A year ago, I wrote an essay based upon my research on Stockholm Syndrome and its (lack of) existence in the 1991 film Beauty and the Beast.

I've posted this before in my original random book, but since I've gained a lot of new friends and followers since then, I've decided to post it again in case there's anyone out there who's under the impression that Belle has Stockholm Syndrome.

Get ready to have your minds blown.

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According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, Stockholm Syndrome is defined as "the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with, identify with, or sympathize with his or her captor". As some misinformed people like to insist, the beloved 1991 Disney movie Beauty and the Beast appears to be a perfect example of the mental and emotional complex; the iconic story of the woman who falls in love with the beast who she had to bargain with for her father's freedom and health is clearly a twisted fairy tale version of Stockholm Syndrome, these naïve beings tend to enjoy declaring. However, if one would bother to research and discover the actual conditions and indications of this infamous subconscious disorder, the truth of this controversial theory becomes blaringly obvious.

The term "Stockholm Syndrome" originated from the infamous hostage situation that began during a bank robbery at the Sveriges Kreditbanken in Sweden's capital city, Stockholm, in August of 1973. The escaped convict, Jan-Erik Olsson, who had once staged a failed attempt to break a fellow criminal out of jail, took four of the bank's employees hostage and made demands that he would be brought "more than $700,000 in Swedish and foreign currency, a getaway car and the release of Clark Olofsson" ("The Birth of "Stockholm Syndrome," 40 Years Ago", Christopher Klein), the man who Olsson had previously endeavored to free who was currently in jail for another armed robbery and the murder of a police officer. The police complied, handing over Olofsson to the captor along with the money and even a getaway car. However, when Olsson made another demand to the police that he would be permitted to take his hostages along with him and his friend to ensure their safety, the government refused, wanting the three women and one man to be released to guarantee that they wouldn't come to harm.
For over six days, the employees were locked inside the bank with the two men, quickly gaining strange characteristics that would later baffle the public. They were calling their captors by their first names casually. When one of the hostages, Kristin Enmark, was put on the phone with Sweden's Prime Minister, she "described Olsson as kind but seemed very worried that the police would kill them all in an attack" ("Stockholm Syndrome: Definition, Cases & Treatment", Dawn Young). One day, when the chief of police was allowed inside to inspect the captives to make sure they weren't being harmed, "he noticed that the captives appeared hostile to him but relaxed and jovial with the gunmen" (Klein). Later on, the four detainees would comment on how well they thought they were treated by Olsson and Olofsson. Enmark claimed that Olsson had comforted her after a nightmare and had given her a bullet as a keepsake. When the hostages were permitted to call their families and Birgitta Lundblad couldn't get in touch with hers, the original imprisoner was said to have encouraged to not lose hope and keep on trying to reach out to them. The one male employee held captive, Sven Safstrom, would go on to say to the police, "... he treated us well... we could think of him as an emergency God" (Klein). At one point during the six days, Olsson threatened to shoot Safstrom in the leg in order to convince the police to meet his final demand, but the would-be victim just thought that it was extremely kind and generous of him to only threaten his leg and not another, more important body part. Enmark even tried to get Safstrom to take the bullet to help their captors. On the final night, when the police released tear gas into the bank and asked for the criminals to come out before their hostages, the four insisted that they come on out, yelling that they knew the officers would shoot down the two men if they walked out first.

In the aftermath of the stressful week, the world was perplexed over the former captives' behaviors and attitudes towards Olsson and Olofsson, including the captives themselves. Elisabeth Oldgren, the fourth hostage, desperately asked a psychiatrist, "Is there something wrong with me? Why don't I hate them?" (Klein). All four bank employees would be the first in history to officially be said to have Stockholm Syndrome, the term being coined after the very city they were held in.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said that Stockholm Syndrome includes three main characteristics: "Hostages have positive feelings for their captors. Victims show fear, distrust, and anger toward the authorities. Perpetrators display positive feelings toward captives as they begin to see them as human beings" (Young). Other conditions such as what follows are also usually in place: the hostage(s) has a need/want for survival, the captive(s) is stuck in the same room with their perpetrator(s) for days, and victim(s) comes to appreciate the hostage-taker(s) show some kindness towards them, or at least captor(s) not actively or continuously harming them. Stockholm Syndrome doesn't necessarily mean that the hostage develops romantic feelings towards their abductors; they could also gain platonic or maternal feelings, or even start to see the malefactor as the true victim, not themselves. Sometimes, the opposite can happen. This is called Lima Syndrome, where "the abductors begin to feel kind emotions toward their victims" ("Stockholm Syndrome", Patricia Hysell).

Now, how does all of this information apply to Beauty and the Beast? Upon rewatching the Academy Award, Grammy, and Golden Globe award-winning film with the conditions and indications in mind, one is able to apply their newfound knowledge of the syndrome to the actions and reactions of the beloved main characters, Belle and the Beast. The first thing is must be noted is that the fifth Disney princess makes the choice to stay in the castle with the enchanted prince; it was her idea to take her father's place, and the Beast gave her a chance to back out. In order for there to be a hostage situation, the victim must have gotten into the situation against their will. Instead, it was Belle herself who allowed herself to be held prisoner. Even so, the book-loving young woman still actively seeks to leave the castle- and leaps at the chance when she is able to- our second point. People with the symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome tend to want to stay with their captors as their prisoner no matter what, but Belle did leave the Beast, even after befriending him and developing a relationship. In fact, it wasn't her feelings that brought her back to the castle; it was to prevent the murder of an innocent victim, the Beast. Before even learning of the villainous Gaston's public and musical plot to kill the beast, the Disney princess didn't even mention going back to the Beast or show any signs of longing to return.

One of the conditions for Stockholm Syndrome is that the hostage was stuck in a room with their captor for a long period time. While some might argue that the Beast's colossus palace with hundreds of huge rooms counts for this situation, a counterargument would be Belle is frequently left alone by the former prince. In an FBI study, it was discovered that in order for Stockholm Syndrome to even begin to take place, the captive must be able to have many chances of social interactions with the hostage-taker. Furthermore, they have to "endure isolation from other people and have only the captor's perspective available" ("Understanding Stockholm Syndrome", Nathalie De Fabrique, Stephen J. Romano, Gregory M. Vecchi, and Vincent B. Van Hasselt). Since Belle rarely had any interactions with the Beast and she had an entire castle full of enchanted talking objects who weren't afraid to speak their minds to hang around, this condition was not present in the film.  Another point to make would be that Belle, unlike those under the influence of the mental complex, did not hold her survival as her number one priority.  If she truly cared for her safety and well-being, she would have never gone off to look for her father in the first place, let alone willingly put herself in a potentially dangerous situation with a potentially dangerous monster. Furthermore, Belle continuously went against the few rules that the Beast set out for her to obey, something that someone who truly had Stockholm Syndrome would have never done. Belle also never became thankful for being shown basic human decency. When trying to convince the angry mob that the Beast wasn't a bad guy after she made the choice to leave the castle, she did not list the things she was given during her time with him or declare her feelings towards him. Instead, the knowledge-craving princess said, "He'd never hurt anyone. I know he looks vicious, but he's really kind and gentle" (Beauty and the Beast, Linda Woolverton). She states the facts about the Beast and who he is, not her relationship with him.

Those with Stockholm Syndrome develop fear, mistrust, and other negative feelings towards the authorities trying to help them. This is yet another characteristic that Belle never displays throughout the movie, because she had no saviors; she left the Beast's castle on her own. Gaston and the townspeople never went out to search for her, and while Maurice attempted to go out to save her, in the end, it was Belle who saved her father and not the other way around. Another point that must be made is that the beauty did not change her opinion of the Beast until he changed his attitude. The four hostages during the Stockholm incident started viewing Olsson and Olofsson in positive ways, even though their treatment of them remained the same throughout the six days. Even though they did a few things that could be viewed as kind, the two men ceaselessly continued to use their captives as leverage against the police and often still threatened them. On the other hand, Belle's personal stance towards the Beast doesn't change until he begins to treat everyone, including the magical servants and herself, better, and the two find some common room. The Disney princess never feels sympathy or pity towards him, because she is never given any reason to. Additionally, Belle realizes that her opinion of the Beast is changing during the song "Something There", and is able to identify the reasons why they're changing, unlike Elisabeth Oldgren and the other former hostages.

Yes, Stockholm Syndrome is a very serious mental condition that should never be shown in a positive light, especially in a children's movie. However, the iconic female lead of the classic Disney film never once demonstrates any telltale signs of the syndrome, and any feelings that she gained towards the enchanted prince were developed for the right reasons, not because of a stressful situation messing with her psychologically. If you want to watch a Disney movie with abusive relationships, feel free to sit back and enjoy Tangled or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, both musical films with horrible relationships that are shown and portrayed as being bad and allows the main characters to escape them. Beauty and the Beast is the tale as old as time of how love can transform even the most beasty of people if we let it, not the tale of Stockholm Syndrome. Besides, it's a Disney movie, and there's nothing that Disney is more famous for than their Disney magic.

Works Cited
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Stockholm%20syndrome. "Stockholm
Syndrome." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2017 http://www.history.com/news/stockholm-syndrome Klein, Christopher. "The Birth of
"Stockholm Syndrome," 40 Years Ago." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 23
Aug. 2013. Web. 10 Mar. 2017
http://study.com/academy/lesson/stockholm-syndrome-definition-cases-treatment.html Young,
Dawn. "Stockholm Syndrome: Definition, Cases & Treatment." Study.com. N.p., n.d.
Web. 10 Mar. 2017.
https://patriciahysell.wordpress.com/2014/08/23/08-23/ Hysell, Patricia. "Stockholm Syndrome."
Little Bits of History. N.p., 16 Aug. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2017
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Understanding+Stockholm+syndrome.-a0166937214 Fabrique,
Nathalie De, Stephen J. Romano, Gregory M. Vecchi, and Vincent B. Van Hasselt. "Understanding Stockholm Syndrome." The Free Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2017.
http://www.fpx.de/fp/Disney/Scripts/BeautyAndTheBeast.txt Woolverton, Linda. "Beauty and
the Beast Script." FPX. Ben Scripps, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.