My thoughts on Gaston

Dyslexia

Well, I've already talked about this earlier, but I've decided to go over it in more detail. Why? Because it's important to me, and it completely changes everything we knew about this movie.

Gaston being dyslexic is something found in a few fanfics, and is very rarely discussed. So I decided to add some light to the situation.

So here are the symptoms of dyslexia:

Trouble with reading, writing and spelling.

The most obvious thing to point out is at the beginning of the movie, when Gaston holds Belle's book the wrong way and asks

"How can you read this Belle, there are no pictures."

Clearly Gaston is not used to reading, and is obviously a little bit slow. So I wouldn't doubt that when growing up, he probably had picture books to try and help him along. But, that's just a head canon.

However, there is one very obvious moment later on in the movie. At the end of the song 'Gaston', Lefou tries to spell out the hunter's name in an effort to cheer him on. However, he stumbles over the letters.

"And his name's G-A-S...T...G-A-S-T-E...G-A-S-T-O."

He then gives up entirely and just sings the name instead. In this moment, nobody decides to help him or just do it themselves. The town (Molyneux) is clearly a well-educated one, with a book store and signs everywhere, so why didn't anyone help? Clearly they know how to spell.

Well, it could be that they didn't want to embarrass poor Lefou, but earlier they gave him the bumps (swinging him up and down to try and make him sick) so they're clearly above manners. It could be because they didn't want to embarrass Gaston. Obviously the hunter doesn't know how to spell his own name, or he would have interrupted Lefou and spelt it himself.

How do I know this? Because Gaston is a big show-off and would do anything to prove that he's better. You could make the argument that because he's against reading he simply didn't want to spell it out.

But earlier, in the same song no less, he sings "I'm especially good at expectorating". How does he know the word 'expectorating'? I don't know what that means, and I've read Tennyson since I was two!

(And now I spend my teenage years writing about Disney villains. How far I've fallen.)

Clearly Gaston enjoys proving that he's smart. And the song writers know this too. They didn't rhyme the word with anything, they just put it in, for no good reason. So, Gaston is smart, enjoys proving that he's smart, and yet doesn't correct Lefou when he misspells his name.

There are a few things about Dyslexia that even I can't prove; Like trouble with school work, trouble learning a foreign language, trouble with numbers, etc. I can say that he's bad at schoolwork because he decided to go into hunting, but that's just a guess, and hunting is a very important job.

There's also a symptom that says Dyslexic people have trouble learning their left from right, but Gaston is a hunter, wouldn't he be able to tell? Well, he lives in a tiny town so I doubt he has a lot to remember. Plus, the fact he can go into any shop without being able to read the signs shows he's probably been there his entire life. I doubt he just showed up and was like, 'Wassup folks, love me'. Plus, he probably marks his tracks when he goes into the forest.

Not to mention, it took Maurice a few days to get to the castle, lost and fumbling around helpless. But it took Gaston a few hours at the most to lead the entire towns men. So he's probably been there countless times.

(The forest I mean, not the castle. I don't think Gaston and the Beast meet up every Sunday for tea or anything.)

Look, Gaston is a great guy. He's adaptable. He organised an impromptu wedding in a day, and a hunting trip in like, five minutes. If he was in the modern world, you could easily explain how things work between men and women. It may take a few tries but he'd understand it eventually. 

When he describes how he and Belle would spend their lives together, that's not a sexist fantasy. That's the mind of a man in that time period. It isn't even that strange; having a proud family, being loved by all and worshipped by their significant other? Yeah, I've never met anybody who wants that. (that was sarcasm)

(Also how did Belle not hear them setting up the altar and stuff in her garden. She's shown to own horses and chickens and stuff; so doesn't she do her job? Stupid Belle.)

So, Gaston is dyslexic, and not one person in the town judges him for it. Except for Belle, but we can assume she didn't know. Get ready to cringe the next time you hear her say:

"Some people use their imagination."

"Oh, he's handsome alright. And rude and ignorant."

"That boorish...brainless."

Wow. Belle is kind of a bitch.

never_apln