re: Beauty and the Beast thoughts and discussions

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but it is a fantasy film based in history.

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It's a film based in France with a cast nearly entirely made up of British and American actors and involves a man turned into a beast by a magical spell that can only be broken if he convinces Emma Watson to kiss him.

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I'm actually surprised that no one else is talking about the black characters in the movie. Yeah, I know it's a fantasy film, but it is a fantasy film based in history. And when you look at the history, the casting of black actors in main roles amounts to nothing but stunt casting.

Beauty and the Beast is set in the year 1740. Yet slavery is not abolished in France until 1794. Despite this, we have three very prominent black characters who would not have been able to climb as high as they did on the social ladder.

- Pere Robert, Catholic priest. The first black Catholic priest was not ordained until 1854.

- Madam Garderobe, the maestro's wife. Interracial marriages/relationships were not legalized in France until 1792. There's no way this marriage could have survived so openly in French court.

- Plumette, Lumiere's love interest. See above.

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While I applaud the research, it's faulty. There were plenty of (non-slave) Moors throughout that region of Europe (including some varieties of Saracens who weren't strictly Arab) and black priests have been around since the very early Church. St. Augustine of Hippo, for instance, one of the most famous Catholic saints, was almost certainly dark-skinned enough that he'd be considered black by most modern American standards. A considerable number of early Church leaders came from Africa, some Saharan, some sub-Saharan.

I haven't seen the movie, but what you describe does invite some legitimate criticism. Black people weren't likely to have a high social status even when they weren't slaves, that much is true. But I'm a medievalist and feel that most people don't realize just how diverse and heterogeneous medieval and Renaissance Europe really was. For a millennia after the fall of Rome, Europe was still feeling the effects of Roman hegemony and the attendant interaction of cultures.