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Entertainment February 17, 2017
Emma Watson is already beloved for her work as smart and resourceful witch Hermione Granger in the “Harry Potter” series.
But once fans see her as the new Belle for Disney’s reimagined, live-action “Beauty in the Beast,” they’re going to love her even more.
That’s because the known feminist – a face of the HeForShe campaign – has tweaked the character, in order to “create a bit more of a backstory for her.”
The Emma Watson Belle Beauty and the Beast revival will feature more of a backstory. Image via Warner Bros.
As Belle sings her introductory song that there “must be more than this provincial life,” viewers will see little boys being taken off to school, while little girls are made to stay behind and do the laundry.
That’s why Belle – who is the inventor, not her father – creates “essentially a prototype for the first washing machine” in order to make time not only for herself to read, but to teach young girls in the village to as well.
“They don’t think women should read, and it goes further than that… They are deeply suspicious of intelligence,” Watson told Entertainment Weekly, of the villagers. “They don’t like anything that’s foreign, that might be beyond their realm of experience.”
RELATED: Why Emma Watson Is Perfect For ‘Beauty and the Beast’
Belle is made to feel isolated – not unlike the Beast (Dan Stevens) – for her intelligence and her creation, which the villagers eventually smash to pieces. “Breaking the washing machine is symbolic of not just them breaking something she spent hours working on, but them really trying to break her spirit and trying to push her and mold her into a more ‘acceptable’ version of herself,” Watson said.
“I think that happens a lot with women and a lot with young girls,” she said, bringing the movie’s message into reality. It’s no surprise the actress and activist would be passionate about such a role, having been appointed the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador back in July 2014.
In the Emma Watson Belle Beauty and the Beast reimagining, the character teaches a young villager to read.
She famously introduced the HeForShe campaign at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in 2014, saying, “I want men to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters and mothers can be free from prejudice but also so that their sons have permission to be vulnerable and human too — reclaim those parts of themselves they abandoned and in doing so be a more true and complete version of themselves.”
So it seems Watson has channeled that feminist and progressive spirit into reshaping Belle for the upcoming live-action “Beauty and the Beast.” And we can’t wait to see it.
Is it March 17 yet?
