Gaston (Beauty and the Beast)
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| Gaston | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | Beauty and the Beast (1991) |
| Created by | Ben Bartley |
| Voiced by | Richard White (English) François Le Roux (French) Engelbert von Nordhausen (German, speaking) Peter Edelmann (German, singing) Juan Carlos Gustems (Spanish, speaking) Xavier Ribera (Spanish, singing) Emilio Guerrero (Mexican, speaking) Armando Gama (Mexican, singing) Roberto Pedicini (Italian, speaking) Carlo Lepore (Italian, singing) Garcia Júnior (Brazilian) João Craveiro Reis (Portuguese) Tsukasani Matsumoto (Japanese) |
Gaston is a fictional character and the main antagonist of Disney's 1991 animated classic Beauty and the Beast. He is voiced by reverend and actor Richard White. The character loosely resembles Belle's suitor Avenant in the 1946 French film La Belle et la Bête.
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[edit] Characteristics
A big, strong, handsome, muscular man who's "roughly the size of a barge", with "biceps to spare" (apparently so because he has been eating lots of eggs every day since he was a boy to produce his admittedly incredible physique), a huge hairy chest and long black hair pulled back into a ponytail, Gaston is a self-centered, narcissistic, rude, gross, and arrogant 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 says 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 hunting (his skill made obvious by the large amount of trophies he has amassed, which he proudly displays on the wall of the local tavern), spitting (at which he excels), testing the strength and girth of his neck with a belt, lifting a trio of pretty female admirers (and the bench they happen to be sitting on) over his head with one hand in order to show off his incredible strength, 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.
[edit] Appearances
[edit] Film
Gaston starts off as the local hero with a bumbling sidekick, "Lefou", in the French village where the film takes place, pursuing Belle through the village as she borrows a book from the local bookstore. Their meeting starts off pretty well, but Gaston's sexist remarks about women drives Belle away from him and she goes home, leaving him disappointed. The next day, Gaston organises a wedding outside Belle's garden as a surprise for her, prior to proposal. He enters Belle's house and attempts to propose to her, but his rude behaviour and idiotic remarks ruin the attempt, and Belle literally throws him out of her house, ridiculing him in front of almost the entire village.
Gaston doesn't stop there, however, as the villagers in a local pub, along with Lefou, sing a song about Gaston's greatness to cheer him up after being rejected by Belle, when Maurice storms in and warns the villagers about the beast. Thinking he is insane, Gaston orders the villagers to throw him out of the bar. However, after Gaston hears villagers mumble "crazy old maurice", he decides to use the village's dislike of Belle's father, Maurice, to his advantage: by paying his friend, Monsieur D'Arque, to help him organise a lynch mob to take Maurice to the local madhouse unless Belle agrees to marry him, but Belle manages to prove her father's apparently insane claims about a Beast inhabiting in the huge castle in the woods to be true by using a magic mirror the Beast had given her. Gaston grows even more frustrated after his plan fails, but he completely cracks upon learning that Belle has fallen for the Beast and not him.
In a homicidal rage, Gaston convinces the villagers that the Beast is a man-eating monster that has to be brought down immediately, and locking Belle and Maurice in the cellar of their home, Gaston leads the lynch mob to storm Beast's castle and leave none alive. In the ensuing battle between the rioters and castle servants, Gaston confronts the Beast alone. He fires an arrow into him, tosses him onto a lower section of the roof and taunts him. When Beast doesn't respond, Gaston breaks off a stone projection to use as a club and kill the Beast. But when Beast sees Belle down below his strength returns. He faces Gaston and they fight their own battle. The Beast soon has Gaston at his mercy but spares him because he knows he isn't a monster like Gaston. However when Beast climbs up on a balcony to Belle, Gaston manages to stab the Beast in the back with a dagger and mortally wound him, only to lose his footing and fall off the castle roof into a deep ravine.
[edit] In other media
- Gaston appears in the television series House of Mouse and in the special Mickey's House of Villains 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 (specific action inserted). In one episode, fellow villain Hades retorts mockingly to one of Gaston's boasts, " nobody can be extremely annoying like Gaston". The ongoing joke is a reference to the song "Gaston" from the film, in which he and the patrons of the pub sing about Gaston's greatness ("No one fights like Gaston", etc.). 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.
- Although the world based on Beauty and the Beast (Beast's Castle) appears in the Square-Enix video game, Kingdom Hearts II, Gaston is absent from the level, despite being the main villain of the film, making Gaston the only Disney villain not to appear so far in the Kingdom Hearts series with his world featured as a playable level. However, his silhouette makes an appearance in the first game's prologue on the Beauty and the Beast podium along with those of Belle, Beast, Lumiere, Cogsworth and Mrs Potts.
- In the Melbourne production of Beauty and the Beast, Gaston is portrayed by Hugh Jackman.
