Kill The Beast

We recently took the kids to see Beauty and the Beast. We were concerned that it might be too scary for my five-year-old, who has an active imagination and is highly sensitive to the things she watches. We talked through the story quite a bit beforehand, and prepared her for the wolves and the Beast. We told her to remember that the Beast looks scary but is actually good, and that the movie has a happy ending.

To my surprise, she was fine with the wolves and fine with the beast. She did whisper to me a few times, “remember that the Beast looks scary but is good,” and “everyone is going to be happy at the end.” But the part that did scare her was the mob scene. Gaston (the villain) gets the crowd of villagers riled up to go storm the castle and kill the Beast. People who looked friendly and silly in earlier scenes are suddenly angry and scary, grabbing weapons and torches, ready to fight.

Whereas the Beast looks scary but is actually kind, the villagers look kind but become vicious.

It was during this scene that she got scared and covered her eyes. She loved the movie, but later wanted to talk about that scary part.

“It’s like they quit being people and became a monster. And then, at the end, they became people again. And they weren’t scary anymore.”

The insight of children never ceases to amaze me, and that conversation hit a nerve. I started thinking about mob mentality and group behavior, about what happens when we stop thinking and questioning and feeling for ourselves, and just go with the push of the crowd. About how truly terrifying it can get when we look to the crowd to determine our personal standards of behavior.

It’s true that we don’t often find ourselves in a literal mob. But I know there are times when I stop thinking about my own reactions and standards and go with what I perceive to be the group consensus.

For example, I really don’t like it when I am in a group of people and everyone is messing around on their phones. And yet, if I am in a group and everyone has their phone out, I give myself permission to use mine too. If everyone else is doing it, what does my behavior matter? I might as well join them.

Not long ago, I was talking to some people about a political issue. They were all riled up and I found myself getting intense and emotionally invested in it too, and chiming in on a topic I didn’t really know much about. I later went home and did a little reading and research on the topic, and learned that I had totally misunderstood what was going on, and actually had a very different perspective than the people I was talking to. Rather than waiting and doing my research before weighing in, I jumped in with the group.

We tend to take our cues for how to think and feel and act from those around us. In some ways, this is necessary and healthy. Those social rules and expectations are there for a reason. But sometimes, this tendency can lead to some very bad things, at a social, religious, and political level as well as at a personal level.

That scene in Beauty and the Beast made me stop and think. Where am I joining the mob? Where am I (in my daughter’s words) quitting being a person and become part of the monster? How do I avoid unthinkingly just going with the crowd?

I believe that the first step is stopping to analyze our behavior, to listen to that quiet voice telling us something is off. That first step is thinking about my own beliefs and feelings and standards before mindlessly joining the crowd.

The second step is a lot more difficult. It requires that we listen to and honor the voices around us with dissenting opinions. We need to listen to the people who are resisting, questioning, and challenging. And rather than dismissing or destroying them, we need to honor what they are sharing and decide how we want it to impact our perspective.

This step can be very hard. It involves willingly opening ourselves up to threats to our position. It is a hard but necessary step.

My daughter was pretty quick to catch the real danger in Beauty and the Beast. The real danger wasn't the Beast or even the wolves, but people who stopped thinking and questioning and got fired up into action that they didn’t really believe in or feel.

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