Memoir: Beastly Things

I loved "Beauty and the Beast" in childhood. If you were a gay kid, you weren't going to see yourself reflected--in a straightforward, honest way--on-screen, in a Disney film. So you made do with what you could get. And what you could get was Howard Ashman.

We all know Belle is a gay man in secret. She is sort of dreamy and odd, repressing her pain via fastidious hours and hours of reading, hoping for another life, perhaps in a big city. (At my first job, my boss blithely told my colleague, "Well, of course he's gay. He went to Yale. That's where all the gay boys go.")

We can imagine young Belle burying the fact that she is an outcast--channeling her anger into obsessive days and weeks with lists of SAT words--hoping to reap her reward one day at Harvard, etc. This is the story of many gay boys.

And yet: Watching "Beauty at the Beast" at Paper Mill several days ago, I found myself surprised. I was surprised by how irritating Belle is. Belle--my former hero! She is so god-damned perfect in every scene. She is kind to her dotty father (who is *also* coded as superior to the villagers), she laughs with the charming, talking kitchen appliances, she is actually miraculously patient with the Beast after just a few understandably-charged interactions.

Disney seems to want me to feel that Belle changes just as much as the Beast does--that Belle "learns a lesson." But does she, really? She is *right* to feel enraged at the Beast in the early scenes. The Beast has wronged her! When she sings, in Act Two, "Now he's dear and so unsure....I wonder why I didn't see it there before..." I'm actually baffled. She didn't see it there before BECAUSE IT WASN'T THERE! It's not as if she has blinders that need to be removed. The Beast is a dick, and then he isn't anymore. Belle adjusts her responses accordingly.

Watching at Paper Mill, I found myself--suddenly--much more interested in the Beast. The moments that really move me, now, are Beast-centric. I'm moved when the Beast has Belle at the table, and he has to catch himself and stop literally pouncing on his soup bowl. He has fucked up! He is identifiable! (Belle--tediously--has the perfect, gracious reply. Of course she does.) I'm moved when the Beast gets so jazzed about Arthur and the Stone, and when the Beast confesses the fact of his illiteracy. (Yes, Belle says, "People find me odd, too," but people also find her to be a stunning beauty queen; things don't quite compute.)

I'm moved, too, when the Beast lets Belle go free. This is really hard; there's clearly a struggle within him. We see him growing and changing. He seems so much more compelling than his co-lead, who starts brave, and stays brave, blah blah blah.

Also, a new source of frustration with Ashman: I do sense he was angry about his HIV, and the failure of the US to respond in a thoughtful way, and how could anyone blame him for this? But I feel the anger weakens his art, in this case: The depiction of Gaston, and the commoners, seems bratty and judgmental, and Ashman actually loses my sympathy, to some extent, for a while. There is a sense of something shallow and infantile.

I just think you have to be honest when you're talking about your heroes. Empty praise is empty. We demand the most from people who are brilliant. These thoughts have been weighing on me for a while, and I just had to air them. Feel free to disagree....

How to Host a Baby

-You have assumed responsibility for a mewling, puking ball of life, a yellow-lab pup. He will spit his half-digested kibble all over your shoes, all over your hard-cover edition of Jennifer Haigh's novel Faith . He will eat your tables, your chairs, your "I {Heart] Montessori" magnet, placed too low on the fridge. When you try to watch Bette Davis in Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte , on your TV, your dog will bark through the murder-prologue, for no apparent reason. He will whimper through Lena Dunham's Girls , such that you have to rewind several times to catch every nuance of Andrew Rannells's ad-libbing--and, still, you'll have a nagging suspicion you've missed something. Your dog will poop on the kitchen floor, in the hallway, between the tiny bars of his crate. He'll announce his wakefulness at 5 AM, 2 AM, or while you and another human are mid-coitus. All this, and you get outside, and it's: "Don't let him pee on my tulips!" When...

Joshie

When I was growing up, a class birthday involved Hostess cupcakes. Often, the cupcakes would come in a shoebox, so you could taste a leathery residue (during the party). Times change. You can't bring a treat into a public school, in 2024, because heaven knows what kind of allergies might lurk, in unseen corners, in the classroom. But Joshua's teacher will allow: a dance party, a pajama day, or a guest reader. I chose to bring a story for Joshua's birthday (observed), but I didn't think through the role that anxiety might play in this interaction. We talk, in this house, quite a bit about anxiety; one game-changer, for J, has been a daily list of activities, so that he knows exactly what to expect. He gets a look of profound satisfaction when he sees the agenda; it doesn't really matter what the specific events happen to be. It's just about knowing, "I can anticipate X, Y, and Z." Joshua struggled with his celebration. He wore his nervousness on his f...

Josh at Five

Joshie's project is "flexibility"; the goal is to see that a plan is just an idea, not a gospel, not a guarantee. This is difficult. Yesterday, we went to a restaurant--billed as "open," with unlocked doors--and the owner informed us of an "error in advertising." But Joshie couldn't accept the word "closed." He threw himself on the floor, then climbed on the furniture. I felt for the owner, until he nervously made a reference to "the glass windows." He imagined that my child might toss himself through a sealed window, like Mary Katherine Gallagher, or like Bruce Willis, in "Die Hard." Then--thank the Lord!--I was able to laugh. The thing that really has therapeutic value for Joshie is: a firetruck. If we are out in public, and he spots a parked truck, he wants to climb on each surface. He breathlessly alludes to the wheels, the door, the windows. If an actual fire station ("fire ocean," in Joshie's parla...

Liars and Saints

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