The Disney approved female and male stereotypes have influenced my personal life more than I would care to admit. At one point in my life, I actually did believe that one day I would meet my prince and we would live happily …show more content…
The construction of the concept of love is influenced not only by the character development throughout the film; however it is explicitly connected to masculine or feminine gender roles. For example, in Beauty and the Beast, the protagonist Belle, is beautiful (long hair, full red lips, doe eyes), selfless, nurturing and obedient. The antagonists, the Beast and Gaston are hypermasculized: exaggerated muscles, violent actions and self-serving. Additionally, the Beast and Gaston spend the majority of the film trying to coerce Belle (an object) into loving them, or at the very least, marrying them. Western culture’s prescriptive love between two people is outlined: an attractive women who has no known interest in men, can be coerced through violence and aggression to come to love men with violent tempers and disproportionate