My thoughts on Gaston

My, what a guy...

I am a hardcore feminist. I hate it when men just assume that women should do whatever the man wants, and i hate when women assume all men are pigs. And you know what? Gaston, the sexist, abusive, most hated Disney villain is by far one of my favourite Disney villains (my favourite is Doctor Facilier).

Another thing i can't stand is when people say, and i'm para-phrasing here, 'Gaston is the absolute worst villain! Society loves him and Belle is the best princess for standing up to him and Beast is bae and blah blah blah!'

No! Let's point out the obvious first of all: IT'S PRE-REVOLUTION FRANCE!!! Men would go out, do their jobs and come home to their beautiful wife preparing dinner and taking care of the children.
In the words of Moriarty "That's what people DO!" Or did, anyway. It's not Gaston's fault he thinks like this. Everybody thought like that in those times. And him just randomly proposing out of the blue? Have you ever seen a movie set in those times, men would propose marriage at the drop of a hat when they saw a beautiful woman. There were arranged marriages willy-nilly.

And before you say he's a sexist, again: NO! Not once does he say that a man is better than a woman. He does not once say that being a house-wife, or a woman in general is easy. He suggests to Belle that she does the house work and he goes out and hunts. Women back then, heck ANYBODY back then would say yes to that.
But not Belle. Because she's a 'revolutionary' thinker (excuse the pun). Plus, Belle is a TERRIBLE person! Everybody in that town has a purpose. The baker bakes, the fish monger sells fish, even the triplets (the bimbettes) pour water. Everybody plays a part. And what job does Belle have? Oh, that's right, she reads. And she has the audacity to walk around town, complaining that her life is dull and mundane. I don't know about you, but the townsfolk have every reason to be mad at her.
And to make things even worse, she doesn't even read anything intellectual. I could completely forgive her if she was reading something educational, but no. What does she read? Fairy-tales!! We know she reads Shakespeare later on in the movie, but in those days, those books weren't clever or smart, they were just play-scripts with made up words. Shakespeare wrote for uneducated audience.

The movie also tries to influence the idea that Gaston is an idiot. He isn't. He's actually very smart, in several ways. First of all, he's socially smart. I know a lot of people think that being an extrovert is easy, but as somebody who burst into tears at the first sign of a crowd, i applaud Gaston. He knows exactly what to say and how, to everybody around him. He changes his character to fit the people around him. He's charming and civilised (sort of) to Belle, he's dark and scary to the undertaker, and he's the top-dog when he's with Lefou. Being that social is hard, and it bugs me that people don't recognise that.

Second of all, he's a hunter. This was before super markets and deliveries and such, so let's break down a hunter's job. He finds the animal, kills it, drags it back to town, gives it to the butcher (or fish monger depending on what he's killed), then that meat goes all around the town, to everybody living there. So, like it or not Belle, you're eating Gaston's meat. (Hahahaha, i regret nothing).

Plus, people depend on Gaston. We've seen that the town they live in is very small, with very few people. And Gaston is shown to be the only hunter. I mean, people may do it for sport in their free time, but Gaston does it for a living. And in that tavern scene, we see he has killed possibly hundreds of animals. So well done Belle, you just murdered the town's top provider.

Also, hunting itself is really difficult. Aiming the gun, being as quiet as possible, understanding different tracks for certain animals etc. So when Lefou says Gaston is greatest hunter in the whole world, I believe him.

Finally, Gaston has a very wide vocabulary, can convince a town of scared people to join him in battle, and is a sports genius. Sports takes a lot of thinking, and for Gaston to be so good at them means he must be at least a little smart.