The Enchanted Christmas Review

!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!

"Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas" is something of a prequel-sequel...although personally I would consider it more of an in-between-quel as the events of this film happen in the midst of the story from the first film. A short time after Beast saves Belle from the wolves, December 24th rolls around and Belle starts getting excited for Christmas; only to find out that Beast has forbidden Christmas due to the spell having been cast on Christmas Eve. A lot like the first movie, this movie contains some themes which cast some pretty dark shadows if you spend too much time thinking about them; which might change how you look at this movie the next time you watch it.

The first obvious theme we see in this story is that cliche "Dicken's Christmas Carol" theme which basically involves a character in the story not having Christmas spirit, and the whole plot of the story revolves around the other characters trying to get them to feel the spirit of the season. Apart from this theme being incredibly overdone, as we see it in nearly every freakin' Christmas movie and holiday special, the other problem I have with it is how subconsciously totalitarian it is. As much as I love "A Christmas Carol" and many of the adaptations and parodies, the central theme of that story is essentially promoting psychological tyranny. It can't be denied that Scoorge was a massive dick, but depending on the adapation he wasn't actually hurting anybody. He was just a miserly old grouch who hated Christmas, and even though we generally don't like misers and grouches it is their god-given right to be that way if they so choose. There are some people who just aren't happy, cheery, compassionate, or generous for whatever reasons they may have, and even though we may not personally like them for their sourful disposition it is not our place to judge or try to force change upon them if their bitterness is not purposefully malicious toward others.

All Christmas-Carol-like storylines are pretty much conformist propaganda. They prompt the psychological passive-aggressive assimilation of people who don't share our particular set of beliefs or values. They're basically saying, "If you're not like the rest of us. You need to change. Abandon your views and blindly accept ours." It's like political-correctness; tyranny with a smile, and conveniently there are not one but TWO characters in this story who suffer from Scroogeitis. There's Beast who hates Christmas because he was cursed on Christmas Eve, and then there's Anqelique, the royal decorator who has lost her love of the holiday due to nearly 10 years of never being able to celebrate Christmas because of Beast's hatred for the season, but of course in true cliche Christmas Carol fashion they both learn the "true meaning of Christmas" and conform to being happy and jolly like everyone else. Of course like in most stories of this type they justify the subconscious brainwashing by having the miserly character be truly hurtful and antagonistic, and it works. It's very hard to sympathize with Beast's anti-holiday position when his main reason is a sob story about how he was cursed on Christmas because he was cruel and selfish. It's basically him saying, "WAAAGGH!!! I was cursed on Christmas! I don't like Christmas! Sure I was selfish and mean to everybody, but it's still not fair!! WAAAGGHHH!!!" Even in spite of this however it's difficult to overlook the disturbing degree of cliche passive-aggressive holiday propaganda being sutblely shoved down our throats throughout this whole movie. I think Foamy the Squirrel really said it best in the holiday webtoon, "Humbuggers"... www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YuqNM…

It's not a big thing, but at the beginning of this movie we see a whole crowd of people entering the castle. This of course causes me to raise an eyebrow and ask some questions as I am curious to know who these people are supposed to be. To the best of my knowledge all the servants actually live at the castle, so the only thing I'm left to deduce is that the people entering at the beginning are the people from the village...the same village that tried to lay seige to the castle and slaughter the Beast and all his subjects in the first movie. At what point did they all get to be on such good terms? This seems like a pretty big plothole to me, for as I seem to recall the villagers stormed the castle, there were obviously lives lost during the ensuing battle (they don't show it in any detail, but from all the broken chairs and debris that we know were people turned into furniture and household items it's fair to presume there were people killed during that raid), Gaston (the hometown pretty-boy hero) was killed, and even before the raid we saw that the townsfolk weren't all too accepting of Belle and her father anyway, so why the fuck would the people living in the castle even consider welcoming the villagers back for any occasion, Christmas or otherwise?! I guess it makes for a good opening to this movie, but in context to the first movie this crowd of holiday guests just doesn't seem to make any sense...but then perhaps I'm over-anaylzing.

Going back to what I said about Beast and his sob-story about why he hates Christmas, I'm not sure whether to label this as clever writing and character development or weak writing and poor character manufactured by the cliche Christmas-theme driving this film's plot. As I said, in the movie they try to give Beast some sense of substance by giving him an inner conflict between his resentment of the holiday and his growing feelings for Belle, but it is hard to feel any type of sympathy for a character who's sole conflict is the result of their own petty selfishness. Throughout the movie, Beast keeps whining about how he hates Christmas because that's the time that the spell was cast 10 years ago, but the whole reason why he was cursed in the first place is because he was cruel and mean-spirited. It frankly weakens his character considerably, because he comes across more like a spoiled child who's having a sulk after being grounded for misbehaving. That would be like a kid getting grounded on Labor Day, and they start hating Labor Day every year after just because they got disciplined for being a brat. It's made even more apparent in the flashback which portarys the events of that night (not completely accurate to the prologue presented in the first movie though). Beast was a total prick to everybody and was just a royal spoiled brat. This makes it very difficult to see any credence in his I-hate-Christmas attitude. Even Ebenzer Scrooge had a more sound and sensible reason for hating Christmas. You could relate to Scrooge's disdain for the holiday as he spent many years of his young life being neglected at Christmas, and then lost the love of his life around the same time (although that one was his fault). Beast is just an unrelatable spoiled diva in this movie having a bitch-fit because he got punished for being an asinine prick. It would have been nice if this movie featured a scene where somebody got right in his face and called him out on that, and how after all these years he hadn't changed and was still only thinking of himself; never once thinking how his loyal servants felt given that they were unjustly punished for his ill-whims. I'd have enjoyed this movie a lot more had that been the conclusion instead of Beast just reading a storybook and suddenly giving into "love and tenderness".

And of course as with any good Disney movie there is an obligatory villain present to  excerbate the conflict...and so Beast doesn't look like an even bigger asshole. The obligatory villain of this movie is a giant pipe organ named Forte, the court composer and musician, who unlike all the other people in the castle, does not want the spell to be broken. Despite being bolted to a wall, Forte is content with spending the rest of his life as an enchanted pipe organ since prior to the spell being cast no one really appreciated his music (which is described as "gloomly"), but after the prince was cursed he sunk into a deep depression of which Forte's dark melodies accomdate perfectly. Forte is the cliche evil artisian of this movie who is obsessed with being appreciated for his art, and doesn't care about his own humanity or the misery of the others. As long as the prince is cursed he feels needed and important and Forte is intent on keeping the prince miserable to secure that position of importance. He's also considerably more powerful in his enchanted form; seen quite clearly near the end of the movie when he begins to play a deadly concert that literally starts to bring the house down.

Forte's presence in this movie is rather dubious not simply because he's really only in the story to draw scorn away from Beast and give him a chance to look like the hero, but also because of the subliminal hidden message his role in this film seems to convey. Forte is symbolicly a Goth. If you look at the portrayal of his character; his gloomly dismal outlook, his affinity for grim dark melodies, the fact that he's a musician who loves to play grim dark melodies, even his appearance prior to being transformed just screams "Goth!"; he wears dark clothing and face makeup that makes him look pale as a sheet. He looks a little bit like Marylin Manson if Marylin Manson lived in the Dark Ages. For all intensive purposes, Forte is a medieval Goth meant to be symbolic of modern-day Goths. He is even shunned, misunderstood, and unappreciated like many Goths complain that they have been in life. The whole reason he doesn't want the spell to be broken is because with everyone cursed all is dismal, the prince is miserable, and he finally feels needed and useful. If everyone becomes human and happy again he loses his immense power and gets shoved back into the background, forgotten, and expected to be happy and cheery like everybody else. When it becomes apparent that his plans have failed he tries to commit murder-suicide in a last desperate attempt to stop the spell from being broken, and of course in true Disney fashion the villain is destroyed, but how he's destroyed is what really sends the dark hidden message. Forte isn't simply killed; he is dismembered! Following Fife's advice, Beast rips out Forte's keyboard, which keep in mind is actually part of his "body". Ripping out his keyboard is effectively the equivalent of tearing off his arms, but the psychological damage is even greater than the physical harm for in destorying his keyboard he also robbed Forte of the one thing he cherished most, his music. Without the ability to play music anymore and knowing that his plans have completely failed Forte rips himself from the wall causing him to come crashing down killing himself.

When we really stop to put it all into perspective it's like Disney's basically saying "Don't be a Goth, kids! Goths are bad! You need to be happy and love nice cheery things or bad things will happen to you. Forte was a Goth and now he's dead. Don't be like Forte, because he was evil." It goes back to what I said about stories like this shoving that passive-aggressive totalitarian ideology down our throats that we should all think alike and be blindly happy just because it's an accepted social norm. On a personal note, I'm not a very happy person. I can't remember a time when I was happy, and speaking from the heart I can't stand it when overly optimistic morons try to tell me I need to cheer up without having any kind of fuckin' idea why I'm so pissed off in the first place! I like this movie. It's an entertaining story, but I spit on the lame-ass message it tries to subconciously drill into our minds...of course it's worth noting that the only real reason I like this movie is because of Forte. He's a cool character, and he's voiced by Tim Curry. That's always a plus. ^^