I am a huge fan of Disney movies, having grown up with them and being so invested in cinema, screenwriting and songwriting nowadays. Every once in a while, when I have to work on an Art project for school, I like to play a Disney movie, and I had my eyes set on Beauty and the Beast (1991) since I watched Howard, the 2018 documentary on the life and work of Howard Ashman, lyricist to The Little Mermaid (1989), some of the Aladdin (1992) songs, and, of course, the movie in discussion.

Nevertheless, there is this idea around the Internet, of which I had become aware a few years ago, that every Disney princess is problematic in some way or another. For instance, Belle allegedly presents symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome, and/or she is, to some people, trapped in an abusive relationship, and that might be the explanation for her affection towards the Beast. In this essay, we are going to present the arguments in favor and against this theory.

First things first, what is Stockholm Syndrome? According to the Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary it is ‘a form of bonding between a captive and captor in which the captive begins to identify with, and may even sympathize with, the captor’ as an unconscious coping mechanism to abusive relationships or situations of extreme danger (captivity, in this case). It takes its name from Stockholm, Sweden, where four hostages were taken during a bank robbery in 1973 and, when rescued, refused to testify against their captors. It is important to highlight that the term was first used by the media, and not the scientific community. This is due to the fact that Stockholm Syndrome is not a mental disorder: it is not on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), by the American Association of Psychiatry, nor on its previous editions, or on the Tratado de Psiquiatría, by the Asociación Argentina de Psiquiatras, so it is not objectively recognised but as a contested illness.

Contested illnesses, as specified by David Scales (2018), ‘have uncertain causes, unclear treatments, and disputed medical, legal and cultural definitions.’ Having a full understanding of what Stockholm Syndrome is and what it is not, we can now present some of the arguments in favor of the theory that Belle has it.

Firstly, because her situation fits into the definition: she is a captive, the Beast is her captor, and she sympathizes with him until the point that her love breaks the curse set on him and the palace. And by being a captive, some believe she also is a helpless victim to the Beast’s (her captor’s) bad temper, as seen in this fragment of Korandier Bullard’s (2022) article: ‘When he entraps Belle into a living arrangement at the castle, his temper is violent. He tries to hit her when she wanders into the West Wing and every aspect of her life revolves around what she can do for him and where his temper will take her.’ This might lead to an unconscious coping mechanism to endure the abuse of this relationship — that is Stockholm Syndrome.

These arguments root in the idea that Belle has no agency over her own life (which also makes her a bad role model). People who argue this sometimes leave the Stockholm Syndrome element aside, but those who believe that Belle has it coincide in this point. She has had no say in where she and her father (an inventor who may have had traveled much due to his self-employment) live or for how long; her wish for traveling is almost instantly erased by the events of the film after she sings about them (in the reprise of the song Belle) and is never brought up again once she reaches the Beast’s castle (where she stays as a prisoner). Also, her fate is decided by the end of the movie in an epic fight between ‘a misogynistic stalker [Gaston, the man who had set his sights on marrying her] and her abusive captor’ when she’s between 17 and 20 years old (Bullard, 2022). This idea considers that it was the men in her life (her father, Gaston and the Beast) who shaped it and the plot of the film.

And when we look at the key components to the development of the syndrome, the theory apparently becomes more consistent. These are: (1) that the hostage develops positive feelings towards their captor, (2) that there is no previous hostage-captor relationship, (3) that the hostage has an increasing belief in the humanity of their captor, and (4) a refusal by the hostage to accept the support of authorities or to cooperate with them. The first and second components are evident throughout the film, but, more specifically, the third argument could be best exemplified in one of the scenes in act three, where Belle, after being released and gone to help her father, tells him that ‘[the Beast]’s changed,’ and the fourth one might be seen in her attitude towards Gaston and the village people when they set off their quest to the castle.

Now, for the against arguments, I will start by addressing one of the previous components: Belle has no rescuers. Veronica Poirier (2016) does a pretty good job explaining this point in her 7 Reasons Beauty And The Beast Is Not a Tale Of Stockholm Syndrome article on The Federalist: ‘Belle does not hold negative feelings towards her rescuers because she has no rescuers: she is already free. Gaston and the townspeople don’t go marching into the forest shouting “Rescue Belle!” because they don’t care about Belle. Instead, they lock her in a basement.’ During The Mob Song, they actually sing ‘Kill the Beast!’

On her YouTube video Is Beauty and the Beast about Stockholm Syndrome? Lindsay Ellis (2017) deepens on this point, which she articulates as ‘negative feelings by the victim towards family, friends or authorities trying to help or support the victim’ (personal emphasis), by including the scene where Belle expresses to the Beast her desire to see her father once again, and thus attacking the argument in favor.

When it comes to the symptoms or conditions related to Stockholm Syndrome, we will also take Ellis’s research and commentary on the topic and address every point as we bring them up, save the last one since we argued against it above. The first symptom she mentions is a severely, uneven power relationship in which the captor dictates what the prisoner can and cannot do. This symptom/condition is similar to the fifth one of her list: ‘a self-preservation instinct on part of the prisoner,’ through which they avoid triggers that would set off the captor.

Ann Edelstein (2017) tackles these points, which some people consider to be true to the story, on her article Misconceptions About Beauty and the Beast on Medium: ‘One of the most common statements that attempt to prove that Belle has Stockholm syndrome is that Belle decides to stay in the Beast’s castle and has no intention of leaving. This argument does not take into account Belle’s reason for staying: Belle made an agreement with the Beast in order to save her father. She is not obeying for the sake of her own survival and she does not obey any of his other requests.’ She then proceeds to exemplify using specific moments of the film.

Here, Edelstein also deals with another symptom: ‘the captive is held under threat of death or physical injury at the hands of the captor.’ After clearing out this point, she alludes to Belle’s return, which is only due to the Beast saving her life from a pack of wolves, ‘proving that he does not want harm to come her way’ and another interesting point: ‘Even then, she considers leaving him in the snow to die, but instead saves his life, not because she has Stockholm syndrome, but because she is a decent human being.’

There are two more symptoms to discuss, that which states that the smallest act of kindness or lack of violence from the captor elicits feelings of sympathy from the captive, and the third one of the list: ‘an inability of the captive to engage in behavior that may assist in their relationship or attachment.’ In order to do this, we must point out that, though polite, Belle is never kind to him until the Beast treats her with respect and kindness (besides, the moments where he displays emotion and vulnerability are often overlooked by those who argue in favor of the theory in discussion, to Edelstein). Up until that point (translated into the sequence of Something there, where the characters sing their inner monologues), she would stand up for herself and disobey his requests or rules, as previously mentioned, because she is not ‘a helpless victim,’ but rather ‘a determined woman who makes conscious decisions about how to live her life,’ in Edelstein’s words.

In her video essay, Ellis also points out that Beauty and the Beast is a story about friendship and forgiveness, with the romantic aspect played down to near non-existence. This goes hand in hand with the fact that Belle never tells the Beast that she loves him until after his death, and even Ms Potts explains that the curse did not break when the Beast let her go because she did not love him yet. This, to licensed therapist Jonathan Decker from YouTube channel Cinema Therapy, means that she does not have Stockholm Syndrome, at least not the way people think she does, because she does show sympathy towards him, but does not fall in love with him while she’s a captive. Belle didn’t fall in love with him until she saw that he was not willing to hurt Gaston and how completely changed he was — Belle chooses him under her free will. In addition, her latest return to the castle in the climax of the movie only occurs because she wants to warn him that the townspeople are set out to kill him, and not because she loves him or because she still has to keep up her word.

To sum up, we must remember that Stockholm Syndrome is not an actually diagnosable syndrome, so the arguments in favor of the theory that 1991 Beauty and the Beast’s Belle has it, mostly highlight her assumed passiveness and regard the key components to the development of the syndrome.

Meanwhile, the arguments against the theory mostly address what could be considered the symptoms (though, again, it is a contested illness, so it is more like the conditions) and how Belle’s case does not fit into them; sometimes, they directly undermine an argument in favor (for instance, the one that points out that she has negative feelings towards her rescuers, since she does not actually have rescuers), and sometimes search for the nuances that dig deeper into the story’s themes and set it apart from a tale of Stockholm Syndrome.

It seems likely to me that Belle does not have Stockholm Syndrome because of the very same points I explained throughout the second half of this essay, but I think it is key that we bring up these discussions about the films we grew up with, allowing us to create a space for well-thought and well-researched argumentation. Having gone through this process, we might be on solid ground when believing that role models like the Disney princesses actually do no good to society, or, as in my case, have a better understanding of why these stories might still be relevant today, and hence be able to engage in a fully immersive emotional and intellectual experience the next time we watch these movies.

Bibliografía

Bullard, K. (2022) Problematic things about “Beauty and the Beast”. ReelRundown. Retrieved November 23 2022 from https://reelrundown.com/animation/Problematic-Things-About-Beauty-and-the-Beast

Cinema Therapy (September 28 2021) Therapist Reacts to BEAUTY & THE BEAST (Animated) [video] YouTube. Available on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p54tpokHrpo[Last visited July 6 2022]

Lindsay Ellis (March 29 2017) Is Beauty and the Beast about Stockholm Syndrome? [video] YouTube. Available on https://youtu.be/syYCO0QVkZo [Last visited November 23 2022]

Edelstein, A. (2017) Misconceptions about Beauty and the Beast. Medium. Retrieved July 6 2022 from https://medium.com/gender-theory/misconceptions-about-beauty-and-the-beast-f7794280865f

Poirier, V. (2016) 7 Reasons Beauty And The Beast Is Not a Tale Of Stockholm Syndrome. The Federalist. Retrieved July 6 2022 from: https://thefederalist.com/2016/08/10/7-reasons-beauty-and-the-beast-is-not-a-tale-of-stockholm-syndrome/

Scales, D. (2018) What I’ve learned reporting about Lyme disease, a contested illness. Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved November 23 2022 from https://www.cjr.org/analysis/lyme-disease-contested-illness-empathy.php

Stockholm syndrome. (n.d.) Farlex Partner Medical Dictionary. (2012). Retrieved November 23 2022 from https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Stockholm+syndrome

Stockholm syndrome. (n.d.) Wikipedia. Retrieved July 6 2022 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome