Beauty and the Beast

So this morning I was watching Beauty and the Beast (yes by my self. Leave me alone, Disney movies are great) and I was thinking about haw great of a film it really is. Seriously. It's all about grace and forgiveness and love. It reminded me of 1 Corinthians 13:1-3.

"1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing."

The prince has everything the world can give, he can do basically anything he wants, but without love he really has nothing. He is an ugly beast inside and eventually that ugliness shows itself on the outside too (though i submit that the beast looks better as a beast than a prince, but this is really irrelevant). His ugly selfishness and hate, his sin if you will, keep him angry and alone until he learns to both love and be loved. both are important and I liked that Disney showed the importance of both. We are relational beings, we were created that way because our God is a relational God (the trinity, the very essence of God, has three parts. Love and relationship has existed since before time). Loving others is quite obviously very important and we are meant to act on that love (after all, love is a verb, not a feeling). But we also need to find people who love us, people we can count on and who can build us up and cheer us on. We are not meant to live this life alone. The beast falls in love with Belle, but it is not enough to break the spell. She must love him in return. And she does, the spell is broken and in true Disney fashion they live happily ever after together. Key word, together.

I also really like that the beast doesn't kill Gaston at the end. He easily could. He has GGaston at his mercy, hanging over the edge. But he chooses to save him instead. The beast does not give into the myth of redemptive violence the world tries to feed us. He saves his enemy, showing love and empathy rather than anger and hate. Of course, Disney kind of cops out about 30 seconds later when Gaston falls (of his own fault) and goes plummeting off the edge of the castle into a huge pit that I'm pretty sure did not exist in the movie before this moment. So the 'bad guy' probably dies. But then Disney characters have been known to survive such impossibly high falls before, so you never know. Perhaps Gaston survived, saw the error of his ways and learned to love himself less and others more.

...erm...maybe not.

Anyway. Just some things I've been thinking. Thought I'd share them.