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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   30507 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 3, 2023

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Hercules is a fairly straightforward coming-of-age story where the hero rescues a damsel in distress, but Meg is a little sassy and more of a femme fatale than a damsel. The Swan Princess is more of a pure damsel in distress movie, and bombed in 1994, which might explain why people shied away from this genre.

Earlier than that, The Princess Bride (1987) is notable for having a dumb, beautiful protagonist who is clearly a damsel n distress, though it is not animated. Star Wars in 1977 felt the need to make Leia a strong independent woman who did not need to be rescued, so The Princess Bride was quite brave. Whoopi Goldberg was considered for the role of Buttercup, which would have been different.

My son's favorite character was Gaston, and he believes the movie is a tragedy and should end with Gaston falling from the roof. From his point of view, Gaston did nothing wrong. His crush was captured and imprisoned by a beast, so he roused the village to rescue her. Stockholm syndrome is to be expected, so we can't take Belle's word for things, as "No denying she's a funny girl that Belle."

My son's favorite character was Gaston, and he believes the movie is a tragedy and should end with Gaston falling from the roof. From his point of view, Gaston did nothing wrong. His crush was captured and imprisoned by a beast, so he roused the village to rescue her. Stockholm syndrome is to be expected, so we can't take Belle's word for things, as "No denying she's a funny girl that Belle."

Based son, he already understands the concept of war brides and Stockholm syndrome being a female-coded phenomenon. We'll watch his career with great interest.

Your son's hardly alone. Gaston and his dark triad personality has many teenage and adult women swooning, hence fanart such as this.

Didn’t Leia need to be rescued? She was set to be executed. Yes, she wasn’t helpless and was competent. But it is clear throughout the movies that Leia was the moral center but not the physical one.

Gaston is by any measure the hero of the movie. He's a paragon, the absolute image, of his people, and they adore him. He is the bringer of benefit, the one who is capable of moving them to action as a body.

Gaston’s problem in the end was that he wasn’t masculine enough for Belle.

To channel my inner Sloot, I thought it was that his house wasn't big enough.

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