The thing is that there were many things wrong with the beast, all the story seems a lot less romantic when you remember he's keeping her prisoner. However, this doesn't change the fact that Gaston is everything you mentioned, and that this is a clear case of Dracoin Leather Pants.
People who support Gaston are mostly joking in my experience. The issue is the Beast has his own issues [he is at least slightly abusive initially for understandable reasons] and a sympathetic interpretation can be given to Gaston but it's made pretty clear within the film itself that it's mostly Gaston's ego doing the footwork. Some sympathy might be given that he tried to save her before it turned into a thing about murdering the beast out of jealousy.
Overall, the Draco in pants is mostly from Gaston having an awesome song about how awesome he is. Narratively, it shows why he is horrible but from my own part watching, I thought it was a cool song and he scored points in my book for it. Now, if the question of "If you were Belle would you want to date this guy" is a very different question which often overlooked for "Who did you enjoy watching more?"
Even thought he Beast wasn't better or worse, Gaston is still a villain. Unlike the Beast, Gaston had zero redeeming qualities. Gaston only saved her for his own selfish reasons, so the Beast couldn't have her...I bet he could care less about the village if Belle didn't exist. There are some fans who only sympathize with him because he got rejected, not because of his song (no offense, and BTW, the song is a popular meme).
Me, I think the movie gave bad lessons about staying with guys with bad tempers, but that doesn't mean that Gaston is a Designated Villain or a "Saint."
Yes, and I guess pestering a girl you like, locking her and her father away in an asylum, and attempting to murder someone who hasn't done anything to people is a great way to show you love someone.
They think he's hot. That's pretty much it.
Pat is right, as sad and as unfortunate as that is. That reasoning is the reason why crap like Twilight exists.
A lot of the Gaston sympathy is based on "everybody is Jesus in purgatory" or wild mass guessing
Gaston is in no way a saint at all, most of the people arguing usually talk about him in comparison to Beast, and Beast shares almost all of Gaston's bad traits.
Okay, I'm ignoring the 'If you love it, set it free' thing because... quite honestly, that thing bugs me. Call it a personal pet peeve.
I have no idea what you mean by the accidental aesops BATB gave off about relationships. Contrary to things like 50 Shades, it never came across as a 'I can change him, momma' bad boy thing. The Beast was... uh, a beast. But he had good reason for it. He was cursed for years, isolated, his mind was going and the isolation only 'helped' with that. The Beast had to relearn how to properly interact with people (people who were not his servants and were actual people). He's an abusive. Sure, he slammed his fist against the door, but... that was a door. He had temper tantrums, but that's to be expected from a spoiled-rotten little brat that grew up without proper consequences.
@RWB2: Huh? The Beast is not misogynistic, Gaston is. Gaston never realizes that he wants to do something for someone else just to do something for them. The Beast did that, with the library scene. The Beast never forced Belle into marriage. Lumière was the one to put the idea of Belle breaking the curse into the Beast's head, but he still didn't immediately go "LOVE AND MARRY ME OR ELSE!" I think you are confusing the Beast with that atrocious PoS 'The Beast Within' by Valentino.
Gaston has my sympathy—to a certain extent of the word—for the same exact reason Bieber and his "superstar" ilk does. When you go through life being told at every turn that everything you do is awesome, that your shit is made of gold and smells of roses and you can do no wrong, you almost inevitably end up an egocentric twat with the moral compass of a sea monkey. I blame the enabling suck-ups around him on much the same level as the man himself for Gaston turning out like he did.
...That being said though, Gaston is a fucking awesome villain to which this movie's all-encompassing awesomeness owes no small amount of credit. If there's ever established some sort of court tribunal for video game crimes of significant magnitude, one Tetsuya Nomura should be one of the first to be put on there for foregoing Gaston as a Kingdom Hearts villain over his emo fangirl-bait "original" characters. Nonexistence doesn't have to mean "generic", you know.
By the way, the real villain of the movie is the old woman who cursed the Beast. Her reasons for cursing him were: not letting a creepy, old lady he didn\'t know into the castle when he was 11 or 12. That\'s it.
Also, given that the origina was about Arranged Marriage it makes sense that some of the Aesops fall flat today. But it\'s not Stockholm Syndrome as many like to claim.
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I love this movie, but HOW can anyone sympathize with Gaston??!
I always read the book version of the movie when I was a girl, but I watched the movie for the first time last year and I loved it. Although I disliked the accidental aesops delivered when it comes to relationships, I still managed to enjoy everything....
Now to my rant about the Draco In Leather Pants, Gaston.
People who support Gaston after watching the movie are completely missing the point of the movie! Gaston is a villain because of his narcissism and his own selfish desires! He really didn’t love Belle at all. He didn’t see her as a woman, he saw her as an object. Gaston thought that just because he was handsome, he deserved the most beautiful girl, so he kept on pestering Belle and took drastic measures to get her, even if it did involve locking her father in an asylum and killing the Beast, even though the Beast didn’t do anything wrong to him!
Belle was more than justified to reject him. People complain about girls choosing assholes, but you would support a nice girl like Belle marrying an asshole like Gaston? Hypocrite much. Gaston did not suffer from a broken heart, he suffered from a broken ego. You know the saying “If you love somebody, set them free.” Well if Gaston really loved Belle, he would have left her alone with the Beast instead of trying to kill the Beast.
Gaston brought his death on himself. The Beast spared Gaston’s life, and then Gaston deliberately chose to stab him in the back, causing the beast to accidentally make him fall to his death. He wasn’t killed because he was a douche, he was killed because he attempted to kill the Beast and what the Beast did (accidentally, mind you) was self-defense. I mean, you’d kill someone too if he or she tried to kill you too,right?
That’s the end of my review.