Diana moved me ''powerfully"

Meta
Title:	Diana moved me powerfully (the title used here on Fanlore)
Creator:	Barbara Goulter
Date(s):	August 1990
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Beauty and the Beast (TV)
Topic:
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"Diana moved me powerfully" is a 1990 essay by Barbara Goulter. It was imbedded in a letter of comment printed in the August 1990 issue of Tunneltalk.

The essay was written at the beginning of The Beauty and the Beast Wars, and the positive focus on the character of the unpopular character of Diana Bennett (introduced when Catherine Chandler died) was a minority one.

Some Topics Discussed

• Diana as a "female Vincent"
• the sexist overtones of Vincent as "teacher"
• why can't shows have more than one powerful female character

From the Essay

Diana moved me powerfully -- more than any other character. When that iron gate slid back, she took my breath away. I saw da Vinci's Madonna of the Rocks come to life, with all her inwardness, sorrow, otherworldliness, and brooding beauty. At the commercial break, a friend called me and quoted from Yeats' No Second Troy, his poem about Maud Conne, the IRA heroine, his unrequited love: "How should I blame her with that soul of hers/That nobleness made simple as a fire?/With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind/That is not natural in an age like this/Being high and solitary and most stern."

Diana is a female Vincent. She is a mystery, an empath, an alien, a lover, a protector, an avenger. As his name means conqueror, hers means huntress. Uncannily, she feels the feelings and knows the nature of others. But she is very different from Vincent in one highly important way. Vincent has received support and affirmation for his gifts. Diana's experience has been rejection. She was not raised in the Tunnels, where people gladly share what goes on inside them. She was not nurtured by Father. Instead she has been alone with her gift. She is a mind-reader, living among people whose foremost concern is not to let anyone know their true minds.

Diana is isolated because she sees what others try to hide. She saw that Joe was in love with Catherine and jealous of someone. She saw that Elliot was concealing something. To her calm, quiet statement that these things were so, they answered with denial, resentment, even hatred. Diana expects these reactions. She's hardened herself to them. She knows she can't explain how she knows what she knows. She's like a sighted person in a country of the blind. People accuse her all the time of talking nonsense, or of lying. Yet, at the same time, they know she knows what they don't want her to know. As a result, she has become guarded, even cold. Thus, her appearance of "toughness."

Diana is a trance mystic. She tunes in to others not merely through immediate perception but also through meditation, and by touching and studying their possessions. This is how she comes to know Catherine, Vincent and their relationship.

Against all logic and reason, she knows Vincent's nature and his protectorship of Catherine. When Vincent first told Catherine that he knew what she was thinking and feeling and was always with her in spirit, Catherine couldn't understand. But Diana intuited this part of their relationship without even being been told. Why? Because she has similar powers. Against all the evidence, she understands that Vincent is innocent of Catherine's death, and that although he kills, he is still a force for good. How? Becauseshe truly knows Vincent and Catherine. And also because she too is a killer and yet a force for good.

Diana feels Catherine's spirit within her. She is literally inspired to a rescue mission — to save Catherine's legacy, everything salvageable, from the rosebush to Vincent to the baby. When the rosebush blooms, it gives her a message from Catherine — the message of the roses. Catherine's spirit leads her to reading Thomas's poem and also Gray's Elegy — which in turn leads her to finding Vincent at the grave. Already loving him hopelessly, she takes him home to save his life, just as Vincent had taken the slashed Catherine into the tunnels.

She literally talks to Catherine. She actually apologizes to her when things go wrong. Like Vincent, she keeps a diary for her own eyes only. She confides to it that she can feel his sadness.

When Vincent marvels to Father about the powers of Diana's mind, the uniqueness of her imagination, and her loyalty to himself and Catherine, these are the qualities he means. Vincent alone sees her for what she is, because her traits are his. He mayor may not ever become her lover. But he already is her brother-How could such a woman make a girlfriend for Joe or Elliot, as some have suggested? Whatever their many attractions and virtues, these are down-to-earth, matter-of-fact men. They can't begin to imagine such a nature as Diana's. Diana already has a boyfriend of their ilk. It doesn't work. He gets only "glimpses" of what's within her, and blames her because he doesn't get more. She can't explain. How can she? In one scene after another, we see her trying to explain the workings ofher mind, and never succeeding. Why even try? Instead, she withdraws.

Diana is not a workaholic or a careerist She is an obsessive. She becomes possessed by the interior experience that her empathic imagination brings her. She is like an artist taken over by the muse. Again and again, she risks her career and even her life to follow her heart and help Vincent. In fact, she risks her soul. She is a Catholic. She crosses herself before starting to climb down the ropes. Yet she kills Gabriel to spare Vincent from killing him because she knows that killing threatens Vincent's mental stability. Diana would not only die for Vincent. She would willingly be damned for him too.

At the outset of the show, Catherine needed much from Vincent. She lived a slick, empty life, made up of such time-wasters as fashion, Corporate Law and Tom Gunther. Vincent became not only her rescuer but her guru. Under his tutelage, she grows up, drops her princess manner, and becomes more nearly his equal. Even so, when he is in great trouble toward the end of the second season, he usually sends her away — and she usually goes.

Their whole story is profoundly sexist in conception. The male guides, teaches and protects the female, but when the male is in trouble, he withdraws, muttering, "This is something I must face alone," and she lets him do it. Only in the final scene of the Trilogy does Catherine finally defy him and go to his side against his wishes.

Spiritually and intellectually, Diana begins as Vincent's equal. She tells him repeatedly that if he tries to do it alone, he will fail. She seeks him out to demand her right to fight by his side. Ultimately, he lets her. Yet although Vincent needs Diana, she needs him just as much. Vincent is Diana's salvation, her means to get past the barriers that divide her from others. Vincent is the only person she has ever known who understands her nature. His world, the Tunnel World, is her true home, because it is only there that her gifts would be welcomed rather than threatening.

This doesn't mean that they, Vincent and Diana, would have to become lovers — though if they did it would be a relationship of incomparable depth. Even friendship between them would have been utterly fascinating and rewarding.

Unlike myself, some fans found Jo Anderson unbeautiful. It is certainly true that her clothes, makeup and hairdo were made as unflattering as possible. With Linda Hamilton, it was just the reverse. In the first season, she was consistently presented as beautiful and glamorous. Then, during the second season, as Catherine discarded her vanity, she was often allowed to look downright plain. With Diana, no doubt, it was intended to go the opposite way. As she found love and acceptance, she would have blossomed. Anyone who saw her recently in her starring role in Columbo saw a woman of astounding loveliness.

Many fans speak of Diana as an intruder, a too obvious (and inferior) substitute for Catherine. They say they want to scream at her, "Keep your mitts off Catherine's things!" But why should a show only have one leading female character — or only one kind of female lead? Why should there be so many strong and major and varied and well-developed male characters — Vincent, Father, Elliot, Joe — but only one token leading female?

Fan Comments

Your letter was extraordinarily powerful. Your passion for the character of Diana is fascinating (if I may borrow one of Mr. Spock's favorite words). I will have to rewatch some of the less painful (for me) third season episodes, because you have awakened a curiosity in me about seeing Diana anew. I have heard more than one person say they thought Diana was a "female Vincent." The same coloring, that medieval quality about her (in spite of her modern clothes), a certain stillness, a "listening" quality about her. I noticed these things, but unfortunately, I also noticed the writers trying to create a love relationship with Vincent, and this ticked me off SO MUCH that I think a lot of Diana was lost in the anger I felt towards the direction the writers/plots were going in. I always wanted to give her a chance, but so many things conspired against that: the newspapers blaring "New Beauty," all the bad gossip concerning Linda Hamilton, the absolutely (to me) stunning news that not every fan felt like I did concerning Catherine's "death" — that totally floored me. We had become a big family, supporting one another, and then, to find out (!) that other fans felt the show could continue WITHOUT Catherine — I was flabbergasted! Now, 10 months later, I have learned to live with this fact, but... it was hard accepting this realization.

Some of the letters in the past have actually gotten me to review old episodes for a new perspective. After reading Barbara Goulter's, I went back and watched some of S3 again. I still don't see the same Diana that she did, but it made for an interesting experiment. I'm afraid that, unlike several fellow fans, I didn't even find the character of Diana appealing on any level. Especially not as a potential love-interest for Vincent. Possibly for Joe. Although, on reflection, even that prospect is unappealing. Something about her just grated on my nerves. Part of it, I'm sure, was my grief over Catherine's miserable demise. Something about the way Diana started moving into Vincent's life before Catherine was even cold in the grave. I don't know--I can't put my feelings on this into words. Diana did exactly one thing that I enjoyed: killing Gabriel with Catherine's gun. I agree with [Valerie W] on that point.

I agree wholeheartedly with you, Barbara, about Vincent finding more happiness with Diana than with Catherine. Not possible. If anything, he'd be even more withdrawn than before. His predictions (or Father's) of a tragic ending came true. Why would he burden another woman with his neuroses—especially so soon?

I'm also not so certain that Catherine is truly dead. I never have been. I've always been positive in my heart that she's recovering somewhere from her injuries and that, as soon as she's able to, she'll find her way back to Vincent. I don't know exactly how to resolve S3 to get what we want (Catherine back alive—preferably Linda Hamilton), but that's what I want from a movie. Just one "happily-ever-after" story and I could be content once again.

I was also impressed by Barbara Coulter's letter in #6 about Diana. Let me make it plain that I did not see all of this in the character presented on the air, but the fact that she did convinces me that there was the potential to make Diana an interesting character in her own right, separate from any relationship with Vincent. I think it would be interesting for Barbara or one of our other capable writers to adapt some of these ideas into a zine story, focusing perhaps on Diana's finding welcome and unquestioning acceptance in the tunnel community in spite of her psychic abilities, and without any reference to a V/D romance. That might be a very interesting story to read. (Sharon Wells has done very well in developing Diana in her zine The Shadow Knight and I look forward to the sequel to that work.)