Beauty and the Beast is a controversial children’s movie about Stockholm Syndrome where man lies with man, woman lies with beast, and inanimate objects lie in wait to become human again. Amidst all of this controversy I would like to raise one additional concern, and that is that Lumiere was hotter as a candle, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it.
One may argue that Beauty and the Beast advocates looking past physical appearances and towards the true beauty that lies within. And that’s fair, but I would like to argue that Beauty and the Beast also claims that if you look past someone’s physical appearance for enough time, and that person happens to be under a magical curse, you will eventually be rewarded with a hottie.
So what makes candle Lumiere hotter than human Lumiere? Is it the fact that his candelabra proportions set an unrealistic standard for male beauty? That his tall, dark, and thin candle bod just isn’t attainable in a human? Is it the error of costuming and the fact that human Lumiere looks like he’s stuffed into that three piece like it’s a sausage casing? Is it because the color of human Lumiere’s wig doesn’t match his facial hair? Does Ewan McGregor, for whatever reason, just not do it for me? Who’s to say. But for some reason the artistic directors made the choice for Lumiere to be hotter as a candle than as a man and for his eventual reveal to be a total let-down. And I feel betrayed. And is that wrong?
Here we transition into the ethics of anthropomorphizing and assessing the desirability of something you can find in a Home Goods. And it’s a real gray area. While on one hand it might be my fault for being an absolute freak, on the other hand Disney has purposefully crafted Lumiere to be seen as a romantic object (pun intended) through his relationship with the feather duster.
If we draw the line at inanimate objects, is it okay to think that Simba is hot? Or is Lumiere more acceptable because you know there’s a human within? But once you know what the human within looks like, and you then want to go back to the candle—what does that make you? Someone who wants to fuck a candle?
In conclusion, I’d just like to say that Disney opened up more than one can of worms with this latest artistic endeavor, and that while I’d be candle Lumiere’s guest any day, if human Lumiere with his ring-clad pinky finger and smug little face were so inclined, I’d turn tail and run.