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The label the network feared most of all... BESTIALITY.
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| Title: | The label the network feared most of all... BESTIALITY. (title used here on Fanlore) |
| Creator: | Joan Chessum |
| Date(s): | May 1991 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Beauty and the Beast (TV) |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
The label the network feared most of all... BESTIALITY. is a 1991 Beauty and the Beast (TV) essay by Joan Chessum.
It was printed in the form of a letter of comment in Dancing Lights v.2 n.2.
Some Topics Discussed
- fan anger about their show, Beauty and the Beast (TV), being dismissed by critics and mainstream reviews
- anger that critics praised the show at first, but then turned on it
- the third season was terrible, and ratings were low, which means it didn't make enough money; the naive question: why does a show have to make money to be aired?
- TPTB's fear of having their show called a romance and appealing to women, the decision to change the message of the show by focusing on violence so that more males would watch
- the TPTB (and The Family Channel's) fear that people would use the word bestiality to describe the intimacy between Vincent/Catherine, see more on this topic at Vincent: The Beast
The Letter
Greetings to those friends of this "rabid cult" fandom, who are now in the process of reading this infozine! Don't these labels just make you want to be sick? How about the one where Beauty and the Beast is called a "gothic soap opera", or a "damply overwrought series", or a "drearily soppy creation", or a "melodramatic romance"?It's all rather humorous when you think about how our series WAS praised to the skies, and nominated for several Emmy and Golden Globe awards (even winning several!), plus being considered as 'quality' by the Viewers for Quality Television in the not so distant past.
What is it about critics that they see only in black, white and green? Translated that means a program is black listed if it doesn't make any green (money), but an instant success if it does. And right now our story is on the black list, because the third season was a bummer.
Think about this, however. The third season WAS a bummer, because the producers of B&B were so fearful of it being called by the labels I have mentioned above. THEY had no faith in our story, and THEY wouldn't allow it to go, where it needed to go, in order to be a success. So THEY looked at what was currently popular on the other networks, and decided that romance and love were OUT, and action and violence were IN.
So what is so terrible about being called a romance? Why does it have to have such negative connotations as melodramatic, overwrought, and dreary. Is eternal love looked upon as being wimpy, simply because the partners don't change, and the sex can't be considered infidel? Why is the recitation of beautiful poetry (which will, I'm sure, outlive all of modern television) considered soppy? And why does the shedding of tears, for someone you love, make a story a 'soap opera'? My reply: it doesn't!
We all know that Beauty and the Beast is the furthest thing from a soap opera (a lot of us don't even like 'the soaps') that we could ever imagine. If the creators of this series had been brave and 'stuck to their guns’, Vincent and Catherine would have progressed a lot further in their relationship during the second season, and the nightmare of a third season would never have had to happen. Can you imagine anyone describing a true love scene between Vincent and Catherine as 'dreary' or 'melodramatic'? However, the label the network feared most of all, more than all the others put together, was the one they avoided at all costs - BESTIALITY.
I believe this is the reason Linda Hamilton left the series, and I believe this is the reason why the violence escalated. And I believe that those critics, who find it fashionable to beat our story to death, should be tarred and feathered and hung out to dry.