No spoilers are mentioned in the following article.

Five.

The magic number. The year where I would watch one of the most influential things of all time - Beauty and the Beast. I was five years old when I watched my first animated Disney film. I was five and clueless and very impressionable. Maybe even ignorant too, because as I viewed Disney's live action movie of this enchanting tale - as I relived the scenes through Emma Watson's character - I was hit with the shocking realization that the story of Belle and who she was, had greatly shaped who I had become as a person.

First of all, let's establish what Beauty and the Beast even is. It is a story based on a traditional French fairy tale written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot. Originally titled La Belle et la bete, the story had been adapted as a major animation film in 1991 and again, in 2017 with a live cast. While it diverges a bit from the original story, Beauty and the Beast still retains the same idea of a small, French village girl, mustering enough courage to take up her father's prison sentence in a cursed castle. There, she is acquainted with a seemingly brutish monster who she later falls in love with and realizes is the prince.

At first, it seems like any other kind of romantic Disney princess plot, but to a child - especially one who has never heard or seen other princess films in general - it becomes something more. Beauty and the Beast, while superficial to some with its echoed sentiment of beauty within being more important, is quite influential to younger audiences. Depicting a heroine who is ostracized by others due to her pursuit of brains over boys and books over looks, the film imprints this idea into impressionable minds that you don't have to be like others to find happiness and peace.

Beauty and the Beast told me that you don't need the approval of others to be content with life. That striving for something that society wants you to be, but you yourself aren't - creates for a very superficial life. Which is ironic since Belle reads books to escape that kind of reality. Anyway, Beauty and the Beast, in general, has helped me to build a sort of barricade to useless criticism and peer pressure. It has pushed me to prioritize what I want and who I want to be over the things others want me to become. For that reason, I too am shameless when I say that I would rather books over looks and brains over boys. Belle told me that they were unnecessary if what you sought in life was something more - and that those who would accept me would be the ones who saw me for who I truly am. And for that, I am thankful.

It also goes to say that Beauty and the Beast have also 'Frenchified' me as I am now moderatly fluent in French and am aspiring to one day devour every crevice of the country with my very own eyes one day.