My latest article at Superversive SF

I have seen very few movies in the theater, compared to the average America. The number of movies I have seen twice is even smaller. The number of movies I have seen more than twice could be counted on one hand.

There is only one movie that I saw in the theater six times: Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

Why did I—or I should say, we, for I saw it each time with my husband—love this movie so much? A bit of history…

I grew up out of step with the kids I went to school with, partially because I lived in the world of imagination, and many of them did not. My greatest joy was a trip to the local library, from which I would return with a stack of books as high as I could carry. I could read a book back then in a day or maybe two, and every new book was a journey into wonder.

As a bookish, imaginative person, my childhood was a lonely place.

Very few of the other kids understood why one would bother with such foolish things. Books did not make them “burn with the bliss and suffer the sorrow of all mankind.” * Daydreaming was a thing that was mocked.

Read on to learn how the new movie destroys the very thing that makes Belle who she is.