Pop! To the Culture: My tale is as old as time

(Columns contain opinion and those opinions are of the author)

I was a broad-shouldered, long-haired (somewhat sensitive) beast myself in 1991. When “Beauty and the Beast” came out that year, I was a junior at Barnwell High School (not to sound too much like the 90s character Forrest Gump, but that is in the town of Barnwell and in the county of Barnwell; small towns will figure into this later).

Anyway, I remember seeing “Beauty and the Beast” on VHS, the tape in one of those illustrated, plastic cases that are now, in mint condition, the dreams of Ebay auctioneers and vintage goods con vendors. A romantic scene emblazoned the shiny cover, and Beast was smiling as he danced with Belle. But, as we know, throughout most of the film, he was a rough misfit. And I could identify with him as a late adolescent misfit.

In fact, The Miller Theater is inviting all comparable misfits, the perhaps strange, and those who just love “Beauty and the Beast” in general to see the film with its lush backgrounds and hand-drawn animation (not the live action one of which I do not speak) on Sunday, March 16 at 2 p.m.

Also, The Miller will also be offering free popcorn to those who dress as characters from the movie. I would go, but I have to work, and it may be too hot for my fur suit by then.

Anyway, back to the 90s. It wasn’t just the visuals such as the “Beauty and the Beast” VHS cover that were memorable. The theme song played often on WBBQ and other local radio stations, and Angela Lansbury’s original rendition as Mrs. Potts in the film was poignant as well. The song reminded me of how I did not quite fit with a love interest, yet something changed for me, too.

And what struck me in the film as much as the Beast who did not fit in was Belle, the beauty, who was the proverbial square peg among the round or rectangular bookmark among the squarish bills of goods­— after all, the villagers were obsessed with buying, bartering and getting services in the opening scene.  Belle was a bookworm among the busy villagers caught in their routines and ruts, and I was, too, among the Barnwellian hunters, farmers and plant workers until I moved away in my mid-20s, only to return for what has been long term in my 40s.  And I may add that I do love my farming family members and those who do mechanical or factory work; I worked many service jobs through university and just went in a different direction, including toward being a journalist, author and long-term educator.

I visited the old two-story, creaky wooden-floored Barnwell Public Library religiously. The late Ms. Jenkins, the head librarian with her reading glasses on a chain of faux pearls around her neck, knew me on a first name basis. And she would help me make many selections the way the bookseller did Belle in her village. Not many young men spent their days whiling away in front of books in the public library. And not many people in Belle’s village read. In short, Belle was a misfit; I was, too. 

Given that I spent time in the library and by myself a good bit at home with books, I sometimes imagined people in my hometown were singing about how strange I was. And I was and still am.

Yet there are other ways I can relate to “Beauty and the Beast.”

I grew up in a town where hunting dominated many people’s lives. Many had that and fishing as their main topics of conversation. Where I did love fishing at my grandmother’s pond, I was never much of a hunter. Therefore, the line about Gaston, the boorish hypermasculine suitor of Belle using antlers in all of his decorating always made me laugh. After all, some restaurants in rural South Carolina and quite a few homes have an overabundance of deer antlers and heads.

Another aspect of small-town life that Gaston reminded me of was how the jocks, the popular, athletic guys, tended to be the center of attention in high school and in small towns or villages. And Gaston was that center for an entire village.

But what really struck me as one who did not fit in was (Spoiler alert— if you have never seen the film or if it has been so long that you may not remember it), the “Kill the Beast” sequence. At the prompting and exaggeration and sung propaganda of a somewhat charismatic, handsome popular leader, Gaston, an entire village launches off to kill one deemed to be the ultimate misfit.  (This can fit leaders from all sides of the political spectrum, so do not read too much into this.) With Gaston, the villagers storm Beast’s magic castle and are hell-bent on his destruction. For anyone who ever felt like they did not fit in, the disenfranchised, the bullied, the rejected, this becomes a truly horrific scene. Some of us have lived it. 

And from what I understand, the lyricist once stated the sequence was a thinly veiled fictionalization of what he had gone through not fitting into American society.

-Compelling stuff for a 1990s’ feature-length animated film. 

-And themes and ideas that still hold up to the present day.

So go with your other misfits, your Belle or your Beast, or your object friends to The Miller to see this tale as old as time that seems as new thematically as it was when it was first released.

Barnwell, S.C. author Ron Baxley, Jr. is a social media manager for Paula’s Family Restaurant in Bamberg, South Carolina, a correspondent for Augusta Good News, and a graphic novelist and screenwriter who is currently writing a series set in a small Southern town which he has codenamed “Project Neon.”