If there is one adjective I’d use to describe all of us, as a collective species, in 2019, it would be tired. No matter if you’re rich, poor, conservative, liberal, male, female, we can all agree that we are just exhausted—physically, emotionally, spiritually. Show me someone who can’t relate to one of those “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since 2008 memes” and I’ll show you either a speed addict or a liar. Even celebrities are tired, apparently! That’s evidenced by the fact that Hailey Baldwin Bieber (gotta get used to that), who just turned 23 today, revealed in an interview with Highsnobiety that she would have thrown a blowout birthday party, but she’s simply “too tired”. Now, as much as I want to come for her, I’ve got to say, the girl has a point.

Upon the interviewer remarking that today is, in fact, Hailey’s birthday, Hailey says, “It’s my Jordan year. I’m turning 23 (today, November 22), and I had this idea where I was going to throw a Jordan party and everyone would have to wear Jordan.” Sounds both literal and expensive. E! News reported on Mrs. Bieber’s initial party plans in an article called “Hailey Bieber Is ‘Too Tired’ to Throw a Party For Her 23rd Birthday”, remarking, “‘Jordan year’ is in reference to famous basketball player Michael Jordan whose number was 23 throughout his career. Who knew Hailey was such a sports aficionado!” To which I have got to say: no, she is not a “sports aficionado”—that’s like me saying that knowing Derek Jeter used to play for the Yankees makes me a baseball connoisseur, or having a “22” themed birthday makes me a Taylor Swift superfan—she is simply a person who was alive when Miley Cyrus, Juicy J, and Mike Will released their hit song “23”. To which I have to add, having a “Jordan” party is very 2013.

In any case, outdated reference or not, the Jordan party will not happen because, as Bieber tells Highsnobiety, “I’m just too tired, I don’t want to entertain people.” I wanted to inquire if she would even be responsible for planning or coordinating her own party, but it didn’t even seem worth the effort. Whether she is actually organizing the minutiae of the event or not (almost surely not), she would still have to get her makeup done, show up to the party, pose for photos, socialize, and just generally be around people—feats that I think we can all agree sound thoroughly exhausting. Not to mention, Hailey has had not one, but two weddings this year, and her big blowout wedding happened just two months ago. That was basically her huge birthday party, no theme necessary.

I’ll admit, I was ready and eager to do a full roast of Hailey Bieber for these comments. Too tired to throw a party?! How will we, as a collective society, survive without what would have surely been the cultural touchstone of the century? Not to mention, doing a “Jordan” themed party where your guests are all required to wear sneakers that cost upwards of $100 is not exactly the most socially conscious or aware decision. But then again, neither is turning your baby daddy’s album cover into a theme park or having not one, not two, not three, but FOUR designer dresses at your wedding in the first place. And, I am pretty confident nobody on Hailey Bieber’s guest list would have been unable to afford a pair of Jordans, anyway. So, even though this never-realized party is not exactly groundbreaking in either theme or cultural relevance, it’s not even outlandish enough to be worth a roast.

After all was said and done (and I actually read the initial Highsnobiety interview), I wondered if E! News was giving Hailey a bit of the Emma Watson treatment. The questions about Hailey’s birthday are ordered first in the interview, but the initial interview does not position those comments—which are clearly meant as a joke, since after remarking she’s too tired to entertain people, Hailey laughs—as front and center or the focus of the piece. The title of the interview is actually, “Hailey Bieber on Calvin Klein, Her Beauty Empire Dreams & Why She Thinks Kylie Jenner Is ‘a Genius”. This stays true to what is discussed in the interview. I’m not saying that Hailey Bieber is the next Gloria Steinem or anybody, or that E! News did her a huge wrong, but the interview is not completely vapid, either. She lauds Rihanna and Kylie Jenner for creating products and brands they genuinely believe in, and expressing similar aspirations while being aware of the danger of copying existing celebrities’ brands. In other words, it’s pretty standard stuff.

Then again, when asked what matters to her, things get a little murky. She expresses the desire to use her platform for “talking to young women”, which seems like a good idea in theory, but is left extremely vague. What does that mean exactly, answering DMs? Bieber does not really expand upon this idea; she simply says, “Women supporting women has become such a big conversation but theres still so much we can do. There’s no reason there needs to be this girl against girl drama, and social media makes it way worse. There’s no reason why we cant be kind to each other.” That is all fine and good, but she offers no further ideas about what actually we can do. I’m all for celebrities taking up a pet cause, but just pointing out a (pretty mild in the grand scheme of things) problem is not actually the same as doing anything about it. I feel like, if anything, this is just another callback to Selena Gomez and her new-ish song about Justin Bieber—so, essentially, Hailey’s answer for “what matters to you” is kind of, “that people stop talking sh*t about me”. A relatable sentiment, for sure, but more of a personal problem than a noble cause.

So when all is said and done, who am I really mad at? E! News, for putting a somewhat funny and relatable spin on an otherwise meh fluff piece? Highsnobiety for asking a bunch of softball questions and then publishing that in a Q&A format, without even an attempt to synthesize all these comments into some sort of narrative? Or myself, for getting all excited to do a complete take-down, only to actually read all the background information and be sorely disappointed, and then playing right back into that with my own headline? Myself. Definitely myself.

Images: Shutterstock.com

Yesterday, British Vogue released an excerpt online of their interview with Emma Watson, who appears on the cover of the December issue. After briefly discussing her upcoming role as Margaret Meg March in the film adaptation of Little Women, Watson discusses her upcoming 30th birthday and reflects on her life. It was a pretty unremarkable excerpt, except for one phrase: “It took me a long time, but I’m very happy . I call it being self-partnered.” Emma Watson called “being single” “being self-partnered”, and people across the internet went for her immediately. The Vogue interview itself and every subsequent write-up about it ran with the “self-partnered” comment as the headline. The memes were swift and ruthless, with everyone making the same joke (me to my relatives at Thanksgiving when they ask about my relationship status—a solid joke, but still). And, obviously, I played into this too. Of course we at Betches covered the “self-partnered” ridiculousness. But when I saw everyone clowning Emma Watson over it, I really had to ask myself: is our collective reaction to her comment kind of sexist?

The context of Emma’s self-partnered quote is that she discusses the pressures people feel when they approach 30. She said, “…there is suddenly this bloody influx of subliminal messaging around. If you have not built a home, if you do not have a husband, if you do not have a baby, and you are turning 30, and you’re not in some incredibly secure, stable place in your career, or you’re still figuring things out… There’s just this incredible amount of anxiety.” That pressure extends to dating as well, as any person in their mid- to late-twenties would tell you. Emma is currently single, and apparently, worries about it sometimes. (Stars, they’re just like… well, you know.) She said, “I never believed the whole ‘I’m happy single’ spiel. I was like, ‘This is totally spiel.’ It took me a long time, but I’m very happy . I call it being self-partnered.”

That’s it. That’s the quote. It was a throwaway sentence in an interview that spanned 30 minutes, and you can watch the entire thing. Emma simply said that she calls being single “self-partnered”. She did not say we all should start calling it that. She did not call for a rebrand of singleness. She was just like, “this is the little term I’ve made up for myself in my head.” She might have even been saying it with a little bit of levity—to me, she appears to smirk a little bit after making that comment, but Vogue immediately cuts right after, so it’s hard to tell if she was being serious or not. I took a screen grab so you can judge for yourselves (the comment occurs around 28 minutes into the video).

In any case, it’s not like Emma Watson is out here campaigning for “self-partnered” to be a valid relationship status on Facebook (sorry, FACEBOOK), or like, your taxes. So should we really be trolling her this hard over one comment?

Not to mention, saying you’re “self-partnered” is really just a fancy way of saying you’re dating yourself, or focusing on yourself. The idea of “dating yourself” is one, a concept everyone understands is not to be taken literally, and two, very conventional dating advice! A Google search for “date yourself” produces a slew of results, including an article titled, “You Don’t Need A Boyfriend — Here’s How To Date Yourself”. So, is Emma even off the mark here with this comment? I’m going to argue no, she isn’t.

And, as other people point out, the self-partnering thing is one comment she makes in the context of a pretty long interview.

This was a 30-minute interview where Emma Watson talked about activism, Britain’s colonial history, and white feminism, among a host of other socially relevant topics, and you idiots chose this throw-away comment she made at the very end as the headline, devoid of any context??

— hwasa rights advocate (@hwasaqueendom) November 6, 2019

I mean, that tweet pretty much sums it all up right there. Vogue made a conscious choice to frame their interview this way, and make it seem like this self-partnership comment was the most interesting piece of commentary Emma had to offer. Even the title of the video purposefully dumbs the interview down: “Emma Watson Talks Turning 30, Working With Meryl Streep, And Being Happily Single”. I guess “Emma Watson Talks White Feminism, Education Reform, and The State Of The World” just wouldn’t have the same ring to it. On the one hand, this was a clickbait-y choice that was clearly successful, given how many people are talking about it. On the other hand, it’s kind of f*cked up.

I do understand the strategy, though. “Self-partnered,” as many were quick to point out, smacks of the famous “conscious uncoupling” comment Gwyneth Paltrow made in 2014 in a Goop newsletter when referring to her and Chris Martin’s decision to divorce.

Move over “conscious uncoupling,” a brand new term for something we already have a word for is taking center stage. https://t.co/yAWYdZDDqT

— Slate (@Slate) November 6, 2019

But what is even the appeal of calling back to Gwyneth’s words? On the surface, the instances appear the same: a rich Hollywood type acting pretentious, making up a term for something we already have a word for, in order to try to put a positive spin on it. Making fun of celebrities is a national—nay, international—pastime. And while I feel the impulse to draw comparisons, are these instances the same? One offhand comment is hardly an entire blog post. And Emma Watson is hardly Gwyneth Paltrow, someone who’s become known for her hilariously inaccessible gift guides and $200 moon dust breakfasts—in other words, for being out of touch. It doesn’t matter, though—the quickness with which people descended on Emma Watson shows how eager we are to come for a woman. We take delight in it, even. When was the last time we saw a reaction like this when a man said something boneheaded in an interview? That’s not a rhetorical question—I’m asking because I seriously can’t remember. Pete Davidson said in an interview that he used to jerk off to his then-fiancée, Ariana Grande, and outlets just said he was being “pretty explicit“. If you ask me, that’s a hell of a lot worse than what Emma said. I guess Charlie Sheen got massively trolled back in 2011 for his bi-winning comment (damn, that was 2011? I’m old), but this is hardly the same caliber of ridiculousness. We love to tear down celebrities, but we especially love to tear down female celebrities.

It’s also not lost on me that in both cases with Gwyneth and Emma, the offending comments both had to do with their relationship status—and, even more specifically, about being content with their relationship status even though that status did not include a male partner. God forbid Emma be content with being single, or Gwyneth be active in the choice to separate from her husband. And the crazy part? Emma says in the interview (that apparently nobody bothered to listen to) that she is, in fact, dating! She says, “I’m going on dates”, though she’s not dating one specific person. Again, this comment was blown way out of proportion.

I can’t really say for sure until a male celebrity makes a similarly silly remark, but I can’t help but wonder how much gender factors in here. And as much as I will be referring to myself as self-partnered from now on, I feel like ultimately Vogue and the rest of us did Emma Watson a disservice by distilling a half hour worth of insight and introspection into one made-up term. It’s the easy thing to do, for sure. And it’s fun. But was it right?

Images: Shutterstock; slate, hwasaqueendom / Twitter; British Vogue / Youtube

Time after time, we’ve seen ways that celebrities are just like us, and apparently that includes being on their bullsh*t about relationships. In a new interview with British Vogue, Emma Watson discussed how she’s feeling about life just a few months before her 30th birthday. Personally, I still think of Emma Watson as a 16-year-old Hogwarts student with frizzy hair, so it’s pretty jarring that she’s almost out of her 20s. Like, I feel very old right now. But anyway, back to her interview. She told the magazine that while she didn’t used to understand the big deal about turning 30, she started to feel it once she turned 29 earlier this year. She said, “If you have not built a home, if you do not have a husband, if you do not have a baby, and you are turning 30, and you’re not in some incredibly secure, stable place in your career, or you’re still figuring things out… There’s just this incredible amount of anxiety.”

Wow, so I feel like Emma Watson didn’t need to personally come for me like that, but I guess it’s comforting that even a huge celebrity like her feels the same societal pressure to have your sh*t together. But also, if Emma Watson does not consider herself at a stable place in her career, then what the f*ck am I doing? But from there, Emma Watson talked a bit more about her view on relationships, and that’s where she lost me. She said that it took her a long time to believe that anyone is really happy without a partner, but now said, “I’m very happy . I call it being self-partnered.”

Self-partnered? Really? I have a tendency to be kind of cynical when it comes to relationship talk, but this just made my eyes do a full 360-degree roll. I’m happy that Emma Watson is in a good place with herself, but this feels like some Goop “conscious uncoupling” type of bullsh*t. If there’s really nothing wrong with being single, just say you’re single! I can’t speak for everyone, but I’ve never thought of “single” as any kind of insult or negative concept, just a descriptive word to describe a relationship status (or lack thereof). So coming up with a fancier word that means the exact same thing doesn’t actually change the way you feel about your relationship status. If you’re sad about being single, you’re not going to feel any better about your self-partnership.

This need to rename and rebrand normal concepts like breakups and being single as fulfilling, spiritual journeys is a trend that’s popped up frequently in the social media era, when people are desperate to show that everything they do has substance. While I often just laugh at the pretentious language that influencers spout and keep scrolling, it’s not always so trivial. Just look at the whole idea of “wellness” and “self-care.” Sorry, but ordering $40 of food from Seamless for dinner isn’t some kind of radical statement about loving yourself, it just means you weren’t in the mood to cook dinner. Sometimes it’s just not that deep. These Instagram buzzwords originated as trendy ways to describe simple concepts around health and fitness, but they’ve contributed to a society that now spends trillions of dollars every year on wellness products, most of which don’t actually work (looking at you, Flat Tummy Tea).

The temptation to rebrand familiar concepts with Instagram-friendly terms isn’t limited to wellness. Earlier this year, Cosmopolitan declared that “zombie-ing” was the newest dating trend, supplanting ghosting as the behavior that sh*tty men could be expected to exhibit. As we pointed out, though, zombie-ing was quite similar to haunting, a term originated in 2016, and even then, the concept of a guy ghosting you then not leaving you alone wasn’t new. It can be fun to use new terms to describe a behavior, but there’s no reason to pretend that the behavior has not been done before.

Now, I’m not blaming Emma Watson for the toxic wellness culture in our society, or for Cosmo reinventing the wheel with their dating terms, and she didn’t even really do anything wrong here, but I still think the idea of self-partnership is dumb. Since her interview came out, she’s gotten unnecessary hate from plenty of sad white men on social media, who claim that she’s just too ugly or annoying to get a man. Yeah… I can objectively say: no. Emma Watson is gorgeous, her humanitarian work speaks for itself, and I’m sure she’s richer than any of us ever will be. I don’t think she’ll have any problem getting a man whenever she’s not feeling her self-partnership anymore.

Even if you are Emma Watson, telling people your partner is Emma Watson is pretty impressive. https://t.co/SJvNXcgpDo

— Michelle Milliken (@MichelleyM) November 5, 2019

But many more fans have taken to social media to applaud Emma’s attitude about relationships, saying that she’s helped them feel better about their own relationship situation, and that they too will refer to themselves as self-partnered from now on. Objectively, in the big picture, this is a good thing. So many people struggle with depression and mental health issues, and if Emma Watson’s words help them through a tough time, that’s great. But in general, we should focus more on how we’re feeling, rather than which empty buzzword we use to reframe those feelings. At the end of the day, single is single, and there’s nothing wrong with it.

Images: Jstone / Shutterstock.com; michelleym / Twitter

The live action Beauty and The Beast opened last week and has already made over $392 million worldwide. Not bad for a story about a woman who falls in love with a giant ram-cat. For the past year and a half, Beauty and The Beast has been fucking everywhere. Like, you can barely browse Twitter on the toilet these days without running into a video of Emma Watson talking about how kidnapping is actually feminist now or a Medium post about what Disney’s “exclusively gay moment” could mean for trans candelabras. All this talk about Emma Watson’s tits and gay Lefou got us thinking, when was the last time we checked in with the OG 1991 animated version? Like, no offense to Emma and co but this new one is basically a shot-for-shot remake but with bad autotune and one scene where two men men make eye contact. Also Belle is like, an inventor or some shit. Very progressive.

And let’s face it, while Emma Watson’s transformation from ugly duckling who loves books to hot person who loves books is fascinating, she’ll never hold a candle (or a tune – my dad) to the animated Belle whose face was stamped on our backpacks, lunchboxes, and birthday decorations for basically all of elementary school.

So how does OG BATB hold up now that we can like, read and count and shit? Let’s investigate:

We open on a flashback. The narrator, who we never hear from again, starts going in on The Beast. He calls him “spoiled, selfish, and unkind,” and tells us all about how he once didn’t let a random homeless lady into his house. Turns out the homeless lady was really a beautiful enchantress who is totally pissed The Not-Yet-Beast didn’t let her into his house. She turns him into a beast, and in a dick move, she includes all his servants and shit in the curse as well. Then she hands him a magic mirror and a rose, tells him he’d better find love before his 21st birthday, and GTFOs.

Sidebar: If The Beast is only 20 at the end, and Lumiere says they’ve been in the castle for eleven years, then does that mean The Beast is like 10 years old when this happened? Eternal life as a monster seems like kind of a harsh punishment for a kid who didn’t want to talk to strangers. Isn’t this what we tell 10-year-olds to do? It’s stranger danger, not stranger danger unless you think the stranger is secretly an enchantress. Come on, Disney.

Cut to Belle’s shitty college town. Belle kicks off the movie with a musical number where she walks around talking shit on everyone in her immediate area. “The baker always has the same bread,” “This town is poor and provincial,” “Marie’s baguettes are tacky AF,” that kind of thing.

But as much shit as Belle talks about the town, the town talks equal amounts of shit about her. Mainly because she likes to read, which is strange for women in this town, who spend most of their time wandering around buying food and screaming “I NEED SIX EGGS” at anyone who will listen.

Cue Gaston shooting a goose out of the sky. Gaston tells LeFou (who is gay, I guess) that he’s going to marry Belle because she’s the hottest person in town and despite the presence of three identical boob sisters. Gaston never addresses why he does not find the Tit Triplets as acceptable wives. They’re probably from a lower tier sorority or something like that.

Belle and Gaston have a conversation that is literally cringeworthy. Like, if it was a Tinder message, it would have gone like this:

GASTON: Hey girl what’s up?
BELLE: Nothing. Just reading.
GASTON: Howabout you read this DICK tho?
BELLE: I’m not interested.
GASTON: Bitch ur fat anyway.

Then LeFou makes shit worse by calling Belle’s dad crazy, probably as some kind of a distraction from his own sexuality.

Now we meet Belle’s dad, who actually does seem kind of crazy. He’s building some kind of wooden steam car that honestly looks like a pile of shit. He announces that he’ll be dragging his his monstrous invention to a “convention” and then promptly gets himself, and his horse Felipe, lost in the damn woods because literally all the men in Belle’s life are fully incompetent.

Crazy-Ass Maurice: This can’t be right! Where have you taken us Felipe?
Felipe: Um I’m a fucking horse dude it’s not my job to know the directions.

Felipe then says “fuck this I’m not paid enough for this” and bolts, leaving Belle’s dad to be eaten by wolves. To avoid being eaten, Maurice breaks into The Beast’s castle and raises absolutely 0 red flags when all the appliances start talking to him and settling him into a nice seat by the fire. Because, again, men are fully incompetent. The Beast flips the fuck out when he sees Belle’s dad getting all pampered and shit.

Beast: You’re here to look at the hideous Beast!!!
Crazy-Ass Maurice: Chill dude I didn’t even know you were here.
Beast: See you in the dungeon bitch byeeeeeeeee!!!

Cut back to Belle, who is so disgusted by the fact that Gaston just planned a literal wedding without her that she makes like any woman who just got hit on by any gross guy at the club and runs the fuck into the woods, where she finds Felipe.

Belle: Felipe? Where is my dad? He’s too crazy to be out alone!
Felipe: Your dad was actually a huge dick to me so I bounced.

Belle arrives at The Beast’s castle, where Cogsworth is going off on Lumiere for being nice to Belle’s dad in the first place. All the servant appliances realize that Belle is there, and commence flipping the fuck out.

Lumiere: Shes the one! The girl to break the spell!
Cogsworth: Well let’s hold up just one second we literally know nothing about this person.

Belle finds her dad in The Beast’s dungeon, where The Beast promptly shows up. Belle is not at all bothered by The Beast’s presence, and is like “Have you seen the other dudes I deal with on a daily basis? This is nothing. Take me instead.”

The Beast, realizing that learning to love will probably be much easier with Belle than her dad, decides that’s a pretty good option, as long as she promises to stay forever (because that might be how long it takes for an attractive human woman to fall in love with an enormous horned cat).

And so Belle and The Beast’s romance begins. Their Tinder convo would go something like…

The Beast: Hey girl, you wanna get dinner later?
Belle: Sorry. Not interested. You kidnapped my dad.
The Beast:  YOU WILL JOIN ME FOR DINNER THAT’S NOT A REQUEST!!!!!!!

Cut back to Gaston, who is literally furious about Belle refusing his proposal and about two seconds away from starting a men’s rights group on Reddit.

LeFou then sings a whole song about how hot Gaston is, referencing his thick “neck”  and the cleft in his chin and how “not a bit of him’s scraggly or scrawny” and how “nobody spits like Gaston” and a bunch of other things that we all now know were some pretty clear signs that LeFou wanted to be more than just Gaston’s gap-toothed sidekick.

The pride parade gets broken up by Crazy-Ass Maurice who tells everyone at the bar that The Beast has Belle. Gaston begins to form a plan, and LeFou goes home to do some deep Googling and consider moving to a less provincial, more liberal town where nobody knows him.

Cut back to Belle doing the very Disney thing of crying dramatically on the bed. Mrs. Potts and the wardrobe show up and Belle is like “omg thank god some fucking women. Can one of you tell me wtf is going on?”

Belle ghosts The Beast for dinner, sending him into a full fuckboy rage spiral.

The Beast: Dinner is ready!
Belle: I already told you I’m not interested.
The Beast: HAHAHA YOU THOUGHT I WAS INTERESTED IN YOU? LOL NO WAY WHAT GAVE YOU THAT IDEA UR UGLY ANYWAY!! BLOCKED!!!

Belle waits a bit, and then sneaks out for some late night cold pizza and then “Be Our Guest” happens, and if every second of “Be Our Guest” isn’t already burned into your memory for all time then maybe go to the doctor because you might be dealing with a Still Alice type situation.

Moving on…

Belle is feeling better after eating and decides its time to break into The Beast’s bedroom and see what his fucking deal is.

The Beast: What are you doing in here? GET OUT! GO!
Belle: I mean, okay sure, I was only staying here because you kidnapped me anyway.

Felipe, who has apparently just been chilling at the castle the whole time, does what Felipe always does and rides their asses into a big old swarm of wolves. The Beast saves Belle from the wolves, but he still brings her back to his castle where she’s a literal captive so how “saved” is she really?

Cut to shady-ass Gaston and closeted LeFou talking to the owner of the insane asylum, who appears to be an actual corpse. We find out that Gaston’s big plan is to get Maurice thrown into the asylum unless she agrees to marry him. Gaston appears to not have noticed that Belle is like, not in town right now because she’s been kidnapped. He leaves LeFou to watch the house for Belle and contemplate whether or not the life he’s living now is really serving who he is inside.

Cut back to The Beast’s castle, where he and Belle are friends now. The Beast shows her his big-ass library, and Belle gets horny as hell. The Beast’s bullshit is working. They sing a song about it. The song includes a line “when we touched she didn’t shudder at my paw,” which is fucking horrible. 

Things are going well, which is good because it’s almost the beast’s 21st birthday and he’s definitely not getting into any of the good bars in his current state. Like, homeboy looks nothing like his ID.

The servants now plan a romantic evening for the two of them, where they’ll be able to literally dance like nobody (except your enchanted servants) is watching. Belle appears in her signature yellow dress and a thousand years of halloween costumes are born. Everybody goes to bed happy in the certainty that the woman they’ve kidnapped is going to fuck their non-human master.

But of course, The Beast has caught feelings by now, and any time someone catches feelings is right about the time they fucking blow it. The Beast shows Belle her father and lo and behold, he’s right in the middle of a cough. This is enough for The Beast to release her. Belle GTFOs immediately, fully ruining The Beast’s 21st birthday plans.

Cogsworth: Where is Belle?
The Beast: I let her go. I love her.
Cogsworth: You selfish fuck this isn’t just about you!! What about all of us?!? Chip is a CHILD for gods sake!!!

Belle shows up at her father’s house and LeFou wakes up from daydreaming about a weekend on Fire Island to alert Gaston. The Insane Asylum man arrives pretty fast for an era in which there were no cellphones and Belle has to show them The Beast is real in order to save her dad from going to rehab.

Belle: My father isn’t crazy! Look! I can show you The Beast right here in this magic mirror!
Gaston: Wait, The Beast is real? We should definitely kill him!
Belle: Oh fuck…

The battle begins, and somehow a group of humans with guns are totally unable to beat an army of kitchen appliances with tomatoes. Lefou threatens to melt Lumiere, probably because he is jealous of Lumiere’s free wheeling and sexually liberated lifestyle, but ultimately there are no casualties.

Belle and motherfucking Felipe show up just in time to see Gaston and The Beast fighting in the rain on the roof. Gaston keeps screaming about how he’s going to kill The Beast and make Belle his wife, but then the beast comes back hard like “dude I am a mythical creature and you’re just a regular human, plus even if you kill me Belle will still say no to marrying you soooo….”

The Beast is about to kill Gaston, but then he sees Belle’s face and lets him go, which is a pretty bad move because Gaston straight-up stabs him and falls of the roof like a minute later.

Now Gaston is gone and The Beast is dying. Belle is finally rid of all these corny-ass dudes who have been bothering her. Unfortunately for feminism, Belle has actually caught feelings for her captor, and love is powerful enough to turn him hot again. Just in time for half-off shots.

Everyone is restored to their former hottness, and we know Belle is def really in love with The Beast because she doesn’t even leave him when she finds out he’s a ginger.

The movie ends with Chip, the only one of these people who will actually get to live a full life as a human, talking to his mom.

Chip: Will they live happily ever after mama?
Mrs. Potts: Of course they will, baby. This is fucking Disney. 

In a definitive ranking of Hollywood transformations, I’m putting Emma Watson at #2, right under Michael Jackson and right before Caitlyn Jenner. Change your race, change your gender, IDGAF, nothing hits me quite like a vintage Emma circa Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. When we first met Em, she was a try-hard who pissed the whole classroom off and acted super desp over a scrawny ginger I would’ve ghosted before we even met. Level of betchiness: Anne Hathaway and Taylor Swift’s love child.

Now she’s a real life princess and the literal embodiment of the concept of “beauty,” which was my actual dream career/theme of every birthday party I ever had until my mom sobered up and realized I was turning 13 and something should prob change. She’s also queen feminist and a UN Women Global Goodwill Ambassador. If you don’t know what that is exactly, know it’s important AF. Remember how “important” you felt when you ran your sorority’s Tumblr?? Multiply that by 8,000,000 and you might be halfway there.

If I knew exactly what Emma did to go from “No, I didn’t just get electrocuted” to now, I wouldn’t be texting my grandma taking her up on her blind date offer, now would I?? But I have noticed a couple important beauty tips we could all use to transform ourselves into more attractive people, much like The Beast at the end of Beauty and The Beast. 

1. The Importance Of Keratin

Did Emma Watson have frizzy-ass hair because she played Hermione, or did Emma Watson play Hermione because she had frizzy-ass hair? We may never know, but what we do know is that once Emma tamed the mane (shout out to Keratin), we started playing by her rules. And since then, Emma’s rocked short, blonde spikes to long, dark longs. Along the way, she’s taught us that our hair can be our best accessory if you pay enough attention to it and keep things interesting. Sounds like me as a girlfriend—needy AF. Thanks for reminding America not to sleep on the pixie cut, Em.

2. Keep The Male:Female Ratio In Your Favor

Emma’s queen at rolling up with a (below-average looking) man on each arm. Not only does she automatically look way out of their leagues, arriving as the sole female eliminates possible competition from anyone else looking better than you. A strategy I plan to implement this coming weekend—stay tuned.

3. When In Doubt, Red Lip

A signature makeup trend of Emma’s is a bold yet classy red lip. The statement color dresses up any look, makes lips look fuller and brightens your whole face. Pair this look with neutral colors or a cap and gown—you know, if you’re also an Ivy League grad.

4. Knowledge Is Always A Good Look

Emma’s confidence, intelligence, and well-tailored pantsuits are what make her actual #goals. Like, sure, we all think #goals when we see Kendall Jenner casually sporting Victoria’s Secret Angel Wings in Paris, but let’s sit back and reflect on the fact that she can’t read. So who’s actually taking the bigger L here, Kendall or you and your glass of wine that turned into a bottle and a half? Emma, on the other hand, uses her platform to set a good example and make a difference. Girl power and shit.

5. Own Your Cleavage

We need to talk about all the sad, old men yelling at Emma for innocently showing some cleav at a Vanity Fair shoot. To everyone who’s saying she’s hypocritical and actually anti-feminist because she posed semi-topless, I practically wear that amount of clothing on a given Saturday night. I mean A) this is hardly scandalous in Vanity Fair terms (I’m STILL haunted from the pics of daughter Miley and daddy Billy Ray) and B) If you don’t think you can have tits and be feminist at the same time, than there’s a bigger issue going on here. Emma, if you’re up there, know you set an example for females everywhere and remind us of the importance in tasteful underboob. You recognize that cleavage can be a woman’s best friend, and you do so with class. Slay.

Basically, if you want to live your dream life, model it after Emma Watson. I mean, who else can go from playing a fugly beloved children’s character who reads books to playing a beautiful beloved children’s character who loves to read books within just the span of a decade? It’s truly inspiring. Like, for real. Can’t wait to see what Emma does next.