Dehumanizing the Human
Dehumanization is “the denial of humanness in others and suffering that accompanies it”. Often in fairy tales, characters are turned into animals as a consequence of faulty decision-making or displaying bad morals. This transformation into something nonhuman is often a punishment for a character’s actions. The character is stripped of their human-like qualities because some spirit, spell, or being deems them unworthy of being human.
Many of the characters are transformed into other beings or objects to symbolize their inhuman behavior. Therefore, to learn the lesson, they can often transform back to a human, as long as they display good human qualities including love, loyalty, selflessness, etc.
In Beauty and the Beast, the classic fairy tale written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, a young prince is turned into a beast when an enchantress proves him to be cruel and selfish. The appearance of the beast is meant to teach him a lesson about judging someone on appearance and arrogance. To teach him to be more human.
Belle treated the Beast with empathy, compassion, and kindness, even when the Beast was rude and aggressive. Over her time in captivity, because Belle is so forgiving, she sees the good in him, the human in him, even if only in small ways. She teaches him to be gentle and kind, to the point where he releases her as his prisoner, despite his knowing that she may never come back.
The image to the left is from the Disney retelling of Beauty and the Beast. In this scene, Belle confesses her love to the Beast, breaking the spell, transforming him back into a human. It is love that is the “cure” to his nonhuman qualities. The love makes him vulnerable, causes his selfishness and narcissism to go away.
The Disney Pixar movie Brave is based on Scottish folklore and culture. In the movie, there is a giant black bear named Mor’du, who is angry and dangerous to those in the Scottish kingdom. Over the course of the movie, Merida, the protagonist, learns about the Legend of Mor’du, in which a king had four sons. When the king died, the four sons were to lead the kingdom together, but the eldest son was greedy and wanted the kingdom for himself. The brothers fought for the kingdom to a stalemate, and the eldest brother went to a witch for a spell to make him more powerful. There was a twist, however, as the spell turned him into a huge black bear. He then had two options: to “mend the bond torn by pride” or be a beast forever. Mor’du was taken over by his strength and pride and killed his three brothers, dooming him to remain a bear forever.
The eldest brother’s transformation into a bear is a physical transition from human to nonhuman, but it also metaphorically represents him choosing to indulge in his less human qualities. Though anger, jealousy, and greed are all qualities that humans possess, he chose to let them take over and lost his humanity. Committing the murder of his own brothers showed the true, irreversible loss of Mor’du’s humanity.
The Emperor’s New Groove is another Disney movie that shows transformation as a form of punishment. The name of the movie is a twist on the classic fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes, but the plot is not anything like the tale. Kuzco is an emperor who is selfish, rude, and has no respect for others. Yzma, the antagonist who is trying to take over the kingdom, tries to poison Kuzco but ends up turning him into a llama by accident.
As the movie progresses, he goes on a journey to get a vial of a potion in order to turn himself back into a human. Through this journey, he meets and befriends a poorer man, who teaches him humility, responsibility, and how to care for others despite the emperor’s disdain for the people in his kingdom. At the end of the movie, they retrieve the vial and are able to turn Kuzco back into a human. When he becomes human again, he becomes an emperor who cares for the common people in his kingdom and makes amends to those he hurt.
There are countless other examples of this theme within both fairy tales and other forms of entertainment. The moral of the story is, to put it simply, to treat others the way that we want to be treated. However prevalent it may be, this trope is still a critical reminder that we must value and protect our humanity, or else.
