Problem
I. According to this video, the movie Beauty and the Beast presents an account of domestic violence in which the Beast behaves in ways that are very similar to the controlling and abusive behavior that takes place in domestic violence - and that as my lecture points out is characteristic of the grooming of the victim by the abuser. In the movie, Beauty encourages the changes of the violent Beast into a kind and gentle husband-to-be - which the movie shows as taking place. This video argues that the movie is providing a message to little girls that she should love the beast and see the best in him, and as a result he will change.
II. This is a message that women who are living with domestic violence have been inculcated with in particular by their abusers (my lecture tells how) but also has long been a message also delivered by some other parts of our society - that he can grow to want to change and that it is also up to the victim to somehow influence what the batterer chooses to do, encouraging victims to believe that if she does everything "right" the violence will stop. This is absolutely not true - but can help to keep hope that he will change alive for years, while abuse continues and escalates.
III. Our society also typically puts the focus on the victims instead of the abusers. The question asked is often "why doesn't she leave" (although she has been carefully taught by her abuser, and often by other aspects of society, to think she should stay).
IV. Abusers are much less often the focus of social and media inquiry, and even when they are, it is often repeating the excuses commonly used by abusers, blaming alcohol or drugs, or "temper" for instance, although most research shows that alcohol and drugs are simply among excuses used by abusers to abuse, and in the vast majority of cases the "temper" is very selectively lost and abuse perpetrated, in private and toward domestic partners instead of bosses, friends, etc.
1. What do you think are the results of all this?
2. What, if any, impact do you think that movies like this may have on how abuse is understood and responded to? Explain.
3. What are some excuses, in addition to those above, are used by abusers to abuse?
4. What questions should be asked, and of whom?
5. What might make it terribly difficult to leave an abusive relationship?