Member-only story
“Beauty & the Beast” in Our Time
The major myth of our era (the LATimes Book Review)
Sometimes extraordinary things happen to ordinary people, even professors. First I had a phone call from a program director at BBC4 in England. He was thinking about doing a program about fairy tales. “I wonder,” he asked, “do you think fairy tales say anything to us today? I mean, do they provide paradigms or something like that? I apologize for being so vague but, for example, what do you think about Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast?’ ”
An hour later, the phone rang again. This time it was a film producer. “We’re trying to expand our list,” she explained, “and we’ve realized we’re weak in potential children’s films. Can you recommend some books we might consider? We’re thinking about the incredible popularity of Disney’s ‘Beauty and the Beast.’ ”
Both phone calls began in the same introductory fashion: “I (or my secretary) took the class you teach in children’s literature, and we’re wondering whether we could”–both used the same ominous phrase–“pick your brain.” With those two phone calls, a magic wand passed over me and I was suddenly changed from a drudge facing a desk covered with student papers into, well, maybe not a prince, but a Resource Person!
