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Beauty and the Humblebrag

The top definition of “Humblebrag” on Urban Dictionary is, “Subtly letting others know about how fantastic your life is while undercutting it with a bit of self-effacing humor or ‘woe is me’ gloss.” Another definition from the site includes the example, “Your inflatable inner-tube is way cooler than my 80-foot yacht. You get to be so much closer to the water and to nature. I envy you, I really do.”

Disney’s live-action remake of “Beauty and the Beast” is Disney’s humblebrag. It’s trying to be humble by creating a “kids’” movie (more on that later), but doing so in such an extravagant way that it appeals to a substantially older audience with its excessive sumptuousness.

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Dan Stevens, as the Beast, and Emma Watson, as Belle, in the film "Beauty and the Beast." (Source: Tribune News Service)

While watching the movie, I was hearing a Disney humblebrag in my head, “It’s such a pain when we have to drop 160 million on a simple kids’ movie. If only we could go back to animation!”

All of the recent live-action Disney remakes, “Beauty and the Beast,” “Cinderella,” “The Jungle Book” and “Maleficent,” have me wondering if these movies are anything more than a chance for Disney to show off their grandiose budget and grab dollars from the generation that grew up watching these movies.

The incredible castle, outrageous costumes, hyper-realistic animation and star-studded cast of this remake are unnecessary if they are simply trying to make a “kids'” movie.

They don’t need to add the controversy with LeFou, the violence of Gaston, the romance of Lumiere and the feather duster and the death of Belle’s mother if they are trying to appeal to five-year-olds. Their target was the millennial generation.

I enjoy mile-thick plots, intrigue and mystery, so when I attended “Beauty and the Beast,” I was impressed by this added depth to the characters; Those not-necessarily-kid-friendly scenes were the ones that interested me, and I assume the other millennial moviegoers.

But aside from being thrown those scraps of backstory, most of the other scenes in the film offered little brain food. During the “Be our Guest” scene of the film, the animation, props, colors, lighting and fireworks were so overdone I couldn’t even concentrate. It was a show for my eyes — not for my brain — and it struck me as the most obnoxious exhibit of Disney’s exorbitance.

This “Be our Guest” scene was the most humblebrag-y scene of the whole movie. “We will just HAVE to drop millions on the ‘Be our Guest’ scene, or our audience will FREAK. Can you guys be a little less demanding? Ugh.”

My personal favorite definition of “humblebrag” from Urban Dictionary is “A comment on something completely innocuous, as a vehicle to deliver the real message, which invariably shows the person in a favourable light.”

Disney filmed something completely innocuous, “Beauty and the Beast,” as a vehicle to deliver their real message: We have enough money to do whatever we want, which, obviously, puts them in a favorable light.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present “Beauty and the Humblebrag/Outrageous Millennial Moneygrab that You all Have Either Paid to See or Will Still Pay to See Despite this Column.”

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