As the film was heading toward its premiere, Ashman was dying of AIDS.

It's said that Howard Ashman, the lyricist on Disney's 1991 animated Beauty and the Beast (and The Little Mermaid and Little Shop of Horrors), identified with the character of the beast. The X-Men can be read as an allegory for the ostracization of LGBTQ people the Hunchback of Notre Dame is similarly 'ugly' in the eyes of society. We create these monsters, and then make peace with those monsters.' BATB takes its place alongside other classic examples of outcasts (a trait over which Belle and the beast bond in the live-action version). I don't think Madame de Beaumont emphasized this, but the monster is a projection of our own anxieties. 'The other side is, this is a story that tells us about monstrosity. That's not all: 'That's one side of the message,' explains Tatar. Or whatever else you were hoping for in a husband. 'A person does not have to be necessarily good-looking.' Or young. 'It was a story that sent…a beautiful message about the power of love and the importance of valuing character,' says Tatar.

In a way BATB is a comforting story of how even if this happens to you, you can make the best of it and get to know the person you don't have to be scared and feel doomed.

So much about the tale makes sense now, right? To a girl of, say, 13, a man who has gone through puberty is basically a huge, scary, smelly beast.

Beauty and the Beast instaling