Beauty and the Beast: A story of Love above Looks and Lifestyles

So many fairytales are about love; Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Aladdin, Thumbelina, Rapunzel...then there's Beauty and the Beast. I think in a way I prefer it to the others. Perhaps it's the one that stands above all the rest as a fairytale of our time, one we can really live by. No Prince Charming, simply 'what you see is what you get'. And a story of love based on something that's more than skin-deep. Belle is a different type of girl to the distressed damsels we see in the likes of 'Snow White' and 'Sleeping Beauty'. She's portrayed as intellectual, curious, caring and patient, which is refreshing in the face of other fairytales about love. She and the Beast, although he at first comes across as mean and dangerous, develop a bond that the other love stories lack. It's not 'love at first sight' and getting married as soon as they meet; it's more special, and it's more realistic. What's more, the Beast, as you would guess by his name, isn't handsome or charming, at least not until the end. At the end, after Belle and the Beast have professed their love for each other, it's revealed that the Beast is actually a handsome prince who was under a spell. But the concept of looks being unimportant is still there, as we're told the spell would only break when he found someone who could learn to love a beast. And, in real life, if you meet someone who stimulates your mind, makes you laugh, gives you butterflies, then who cares if they're not the best looking person in the room? I think that's what we can draw from this fairytale. Or we could think of it a different way. It could be seen as another boy-meets girl scenario with 'Beauty' and 'Beast', opposites of each other, being synonyms for two people who are from completely different worlds; poor Jack and rich Rose from 'Titanic', Pocahontas and John Smith, Noah and Allie in 'The Notebook'...'Beauty and the Beast' could be another story of opposites attract. The Beast is the rough-and-ready guy, Belle is the studious library-type girl; but true love knows no boundaries. And sometimes in the real world of dating we are attracted to someone who's completely different to us. It's usually what happens to me. So 'Beauty and the Beast' could be viewed as more of a modern-day fairytale if we look at it metaphorically. The transformation of the Beast into a prince at the end after Belle tells him she loves him could be likened to a bad boy becoming a good guy when he meets the right girl, which I think is possible. Or another way it could be viewed is as a mirroring of how people's behaviour changes when they're in love. Often we start to see someone differently when we fall for them. At first meeting we might think they're fairly average-looking, but as we develop the feelings their personality, their sense of humour, give us, we begin to see them as more attractive people on the outside. Perhaps we can divulge this message from the ending of 'Beauty and the Beast', as it's only after Belle has fallen for him that the Beast transforms into a handsome prince before her eyes - maybe it's symbolic. This fairytale is multi-faceted in the ways we can relate it to real life.
The other way we can look at this fairytale, the one related to looks, can also fit in with our modern standards. The world does suffer vanity at times, especially with the media being the way it is. We're constantly told how we should look, what's attractive to the other gender. 'Beauty and the Beast' deals with this issue. We learn that the Beast was turned into such because he bahaved superficially, casting away an old beggar who is actually a fairy in disguise. And Gaston announces that Belle is the best girl for him because she is the most beautiful in the village. The issues of looks and vanity are explored throughout this story. Even Belle, on first meeting the Beast, cringes at his appearance.
I've heard or read, one or the other, that we often go for partners that look similar to us, someone who will match us. If this is true, it's probably inbuilt in our subconscious, something to do with finding someone with good genes for when we have children; so outdated and prehistoric. I don't think it's so relevent now. If we are lucky enough to find someone who puts a smile on our face, brings laughter to our lives, we're not going to worry too much about what colour hair and eyes they have, not going to give too much consideration to the fact they're not conventionally good-looking. I admit, there needs to be a physical attraction, a spark that ignites deep down inside you whenever you lay your eyes on that special someone. But a lot of the time our emotions will rise above our reason...we'll realise it doesn't matter if the rest of the world thinks we look incongruous, out of place, next to the person we care about. Beauty and Beast are the most unlikely couple, complete opposites in every possible way. She's pretty, polite and happy-go-lucky...he's not handsome, lacks manners, is bad-tempered. But theirs is one of those great love stories, the type you can actually see happening to you, because it's not about being perfect, about this myth we've all heard about - falling-in-love-at-first-sight. It's real love, real life. And I would hope I could be as open-minded as Belle when it comes to dating. In a world where looks are judged so much, this fairytale shows us that love hits deeper. It has nothing to do with appearance. And, besides this, 'Beauty and the Beast' illustrates how two people with completely different lifestyles can fall for each other; the skater boy and the ballerina, the 'uptown girl' and the 'downtown man'. After all, don't they say variety is the spice of life?! But I suppose at our age, when some of us are not ready for an epic love story, it's okay to be a little superficial. At least for now. Later in life our looks will fade and lifestyles will change. But do you want to know the great thing about this fairytale? 'Beauty and the Beast', our real-life love story, is a 'tale as old as time'. And so is love.