiful messages it also had one minor problematic issue in my opinion. Something I like to call “The Beast Complex.” In the film Belle, trades her freedom for her father’s and decides to live in the enchanted castle with the hideous beast. He is bad tempered, moody, brooding, seemingly has no home training and he is spoiled! The spell that is cast on him all depends on him finding a girl for him to love and for her to love him in return or he will die. (Sounds a lot like codependency to me. :/) But Belle comes along and changes all that. He starts to learn from her. He learns to use spoons. He is petting birds and whatnot. She makes him a better person and literally “changes” him into a handsome prince. 

And isn’t that how we operate through relationships? Especially, codependent or toxic ones?  I can only speak for myself, but I am definitely guilty of thinking that I can change the person I am dating. I meet a guy. He is clearly unhealthy mentally, physically and emotionally but I think that I will be the one that can change him. In fact I gravitate towards the men that are more “broken” so that I can be the one to “fix” them. This is what the “beast complex” is all about. We bend over backwards to try to make the person we are with, better, not realizing we are sacrificing ourselves in the process. We literally give up our own lives to be there for the person we are with. We do all these amazing things for them, while failing to realize that real change, can only come from that person wanting to be better and taking the steps to do so themselves. 

So even though I love Beauty and The Beast, the underlying message in it is pretty lopsided. I know this is just a kids movie, but I some of my greatest lessons came from a book I read or a movie I saw. Now I am not saying that people don’t change or even that people don’t change for the people they love. Change is inevitable. What I am saying is that you shouldn’t hedge your whole relationship on the hope that this person is going to change. If they stayed exactly as they are, would you still want to be with them? Look for people that aren’t depending on you to change their life, but are taking the steps to change their own. And while you are at it, make sure you are taking the steps to change your own life too. Be blessed. .