Beauty And The Beast By Walt Disney - 1506 Words

Often considered to be one of Disney’s greatest animation films, Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 musical romance, which tells the tale of Prince Adam and Belle. The story starts with the Prince being cursed to come a Beast by an Enchantress, who saw his arrogance and inability to love. The only way for him to break the spell would be to love and earn love in return, before the last petal of an enchanted rose falls. Ten years later, an old man, Maurice, lost in the nearby forest, seeks shelter in the Beast’s castle. The Beast imprisons him until his daughter, the beautiful bookworm Belle, who dreams of adventure and travel, finds him and offers to take his place and remain in the castle forever. The relationship between the Beast and Belle†¦show more content†¦By 1991, The Little Mermaid and the 6th Disney princess, Ariel, were still talked about and received less than positive reviews from feminists. Wanting to change the conversations, and create a new type of heroine, Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg revisited an old project: turning Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s tale La Belle et la Bà ªte into a children’s animated musical. To do so, and after hitting a few creative walls with male screenwriters, Katzenberg hired Linda Woolverton to write the script of Beauty and the Beast, and who would consequently become the first woman to ever write a Disney animated feature. As she explains in a Los Angeles Times article written by Elaine Dutka, Woolverton was influenced by the women’s rights movement and â€Å"drew inspiration from Little Women. ‘There s a lot of Katharine Hepburn in Belle,’ she explains. ‘Though the character of Jo is more tomboyish, both were strong, active, women who loved to read--and wanted more than life was offering them’† (Dukta par. 3). In fact, Katherine Hepburn’s portrayal of Jo March is at the basis of Belle’s love of reading and bravery, lead ing the team of writers to give Belle more to look forward in her life that romance and marriage. Furthermore, Woolverton conceived this character to be a feminist, a heroine who, although living in the 18th