Beauty and the boycott
The upcoming Beauty and the Beast film, starring Emma Watson, has recently been surrounded by controversy and public scrutiny.
According to CBC news, American evangelist Franklin Graham has criticized the live action remake for promoting gay themes and is therefore “unchristian.”
This has resulted in a widespread boycott of the film, which seems to be an overly dramatic and unnecessary reaction.
The plot centres around Belle (Watson), who falls in love with a beast in a situation eerily similar to Stockholm-syndrome, but the Franklin Grahams of the world are worried about a subtle hint that Le Fou, a secondary character in the film, might be gay.Huffington Post took a look at Graham’s Facebook page and came away with some pretty unbelievable comments, one of which is Graham’s statement that Disney is “trying to push the LGBT agenda into the hearts and minds of your children—watch out!”
As hard as it is to believe that an innocent movie like this would be in the middle of such a controversial issue, it is unfortunately true, and people are buying into what Graham is saying. Some theatres went as far as to actually ban the movie, which is set to release on Friday, March 17.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions and no one is being forced to see Beauty and the Beast, but it seems a bit over the top to formally boycott this movie. If you don’t want to see it, then don’t go and see it. It’s as simple as that.
Disney is not pushing their ideological views on you. They are not showing up at your front door with pamphlets asking you to accept anything or join anything; they just make movies.At the end of the day, Disney is a business and works to appeal to mass amounts of people every day in order to make money. I personally don’t think Disney cares if Graham watches their movies—they are probably more focused on the innumerable amount of fans that actually do enjoy their films.
Movies and literature have a long history of being banned or boycotted. The end goal is often to create a world where the views of one specific group, with whatever beliefs it may hold, matches the views of these popular mediums that are loved by so many people. However, this seems like an unrealistic goal.
Beauty and the Beast is a children’s movie and the elements that people like Graham find offensive are very quick and almost unnoticeable. The controversial issues that people are boycotting are not even part of the main premise of the movie; however, boycotting children’s movies has become a widespread trend and is now seen as the answer to all problems.
This mentality really goes to show how society may be focusing on the wrong problems.
Photo courtesy of Disney.