Beauty and the Beast -- One Fan's Perspective

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Title:	Beauty and the Beast -- One Fan's Perspective
Creator:	L. Mouse
Date(s):	February 14, 2007
Medium:	online
Fandom:	Beauty and the Beast (TV)
Topic:
External Links:	Beauty and the Beast -- One Fan's Perspective
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Beauty and the Beast -- One Fan's Perspective is a 2007 essay by L. Mouse.

It was posted to Firefox News.

Some Topics Discussed

• being bullied as a child
• Vincent and Catherine as role models and as saviors
• the Tunnels as a place where everyone was accepted, including misfits, dreaming about the Tunnel kept this fan sane
• being utterly devastated by turns the show took in the third season
• not seeing the show for almost twenty years, nervous about rewatching it

From the Essay

Beauty and the Beast debuted in 1987. At the time, I was twelve, in Junior High, and living through hell. I was bullied in school every single day for four years. Savagely, without any relief or reprieve, I was tormented by a group of about twenty to thirty other students on a daily basis from sixth grade (when I moved from another district) to my Freshman year in high school.

I spent most of those four horrible years going, "Is it me? Is there something unutterably wrong with me that other kids hate me? What am I doing wrong?"

Against that backdrop of childhood angst came a very special show. I won't say Beauty and the Beast was my only fantasy escape but it was a very important one. Beauty and the Beast touched something in my heart like few shows ever have.

For a year, Beauty and the Beast was the show I absolutely lived for. I counted days, then hours, then the minutes, to the next episode. In those pre-internet days I scoured the news racks for any magazines that had any articles about Vincent and Catherine in them, no matter how small, and collected them all. I obsessively wrote Beauty and the Beast fanfic (with a horrible Mary Sue, yes, why do you ask?) and I am very grateful that it was the pre-internet days or there'd be some very bad fanfic written by my very young self floating around out there! -- As opposed to the bad Beauty and the Beast fanfic written by my adult self which is also out there for your reading delight, but anyway.

The second year rolled around, and as fans of this show know, the writers must've started smoking crack.

Beauty and the Beast still stands today as the prime example of how to kill a TV show. I remember, however, having absolute faith that Vincent would save Catherine even when all the evidence was the contrary, including reports that Linda Hamilton wanted to leave the show.

It was Beauty and the Beast. No show would ever kill a title character, right? And anyway, the hero always saves the girl. That was just the way of the world.

Vincent, I was sure, would understand what it was like to be the most unpopular twelve year old girl in school. (This is weirdly amusing in retrospect, but I know that's what I was thinking then!) While I idolized Catherine, I lay awake at night dreaming of finding a boyfriend just like Vincent. I wanted someone who would understand what it was like to be different. Someone like Vincent surely would. Sometimes the fantasies actually involved a man-beast (or, at least, a boy-beast); sometimes just someone with the same internal characteristics -- the sensitivity, the patience, the kindness, the empathy. And I saw myself healing my own personal beast's emotional wounds too. We would support each other, and be perfectly in love. I was twelve ... not much life experience, lots of angst.

When fall rolled around, and the first episode of the third season premiered, to my stunned shock, he didn't save her. And not only did he not save her, but the bad guys tortured her to death in a grim and horrific death. Owe. I cried. I threw things. I felt utterly betrayed by the writers.

Then I wrote a fanfic or two that brought her back from the dead -- something I later learned a lot of other fans also did. I also wrote a few where she died doing something heroic, and had a better death, because I was a morbid kid.

I did watch Season Three, because it still had Vincent in it -- and truthfully, I found myself liking the new heroine just a bit. After a period of mourning Catherine, I'd decided to like the show again -- and then, they cancelled Beauty and the Beast.

But ... part of me is scared [to re-watch the show], too. Because I loved this show (or at least the first season, before writer!crack happened.) I'm not that little girl anymore. That little girl grew up, saw some of her greatest dreams come true, learned to fight back effectively against the bullies, and learned to believe in herself. And how I see things, and the shows I love, have changed accordingly.

Fan Comments

[Tracey]: Your comment/letter is so like how I feel. I too used to run home, be with Vincent and Catherine, love that he was romantic, understood things when even she (nor I) didn't. I was ordinary in school, but always dreamed of a man like Vincent - "Beast" and all - to idolize and compared all guys to (sensible or not). When the 2nd season ended, I too, never expected any less of Vincent rescuing Catherine and the hope that some day, they could be together, above or below the city - in my heart of hearts I believed it would some day be, many seasons later. That first Season 3 episode, my girlfriends and I got together, Mom too, and watched...stunned, tears, horrible betrayal---the tension was thick in the room!!! Now decades later, I cried the day I recv'd the First Season DVD in the mail. Never happier in all my life. Even wrote down the opening monologue that I could remember from the show. And though I know what's coming, though I don't remember every episode and it is like watching it all anew again, I know the end, I know the horror I felt in my teens - the let down and the tears.

[...]

Savour the experiences again, I plan to. I'll shed the tears at the end, feel the anger, but will remember the wonderful feelings and dreams that the show brought me, and that Catherine and Vincent had.

[T. Haas]:

I got to catch the first season of Beauty and the Beast, but unfortunately. The foster parents I was living with at the time thought we obsessed over the show and would not let us watch it anymore. Dyed in the wool Christ fanatics, so alas I never got to see the last two series. Being bit of an outcast to I sympathised with Both Catherine and Vincent. I truly hope they release the last two seasons!

[L. Mouse]: I've recently discovered that ffnet deleted my BatB fanfic. (One BatB story, and two BatB/Gargoyles crossover stories.) I need to go dig it up and put it back up. I don't know why they deleted it -- it wasn't violating the site's TOS in any way and they never said a thing to me. My backups are on floppy disks -- and I have several thousand floppy disks in boxes, and they're not well labeled. Sigh. I have fanfic for other series on ffnet under the handle of lmouse.

[Scarred Sword Heart]: Oh, I loved that show! I was nine or ten when it debuted and I watched probably every episode with my mom. We talked about the characters and the actors and it was a great bonding experience. I hated when they had Vincent go dark, impregnate Catherine and then when Gabriel kidnapped her. What were they on? If Hamilton wanted to leave the series, they should have asked her twin sister to take her place; offered her any amount of money! I heard they changed it because they wanted the show to appeal to a broader audience than just the house wives and little girls who were watching it. That's what always happens: Shaft the core audience to make the show palatable to the masses and then kill the whole thing in the process. Idiots!

[beastfan]: I too was a fan of BATB when the series aired and I was in high school. I wasn't the kid that was picked on, but I longed to be cool and have a boyfriend. This past year I indulged myself and bought the first season. I am now in my 30s and I remember thinking that I always wanted to have a relationship like Catherine and Vincent when I was young and now that I am a little older I still feel the same. Some of the issues they dealt with as a couple such as envy, pride, etc take on a whole new meaning for me know. Like many of you I wish that the character of Catherine had not been killed off and I had wished that in the end Vincent would have saved her. At last I found me salvation in fanfiction and kicked myself for not thinking to look for it sooner. I think in the end those of us that watched and bought the series have come away with a great gift...we still believe in the power of love and keep hoping to find it in our own lives, and share some of the best parts of ourselves with others through our imaginations. Thanks to all of you that keep the dream of Vincent and Catherine alive.

[deb]: Mouse, I smiled as I read your thoughts and when B&B aired in 1987, I was the same age as Linda Hamilton and to me, Vincent could have been my beloved as well. There was no turning back. I couldn't get enough. Collected everything I possibly could, even helped found a group called CATS which stood for Chicago Area Tunnel Society. We were truly known today as a "cult following" . Next year's 2009 B&B convention is in New Orleans and reservations are already made. I have two sets of seasons 1,2 and 3 on DVD (just in case one burns in a fire). After all these years, I still am mesmerized by the B&B series and the chemistry between the actors, the sets, the music, the poetry. I could go on and on. Of course we will never see in our lives another series as well crafted as this one. I agree, season three was difficult to watch the first time, yet it took me a long time to open up season three DVD and watch it. Very painful.

[ana brown]: I was bullied around in the time the show was first aired too. ANd I write fanfic too. All my fanfic involves brignging Catherine back from the dead. You know, I've never been able to deal with the fact of "death" very well, untill it involves some 96 year-old person who'd been vegetating for a number of years. So I ressurect Catherine all the time. ANd I wanted to be like Catherine as a child too. Catherine could kick some ass! I was lonely twelve year-old and I dreamt of becoming like her as an adult!

[Dori Kelley]: Hello; it was amazing to see how many of you are still fans of Beauty and the Beast. This show came out in a time where I was a new mother. I was 24 and going through the most difficult time in my life. I was married to my high school love and I thought I was living in a fairy tale. We were both musicians. He was a violinist and I was a classical pianist. Unfortunately, he became very ill and was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. “Though lovers be lost, Love is not” . We parted when my son was 2 years old because it became increasingly difficult to live with him in his world. The show reminded me so much of the love we shared. I adored the first two seasons , except towards the last 2-3 episodes of that second season. I agree that the writers could have done so much better. If Linda Hamilton had to leave the show, then why not have Catherine and Vincent end the show together? It would have been so much more tolerable and memorable. I bought the entire 3 seasons. I saw one 2. To this day, I just can’t bear to see Vincent without Catherine.

[Ilsa]: Oh my Gosh! i am 13 and I feel the same way I sit in school and Dream that that is my world and that i am in love with Vincent. My Birthday is comming up and I want to go to Grifith Park to see the Tunnel entrance and the carisal. i am so glad you wrote this because know i can look back at the show.

[donna]: I absolutely love this show. I too watched it as a teenager growing up. I am a hopeless romantic who also searched for the type of love that Vincent and Catherine shared. I know as an adult it is only television but i can watch te episodes now and still feel the same way i felt as a child watching it. Phantom of the opera 2004 version is another one but nothing comes close to the pure type of love that catherine and Vincent shared

[Gail]: When the show first came on I was going through a very difficult time in my life and had a hard time trusting people for fear they would hurt me. But thanks to the show it helped me to know that not all people are bad.

[Mitzi]: I don't get it! I really don't get it... I completely missed the boat back in the 80's. But recently they started showing reruns on cable. I read the description and I was absolutely delighted. Fairytale meets reality, down to earth whismy with a twist of old fashioned romance. This was right up my alley. I got even more excited when I saw Perlmans fantastic makeup job. They showed a marathon so I watched about 10 random episodes in one day, mostly from the first and second seasons. I caught a few afterwards in stubborn hope. and I Still... Don't... Get... It. Why was this so popular? It felt like I was watching a live-action the Perils of Penelope Pittstop. It was so... formulaic. FORMULA: Open episode on some hardship of new york life. Vincent maybe does a bit of breathy monologueing and alot of nothing. Situation gets worse unchecked to make the story. Cathy does or says something foolish that makes the trouble worse (only about two thirds of the time). Cathy gets in peril, even if it has nothing to do with the story (I keep wondering what happened to those self defense classes she took, if she ever took a competent swing at anyone I must have missed that episode). Vincent runs in Slow Motion and rides the top of the subway. Vincent arrives just in time to save the day. Trouble magically resolves itself. Vincent and Cathy have a romantic moment (wherein Vincent seems stuck in gear. Who knew you could have a two-dimensional romance with three-dimensional characters. Its sweet at first, but it gets old. At least they don't have the main characters snogging at every event, it gives the romance a nice classic feel). ....... I want to find the charm here, the magic that has recruited so many devoted fans. I end up finding Vince bland and Cathy so inept I want to strangle her myself! Maybe I watched the wrong episodes. What episodes don't involve a retelling of the Crises of Cathy.

[Bfoots57]: What I want to know and hope is: will there ever be a motion picture with these characters? I sure hope so. Ron Perlman did a terrific job as the Beast. His skill as an actor made you believe that a being like Vincent could exist. If he has the energy to play "Hellboy," he still can play Vincent. Of course, Catherine will have to be re-casted by a younger actress. I sure hope a Movie is in the Making. My mom and I are not so young anymore and would want to live and see this film. I'm in my 50's and mom is in her 80's and we were Big-Time fans of this show.

[Cindy Carroll]: I absolutely loved this show!!! My mother taped it for me every week. I just wanted to meet Vincent and live in those tunnels. I was so crushed when they let her die. I couldn't believe they did it that way. I, too, grew to like Diana. She wasn't Catherine but it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I hated that Joe, Elliot, and all the others had to die like they did. My husband gave me the 1st and 2nd seasons as an anniversary present!! I'm hoping for the 3rd one for Christmas. I am looking for a specific quote from one episode and I can't find it. I have watched and watched!! Where would I go to find it?

[Vicky]: Oh, but don't you all see? Catherine never died! Why do you think Vincent couldn't sense her, just like in "Remember Love"? The whole season was only a terrible nightmare, one that involved all of Vincent's greatest fears should he got "closer" to her. The only reason he can feel that kid is because he's a product of his imagination within the dream. But other than that... don't you see how out of character everyone act? Starting with Father! Ana Brown... You wouldn't happen to be Ann R. Brown, from the fabulous "Sleepless in Providence" zine, would you? Mitzi, you obviously do not get it. Thanks for the post, LMouse! I hope to see you around in fandom!