At the beginning of the story, we see Belle singing about how all of the women around her are a bunch of losers for settling down in their small town and raising families. She sings a song that expresses her desire for adventure away from the horrid life of being a wife and mother. She longs for someone to "get her," so of course she wants a companion, but not the life that would naturally/biologically result from having a companion. Of course, she ends up with that very thing in the end and that's why everyone is satisfied with the movie as one that has a happy ending.
Hollywood tends to play in contradictory pools of thought quite often, and "Beauty and the Beast" is no different. But in the real world, the sentiment expressed by Belle at the beginning of the movie is one that is selfish, rejects the function of the imago Dei assigned to women according to the Bible and their biology, and is the type of brainwashing that only ditsy American women who never grow out of their teenage, romantic fantasies, which look at life as one big cheap thrill after another, would buy into.
Seeking for romance and adventure instead of a life of sacrifice to give oneself over to create and preserve human life by first giving oneself to a spouse and then over to children, creating a family that then strengthens human society in general and worships God, is nothing short of the original sin. It is Eve saying that she thinks the fruit of seeking her own desired goals, in contradiction to God's goals for her, are more desirable to the taste. It is the throwing off of the role of the image to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion through that creational chain in order to live in the delusion that happiness is found in pretending that we are the true objects of worship and should forge our own destinies regardless of our hardwired natures.
So the new postmodern dream for us is to live for the romantic thrill, regardless of who is harmed. I've seen married women trapped in the futility of their adolescent sentiments destroy their families because they were so preoccupied with finding romance and adventure that they were willing to destroy their families over it. In the end, the Satanic vision of Genesis 3, to direct our own paths as gods, devours human lives. A trade must take place. After all, cheap thrills aren't free. What do we call people who destroy other people for their own pleasure? Oh, right, "monsters," "beasts."
So, you see, Belle is the beast in the story. To be sure, the prince is a beast at the very beginning, but not so much when he meets Belle. Nor is he anything near as beastly as Belle is in the beginning.
The good news is that there is a happy ending. Belle settles down, gets married, and runs her legitimate household. She becomes beauty in the end. And then we see that it was all just a nod to our feminist culture, so that no one would get upset when what, down deep, everyone knows should happen for a happy ending to occur actually happens, and it isn't shunning the family to go on an adventure. It's participating in the beauty of God's creative work in the world by co-creating and preserving with Him human life. Such only happens by seeking joy in this "provincial life."
