GASTON (BEAUTY AND THE BEAST)

'Gaston' is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Disney's 1991 animated classic ''Beauty and the Beast''. He is voiced by Reverend/Actor Richard White. The character loosely resembles Belle's suitor ''Avenant'' in the 1946 french film ''La Belle et la Bête''.

Contents

Character background

Statistics

Trivia

In other media

Character background

Gaston starts off as a local hero in a French town where the movie takes place. A big, muscular man with his long black hair pulled back into a ponytail, Gaston is a self-centered, narcissistic, rude, cross, and conceited man loved and admired (especially by three dimwitted and fangirlish blonde bimbettes) by almost everyone in the village, except for the one woman he is obsessed with and determined to marry: Belle. Gaston is portrayed as being strongly chauvinistic towards women despite his claims of loving the ladies. He calls Belle his "little wife", and saying that they will have six or seven "strapping boys" like himself (and no girls) and also says that it is inappropriate for a woman to read books because "soon she starts getting ideas and thinking". Gaston isn't very intelligent himself - Belle tells him he is "''Positively primeval''," which he takes as a compliment. His hobbies include spitting (at which he excels), testing the strength and girth of his neck with a belt, eating vast quantities of raw eggs to maintain his admittedly stunning physique, and sitting in a formidable bearskin chair. He takes considerable pride in the fact that he uses antlers in all of his decorating. Although conceited, he is perhaps to be admired for his courage in preparing a wedding ceremony outside of Belle's cottage, ''prior'' to proposal.
Gaston tries many attempts to win Belle's heart, but his arrogance and self-centeredness always manages to ruin them. One day, Gaston organizes a wedding in Belle's garden, and enters Belle's house to try and woo her. "Woo her" is, in fact, too generous a term for it; he decides on his own that she will marry him and only later informs her of this. However, Belle rejects him and sends him flying into a muddy pond in her garden, where he is laughed at by the villagers. Taking his anger out on the laughing LeFou, his closest companion, and his lackey, Gaston declares that he has not given up and will make Belle his wife no matter what.
But Gaston doesn't stop fuming there, cursing out loud and shouting in the local bar in a drunken haze. LeFou tries to persuade Gaston to believe that there are other things to life besides women, and manages to cheer the demoralized hunter up by singing a song about him. Then Belle's father, Maurice enters the bar, claiming that a Beast has locked Belle in a dungeon and desperately needs help, especially Gaston's. But Gaston, along with most of the village, believes Maurice to be an insane old fool and orders his cohorts to throw Maurice out of the bar. But when he hears the villagers mutter "crazy old Maurice", a plan comes to Gaston's foul mind: one that will ensure Belle's proposal to him.

Gaston makes a deal with his old friend Monsieur D'Arque, the owner of the local madhouse (Maison de Lunes - French for 'Asylum for Loons'), to blackmail Belle into marrying him by threatening to have Maurice thrown into the madhouse should she reject him one more time. Gaston pays D'Arque a bagful of gold and seals the deal. He then goes with LeFou to Belle's house to put his plan into action, only to discover that Belle and Maurice are not in. Gaston orders LeFou to stay by the house and inform him of Belle and Maurice's eventual return.
Upon being informed by LeFou when the pair return, Gaston (secretly) brings a lynch mob to take Maurice to the madhouse. Maurice tries to tell the crowd that the Beast was real, but they just laugh at him and D'Arque has his guards carry Maurice to the madhouse carriage, despite Belle begging him not to. Gaston then intervenes by expressing his "pity" for Maurice, and tells Belle that he knows Maurice is not crazy and may be able to "clear up the misunderstanding" if she agrees to marry him. Disgusted beyond explanation at Gaston (realizing that he organized the arrest), Belle pushes Gaston away, and the hunter angrily walks off to laugh at Maurice.
But Belle uses the magic mirror that the now-kind Beast had given her earlier on to prove once and for all that her father is not crazy, much to Gaston's fury. Hearing Belle describe the Beast as a kind and gentle friend, Gaston immediately assumes that Belle has fallen for Beast and not him, and completely loses control of himself and his temper, when Belle defends the Beast against him by calling ''him'' the true monster.

Feeling betrayed and furious, Gaston loses his mind when he takes the mirror and convinces the lynch mob that the Beast is a threat to the society and must be killed. The rioters throw Belle and Maurice into the house's cellar to stop them from warning Beast, and led by Gaston, attack Beast's castle using a log they cut earlier to break the door down. However, led by the Head Servant Lumiere, the castle servants (humanoid household objects) fight the rioters back and ultimately drive them out of the castle. But Gaston deserts the battle and runs deeper into the castle to find the Beast.
Gaston eventually finds the Beast, who has lost interest in living and become depressed since Belle's departure, in the West Wing and starts his merciless torture by shooting him in the back with an arrow and smashing him straight through the window to the West Wing's balcony. Hitting the Beast to a lower level of the roof, Gaston demands that Beast retaliate, but he doesn't, so Gaston prepares to kill the Beast with a stone club ripped off the roof. However, Belle and Maurice return at the last minute, and upon seeing Belle, Beast is reenergized and he fights back.
Beast eventually gains the upper hand, holding Gaston above a chasm on the roofs of the castle, but Gaston begs for his life, and Beast, knowing that he can't find it in his heart to kill anyone, spares him, telling him to leave. But when Beast turns his back to go back to Belle, Gaston follows him and, hanging dangerously from a balcony, stabs Beast in the back. Beast, in pain, waves his arm at Gaston which causes him to lose his balance. With a scream, Gaston falls off the roof of the castle and plunges into the deep chasm, taking the mirror with him.

Statistics

'Friends': Belle (has what appears to be unrequited love/lust for her), Lefou and the yokels (henchmen), Bimbettes (the bimbettes have a crush on Gaston), D'Arque (recruits D'Arque to lock Maurice away in an asylum for loons in order to get Belle to change her mind and marry him)

'Rivals': Beast (becomes jealous when Belle falls in love with the Beast instead of him), Lumiere (Lumiere leads the army of servants against Gaston's army of rioters)

Trivia

★ Though the world of ''Beauty and the Beast'' is featured on the video game ''Kingdom Hearts II'', Gaston is strangely absent, despite being the main villain of the film. 'Xaldin' of Organization XIII acts as the primary villain of the world. However, Lumiere's quote about Belle ("''She's rather unique, isn't she?''") is a possible reference to Gaston, who also believes Belle to be unique. This makes Gaston the only Disney villain absent from the ''Kingdom Hearts'' series with his world featured as a playable level.

★ Gaston is also known to wear the same, but larger in size, garments as 'Doc' from ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarves''.

★ Like many Disney villains Gaston is a representative of the evils of a certain flaw, in this case, egotism and male chauvinism. In addition, he is intended to be the mirror opposite of The Beast as a handsome man with a bestial character.

★ During his fight against Beast, Gaston was originally supposed to say "It's over, Beast! Time to die!". But it was changed to "Belle is mine!" in order to edit violence and to fit Belle back into the scene.

★ Just before he falls to his death after his attempt at stabbing the Beast, skulls appear in his pupils during two frames.

★ An in-joke among animators working on the film circulated about Gaston being the hunter responsible for the death of Bambi's mother.

★ Gaston has four songs in the musical: "Me," "Maison des Lunes," "Gaston," and "The Mob Song". The first two only appeared in the musical and were never sung by Richard White himself.

★ Gaston is noted for being the first male chauvinist in Disney's history.

★ Many fans refer to Gaston as "a buffet of manliness"

★ Hugh Jackman played Gaston in the Melbourne production of Beauty and the Beast.

In other media

★ Gaston appears in the TV Series ''House of Mouse'' as a regular guest at the club. A recurring joke in the series is that Gaston is liable to boast that "nobody can (specific action inserted) like Gaston" whenever he overhears someone mention it, which, in one episode, fellow villain Hades mentions to be extremely annoying. This is a reference to the song "Gaston" from the original movie, in which he and the patrons of the pub sing about Gaston's greatness ("No one fights like Gaston", et cetera). In another episode, he reveals that his big secret is that he has met several people who hunt like Gaston. Those appearances are not in the same continuity as ''Beauty and the Beast'' and are not to be considered canon. Richard White reprises his role as Gaston in ''House of Mouse''.