Review of "Beastly" the movie

Kyle is a senior at the Manhattan prep-school and has a very shallow and narcissistic personality. A few of his saying are:
"should you vote for me because Im rich., popular, good looking guy.. Hell Yeah!"
"My dad always said how much people will like you is directly proportional to what you look like, not your thing"

(Read more: http://authspot.com/quotes/beastly-quotes-2011/#ixzz1RLJb1ce7)

He insults people who he sees as ugly, and will redicule them in public. One of them is a witchy fellow student called Kendra (played by Mary-Kate Olsen). She is supposed to play an ugly witch although she is not ugly at all in the movie.
One day, Kyle tricks her as if he invites her to his party, but once there, he mocks and insults her infront of everyone. Kendra as a result puts a spell on him which makes him As agressively unattractive outside as he is inside. (Although I think he looks pretty cool haha).

The only way this spell will go away and that he will turn back to his normal "beautiful" form, is to have someone who will say “I love you” to him within 1 years as who he is or he will be forever beastly. As a result, he goes to hide in a luxury condo-hideout provided by his father who, as a narcissistic broadcast journalist, shares his son’s distaste for unattractive people so can’t wait to eliminate his son from his life.

Vanessa Hudgens plays the girl that will fall in love with him and say the magic words which will turn him back to normal. Same as in beauty and the beast. He has a secret crush on her and one day finds her and her dad in trouble because her dad is a drug dealer. Anyway, she has to be kept safe in his house and their bond grows. There are a lot of similarities with beauty and the beast. Like the roses, he builds a rose garden for her, also on the "tatoo" on his arms some roses appear when his time is almost up. Also like Belle, she is kept in his house without her wanting it at first. She dreams about escaping. Also the guy is a "beast" but he is stinking rich, same as the guy from beauty and the beast.

There are also a couple of touching moments in the movie, like when she actually values him for who he is inside, or when they watch a movie of a mother elephant that returns to the skeleton of her babies that died each year, where he asks "can you imagine such love"? It made me think about how much judgement there is in the world, about peoples looks and just in general as well. How people often don't really love each other, but more have attachments or desires they use the other for to fulfill. Like very conditional forms of love. Like you have to give sex, you have to look pretty, etc... Fill it in yourself.

The reason why I saw this movie was because of my friend Leila, who wrote a cool blog about it. She compares beastly to beauty and the beast and exposes some really cool stuff, so check out her blog!
http://ylaww.blogspot.com/2011/06/beastly-vs-beauty-beast.html

Often girls or woman will love unattractive males, when they are stinking rich. How many of those woman would want the same guy, if they were broke? Their numbers would decline seriously. Really we don't fully understand what real love is. Loving someone as the essence, as an equal to yourself. It doesn't mean wanting to have sex with them or feeling lovy dovy all the time. If love depends on those emotions, it comes and goes. Sometimes love is doing things which may hurt others at first, but are actually best for them. By not allowing another to be less than who they are as life, to not hold another as a prisoner by how he/she is programmed. Love is not jealousy, it is not possession.

Last quote from Leila's blog:

"So what does this say about Relationships and what a girl wants?
Girls like MONEY –in fact – everyone wants money!!!
So we should just give it to everyone so that everyone can develop proper relationships with one another without fearing for one’s survival or whether someone’s going to stab you in the back for money."
www.equalmoney.org

I want to add to that: some want money to survive, which is obvious, we need money to have enough food, a roof, electricity, clothing , water etc... That is the way our system works. But some woman want more money than they need, money to spend on luxury, on thousands of shoes, animal tested make-up products, things to try and boost their confidence, living a shallow life filled with material things trying to fill whatever gap is there. All these things require massive production and energy, and creates a lot of garbage.
So we have to take all into consideration, because equal money does not mean that everyone can just have all the riches they like. If it is abusive towards the whole, it cannot be allowed. Because today the very wealthy live like they can, because there are a lot of people on the bottom.

Does getting your periods make you a woman?





I first got my periods when I was 14 years old, in Spain on the 6th of august. We were drinking something at a restaurant outside and I went to the toilet and suddenly... there was blood!

So I instantly knew, I have my periods. I went outside and told my mom. She then told my dad and we drove to a nearby supermarket to get me some menstruation pads for the first time ever. My mom and I talked about it, and I said I would use menstruation pads and not tampons because I didn't dare to stick anything inside me. It felt abit strange to get my periods but overall it wasn't that different.

When we went back to Belgium my mom told my grandma which sais: she is a lady now.
I kinda smiled at that, not because I wanted to be a woman, but because of the way she made it sound. Like it was something to be proud off, getting your periods. Later on also my friends knew who acted as if it was something special. So that made me feel good, like I was better or something, like more of a girl/ woman.

It is intresting because you again get a label on you, like: now you are more of a woman.
Because you become fertile, because you can make babies. My grandparents are not so happy about the fact that I dont want a husband or babies now, which they didn't expect because "that is not how they raised me". Because from when we are young we are pushed into gender roles, with specific habbits and markings, specific behavior to do or to not do. If you are a lady you have to be pretty, polite, not fart or burp... shit like that. We give our children these rules, often simply because that is what we were taught ourselves. But it is like this breeding program where we already want our children to fit in and one day be a proper lady or man to find a good mating partner. Because if you are a woman but dont act like a lady, or dont look like a lady, which man will want you? People dont always think as blunt as that, but it is this pattern which is accepted, even when people are not aware of it.

And after a while, when boys and girls grow up - they start to judge each other on that behavior. They will even tease their peers for not fitting in that image, even bully them! There was once a girl in my class which looked like a boy and she got bullied a lot. It was in age group 13, quite young. But this gets taught to children. As if when a girl looks like a boy, suddenly they are inferior and treated inferior. If they wouldnt have known she was a girl, would they have done that? Probably not.

So parents, be careful of what you say to your children, and what you project and the limitations that you may box them into. Because this has a bigger effect than you can imagine.

Just look at the world, and you got your proof.

To discuss gender issues, please visit the forum of Desteni .