My book on _Creative Encounters with French Film_ (Mellen 1993) takes the
whole approach of dealing with the techniques used by the directors
(consciously or not) to engage the audience in "participation" -- by
which I don't just mean "identification".  As for Beauty and the Beast,
Gretta Garbo said immediately after Cocteau's film came out: "Give me
back la Bete!"  See Chapter on Cocteau in above text.
 
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On Tue, 27 Feb 1996, Jerry Johnson wrote:
 
> Mikel J. Koven states:
>
> >Film studies may be a much stronger discipline if theoretical concepts
> >were applied to actual filmgoing experiences.
>
> I agree completely.  There seems to be a large gap in film scholarship
> between the filmmaker's intentions and the audience's reading.  The viewer
> as active participant is too often ignored.
>
> Right now I'm doing a study of how children engage the film texts offered
> to them.  I'm receiving some very interesting feedback.  For instance, many
> adults believe most Disney animated features to be very reactionary in that
> the conflicts are always resolved with the re-establishment of the
> patriarchal, heterosexual order.  But I recently asked two 8-year-old girls
> what they thought of "Beauty and the Beast," and they both said they were
> very dissapointed that the beast changed into a man at the end because he
> was "boring" now.  This Disney text led them to conclude that the
> traditional heterosexual couple (at least in this specific instance) is
> unsatisfying!  Now I'm not claiming "Beauty and the Beast" is a subversive
> film, but these two girls gave something of a subversive reading to it.  In
> all the criticism I have read on the film, such a possibility has never
> been considered.
>
> Check out the film criticism of Robin Wood for a smart scholar who takes
> into consideration the active interpretation of the audience.
>
> Jerry
>
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