# The Shape of Water, the "beauty and the beast" theme, and gender perspectives **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 22, 2018, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173 "2018-01-22T01:27:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/21 "2018-01-22T20:38:00Z")
**Planet of the Apes** has some man on monkey-girl kissing action with romantic attachment. **Splice** has the male lead getting willingly ‘seduced’ by the goat-legged, stinger-tailed, skin-winged Dren. He obviously has romantic feelings for her (made weirder by the fact that she’s sort of his adopted daughter). I don’t remember any implied romantic feelings from the woman in Creature From the Black Lagoon. In Beauty & the Beast (at least the Disney versions), it’s worth mentioning that despite his bestial components, he’s still portrayed in a traditionally handsome masculine way. It would be a very different story if Belle lost her heart to a massive spider monster or heap of shrieking protoplasm. **Penelope** is a comedy but it’s a romantic comedy and the humor wasn’t intended to be “Look at how this guy loves that freak-woman! Hahaha, that’s hilarious!” ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/22 "2018-01-22T20:53:16Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > I think when comparing the premises of \*\*The Shape of Water \*\*and a hypothetical gender-flipped version, audiences would give a lot more slack to a woman than a man. More than likely, he would come across as so pathetic and creepy that you’d want tell the creature, “You can do a lot better than him.” Also, they probably wouldn’t resist the temptation to ridiculously sexualize the female creature by giving her a prominent non-mammalian breasts and making her resemble a Gigeresque fetish fantasy. > > In other words, I don’t think it would work. Indeed, it would be hard to avoid the reaction of, “Men! They’re such pigs. They’ll stick their d\*ck in anything!” ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/23 "2018-01-22T21:06:06Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > That didn’t appear to be what the OP was asking though. He didn’t say anything about the female creature being “under the authority” of the male character. I was responding to your post where you wondered why people would find a ‘maintenance guy bangs fish girl in a research facility’ movie creepy, not making some specific commentary on what the OP said or read in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/24 "2018-01-22T21:24:44Z")
What happened in the movie was that, at the height of the Cold War, a mute woman, a black woman, a gay man, a secretly Communist man, and a man who was some sort of odd fish-like mutant conspired to get the mute woman and the fish-like man (who were in love) away from either the American or Russian government groups, since they had both decided it was necessary to kill and dissect the fish-like man. If there was any obvious meaning there, it was that the straight white non-disabled males who controlled both American and Russian societies were oppressing those who were disabled, black, gay, non-believers in the majority political parties, or of some distinctly non-human-like type. Was it also trying to say that only a woman would want to or have to be attracted to a non-human-like type and a man wouldn’t? How should we know? There isn’t any precisely gender-flipped movie to compare it with. It was already trying to show that there was oppression by the majority at that time, and asking for it to be even more willing to show that there may be more inequality yet is asking a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Weedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/weedy/32/301_2.png) [@Weedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weedy)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/25 "2018-01-22T21:25:16Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > That probably is the closest but even there it’s just her nose that’s affected. She isn’t mostly animalistic like a traditional B&tB story would be. > > You’re close to the point I’m trying to make. A gender-flipped variation on a B&tB type story is considerably more difficult–if not almost impossible–to pull off because men have the perhaps unfair and inaccurate reputation for being shallow superficial jerks. I understand that you are talking about fantasy / sci-fi. I guess you mean it would look like he was only using her for sex. But I feel like that would depend on the way it was portrayed. Like Kryten and Camille in _Red Dwarf._ It’s a comedy, so it doesn’t fit the criteria, but Kryten comes off as sweet and caring and that’s sort of how I imagine in it a more serious show as well. Wouldn’t people think the guy was noble and profound for looking beyond the physical? Would Delenn from **Babylon 5** count? She’s not exactly ugly but she does have bumps on her head. If she were truly ugly as well then it would be kinda weird, but I don’t think I’d think Sheridan was pathetic. I’d think he was putting his personal preferences aside for the greater good. And if it played out that he did truly love her - well, I don’t think Sheridan would. But say, Marcus, I could picture him loving an alien monstrosity and it wouldn’t be off-putting at all. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2018, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/26 "2018-01-22T22:48:16Z")
I could see the guy being thought of as pathetic, but not creepy. Creepy would be if she was really sexy but completely naive about humans, and he took advantage of her. Creepy and pathetic are basically opposites, since the pathetic guy is harmless. Still a gender disparity, of course. But I personally think the word “creepy” is being overused of late. ---
**Author:** ![snoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@snoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snoe)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/27 "2018-01-23T05:20:43Z")
Same-sex attraction count? There’s a pretty strong case that Ishmael’s got feelings for Queequeg, in spite of the latter’s physical … description. [Power Moby-Dick, the Online Annotation — Chapter 3](http://www.powermobydick.com/Moby003.html) ---
**Author:** ![Trafalgar\_Laura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trafalgar_laura/32/2907_2.png) [@Trafalgar\_Laura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trafalgar_Laura)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/28 "2018-01-23T15:57:22Z")
It’s hard for me to think of a modern representation, but the trope of “[The Loathly Lady](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loathly_lady)” can be found in a lot of older/medieval works. It’s sort of Beauty and the Beast in reverse; the love of the man breaks a curse and reveals the hideous woman to be beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/29 "2018-01-23T16:12:30Z")
There is also, of course, umpteen jillion movies about the mousey unpopular girl winning the heart of her beloved despite the competing efforts of the rich socialite or cheerleader, etc. Often including the transformation scene where the ugly duckling becomes strikingly attractive by combing her hair and putting on a prom dress for her big date. While not involving beast-women or locked towers, the thematic elements are much the same. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/30 "2018-01-23T16:32:27Z")
I am reminded of the disturbing novella by Rachel Ingalls, Mrs.Caliban, about a woman whose anomie and disaffection from her marriage leads her into a fantastical romantic encounter with a sea creature escaped from a lab, which ultimately destroys the lives of her husband and best friend. The beauty or ugliness of either of them is not discussed, however. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/31 "2018-01-23T17:06:56Z")
I got nuthin’. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/32 "2018-01-23T17:50:37Z")
So there’s this British sci-fi comics magazine, 2000 AD. It’s where Judge Dredd was first published. In the Golden Age of the 80’s they had a short series (by Peter Mulligan? Maybe?) about some random idiot being transported to a dimension of horrible creatures that looked like bipedal hammerhead sharks with a secondary giant mouth in their necks. Of course, he was considered to be the repulsive monster in their dimension, and the daughter of the scientist investigating him was considered quite the beauty, even if, to the human reader, she was clearly as disgusting as the rest of her species. When she helps him escape and they end up forgetting about each other’s looks and sharing a kiss in her car, it was written like a completely natural thing. Very clever deconstruction of this particular trope. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/33 "2018-01-23T18:48:07Z")
Then there’s Galaxy Quest. ---
**Author:** ![Penfeather](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penfeather/32/384_2.png) [@Penfeather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Penfeather)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/34 "2018-01-23T19:05:15Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > So there’s this British sci-fi comics magazine, 2000 AD. It’s where Judge Dredd was first published. > > In the Golden Age of the 80’s they had a short series (by Peter Mulligan? Maybe?) about some random idiot being transported to a dimension of horrible creatures that looked like bipedal hammerhead sharks with a secondary giant mouth in their necks. Of course, he was considered to be the repulsive monster in their dimension, and the daughter of the scientist investigating him was considered quite the beauty, even if, to the human reader, she was clearly as disgusting as the rest of her species. > > When she helps him escape and they end up forgetting about each other’s looks and sharing a kiss in her car, it was written like a completely natural thing. Very clever deconstruction of this particular trope. _Freaks_, by Pete Milligan and John Higgins. I’ve been trying to remember that one. [: shallow vacuous Earth creep Carl Woolf is abducted for his knowledge of Earth weapons.](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-y_0c0wIygAk/Vc4iHu6P7jI/AAAAAAAADBc/RyaDCc3xrvI/s1600/A%2Bbomb.JPG) [We were so spoiled for quality each week back then, and we didn’t even know it.](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8e/d0/6e/8ed06ee305f199704920f72e3b9fc464.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/35 "2018-01-23T20:37:52Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > **Splice** has the male lead getting willingly ‘seduced’ by the goat-legged, stinger-tailed, skin-winged Dren. He obviously has romantic feelings for her (made weirder by the fact that she’s sort of his adopted daughter). The male character in that film is definitely creepy (and morally reprehensible). > [@Trafalgar Laura](#): > > It’s hard for me to think of a modern representation, but the trope of “The Loathly Lady” can be found in a lot of older/medieval works. It’s sort of Beauty and the Beast in reverse; the love of the man breaks a curse and reveals the hideous woman to be beautiful. I knew about that trope beforehand but you’re right that it doesn’t crop up in modern works. Also, it’s noteworthy to mention that most of the time the appearance of the female remains human (albeit elderly and decrepit) rather than truly monstrous. > [@Weedy](#): > > Would Delenn from Babylon 5 count? She’s not exactly ugly but she does have bumps on her head. If she were truly ugly as well then it would be kinda weird, but I don’t think I’d think Sheridan was pathetic. I’d think he was putting his personal preferences aside for the greater good. And if it played out that he did truly love her - well, I don’t think Sheridan would. But say, Marcus, I could picture him loving an alien monstrosity and it wouldn’t be off-putting at all. In the context of the subject of this thread, stories about relationships between human and non-human aliens represent a sub-category if not a different category altogether. The “beasts” here are whole species of different beings rather than a single individual afflicted by a curse, spell, or [some sort of phlebotinum](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AppliedPhlebotinum) (or who is the last of his or her kind) and largely meant as commentary about racism, xenophobia, chauvinism, and international relationships. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/36 "2018-01-23T20:52:05Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Then there’s Galaxy Quest. [Oh, that’s not right. No.](http://oi43.tinypic.com/1zczsll.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/37 "2018-01-23T20:56:39Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > rather than truly monstrous. Eh, as I said before, the “Beast” in “Beauty & the Beast” is depicted in a traditionally masculine manner. His bestial portions are leonine (including a mane) signifying nobility and strength. I get that, within the story, he’s supposed to be seen as a terrifying monster-person but the film depiction of him is carefully crafted so you can get behind Belle falling in love with him. If you wanted “truly monstrous”, have the Beast be a bat-winged millipede dripping in slime and shrieking from a dozen unholy mouths or something. Disregarding a man falling in love with a hag just because she’s not bestial feels flawed and rather arbitrary. After all, in Avatar, the main character falls in love with a sexy blue cat-woman but no one sees that and thinks “Hey, it’s like Beauty & the Beast” due to her (also feline) bestial looks. But the same character falling in love with a decrepit and ugly old woman would seem, if anything, more unlikely than wanting to tangle hair-tentacles with the alien chick. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2018, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/38 "2018-01-24T04:13:04Z")
The was a movie that MST3K Mike era riffed on called _The She-Creature_ that might fit the gender flipped thing. In it, a greasy carnival hypnotist played by Chester Morris regresses a woman back through her past lives until she emerges from the ocean as a fish monster with huge tits. Yup, and once upon a time Chester Morris was up for Best Actor too. In _The Big House_, with Wallace Beery. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2018, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/39 "2018-01-24T09:13:09Z")
> [@Two\_Many\_Cats](#): > > The was a movie that MST3K Mike era riffed on called _The She-Creature_ that might fit the gender flipped thing. In it, a greasy carnival hypnotist played by Chester Morris regresses a woman back through her past lives until she emerges from the ocean as a fish monster with huge tits. The monster was also played by a burly stunt_man_ thereby adding more gender confusion. Also, I don’t think the “female” monster had a relationship with the male lead in the movie. > [@Jophiel](#): > > \*n Avatar, the main character falls in love with a sexy blue cat-woman but no one sees that and thinks “Hey, it’s like Beauty & the Beast” due to her (also feline) bestial looks. But the same character falling in love with a decrepit and ugly old woman would seem, if anything, more unlikely than wanting to tangle hair-tentacles with the alien chick I think human/alien relationships represent a different category but your **Avatar** example does touch on the fact in stories of this type, it’s usually considered more important for a non-human female in a relationship with a human male to be attractive than a non-human male in a relationship with a human female. (At TV Tropes, this is discussed on the [Cute Monster Girl](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CuteMonsterGirl) page.) That’s why, as I said previously, it’s especially difficult to effectively pull-off a gender-flipped version of a B&tB/ **Shape of Water** type story since the female “monster” character would have to be given obvious feminine physical characteristics (even if they didn’t make sense biologically) so she would be believeably attractive to the male human character. That would effectively negate the whole point of the story. Anyway, if I may go off topic a bit, David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of **The Fly** was disturbing variation on the B&tB theme (albeit in a good way). However, does anybody think the film would’ve been much more disturbing if instead of Jeff Goldblum’s character, Geena Davis’ character was the one who had the teleporter accident and ended up horrifically mutating into a human/fly hybrid? ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2018, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173/40 "2018-01-24T14:22:39Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > The monster was also played by a burly stunt_man_ thereby adding more gender confusion. Also, I don’t think the “female” monster had a relationship with the male lead in the movie. Actually, she sorta kinda did, in a #metoo kinda way. The oily hypnotist, Carlo Lombardi was regressing his compliant but still unwilling stage act assistant through her past lives in an effort to find an incarnation of her that didn’t find him repulsive or at least that was implied. “I can turn you into Elizabeth Weatherby, (one of her past lives) but I can’t make you love me,” he whines at one point. Finally, the scaly big-boobed She-Creature shows up to give him a fatal ‘no-means-no!’ karate chop. The assistant wakes up and walks off with the bland non-villainous leading man, by the way. So there’s that too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-shape-of-water-the-beauty-and-the-beast-theme-and-gender-perspectives/807173.md?page=3)