Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Beauty and the Beast argument-Belle's Eyes

*sigh* I've noticed something that's been showing up on a few blogs, TVtropes, some Disney wiki pages and a lot of other places, that has started up trolling, flamewars and worse. Something that isn't even a big deal.

What is this thing that is so incendiary that people are spending hours trashing each other over it? The color of Belle's eyes from Beauty and the Beast. No, I'm not kidding.

Evidently, there are two factions-one who believes they are brown, one who believes they are hazel. Personally, I think they're brown-all the concept art of her I've seen has had her with brown eyes, and they are brown in the original film, along with the sequels *shudder* which, while they didn't stick to model as far as behavior, the characters still LOOKED like themselves from the original. Also, in an interview with Paige O'Hara, the voice of Belle, she explicitly states that they're brown. Also, when applying at Disney parks to play the part of Belle in the costuming/character department, they prefer you to have brown eyes or be able to wear brown colored contacts-I applied for the position once. Didn't have the acting training for it though, so bleh. Anywho, there's that argument for the brown, along with all the cover art for the various movies, which I will post below.

The hazel argument is mostly based on the new edition of the film that came out on dvd, which was remastered and reformatted. In it, her eyes appear a greenish-brown(though the cover art still shows them as brown), and several disney products that have come out since (plushies, blankets and such) have had her eyes a light green, though several still display brown. This is where the argument splits-some believe they were always meant to be hazel, and that the brown shown in the original is just because of bad film quality from that day and age. Others believe it was ret-conned, and they decided to be more diverse, since no Princess has had hazel eyes before and they thought they should have one. Granted, Disney has retconned eye color before (Aurora, I believe, now officially has purple eyes rather than blue to make her stand out a bit more from Cinderella) but I digress.

In my personal opinion, this is not that big a frakkin' deal. If you want to draw her with hazel eyes, go ahead. If you want to draw her with brown eyes, no problem! If it's a matter of the wiki and tv trope page descriptions-Why not simply place down under eye color on the description page "There is a disagreement as to her official eye color-they have been noted as both brown and hazel in color. Either is acceptable." There. Argument solved. Enough with the trolling and flame wars over something so trivial! Eye color was integral to the Beast-it was how he was recognizable after his transformation-but it's not for her. Her eye color wasn't so important to the character that changing it would completely change who she was or anything like that, so what's the big deal? Just pick what you like best, draw it as that, and move on. If someone else has a different opinion than you-well, everyone has different opinions, even close friends! For example, one of my friends and fellow artists loves Spongebob. I hate, loathe, ABHOR Spongebob and wouldn't be caught dead watching it. Guess what? We're still friends!

And now people are fighting over the Vinyl Scratch character from My Little Pony's eye color too. Geez. Love and tolerate, guys!

This is probably a very long winded way to say that people need to shut up and move on from arguing over this one minor, inconsequential detail, but no one seems to be paying attention. Le sigh.

Here is the cover art from various releases/sequels/midquels, all belonging to Disney:

A little pixelated, but her eyes are pretty obviously brown, and the same shade as her hair.

Platinum Edition Release-Clearly brown here, matching her hair's shade perfectly.

Once again, clearly brown, and the same shade as her hair.

A little tougher to tell here, but they're the same exact color as her hair, which is brown.

Quite obviously brown here.

29 comments:

  1. Eye color is not something I really look at in animation. Peoples eyes I do remember and their smiles.

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  2. Belle never had brown eyes. It was all a misunderstanding.

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  3. Belle's official eye color is hazel, not brown. And her hair color is brown, not dark brown.

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  4. I was very upset when they changed her eye color. I know they were brown, because she was my favorite as a child, because she looked like me, pale with brown hair and eyes, and was a bookworm like me. Do you know how rare it is to find a heroine, or even a doll that's brown hair and brown eyes, that's white?!? Virtually impossible, esp since they decided changing Belle was a good idea, smh...

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    1. BELLE'S EYES ARE NOT BROWN. THEY'RE HAZEL FROM THE GET GO.

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    2. They were changed to hazel because Disney (erroneously) changed the colors for the BATB film. Their original (and actual) color is brown.

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    3. i to were upset that they changed her i color this was the Disney movie in my day and first to be pale skinned brown hair and brown eyes like me.they shouldn't of change it theres two many disney characters with greeny eyes jane Rapunzel ezmeralda or they have exotic cultreal characters with brown eyes belle was the first to be like us brown hair brown eyed white girls un fair.

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  5. Belle in the correct colors has dark brown hair with matching eye chocolate brown eyes. She was also originally paler. The "restoration" tries to make her more modern with tanner skin, lighter brown hair, and hazel eyes.

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  6. Quite the opposite actually. She never had hazel eyes.

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  7. It's animated so it won't look very real her eyes are light brown or hasel . Brown eyes are similar to the puple , but her is lighter.

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  8. It's animated so it won't look very real her eyes are light brown or hasel . Brown eyes are similar to the puple , but her is lighter.

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  9. The very fact that people are arguing over her eye color is proof that they are hazel. Hazel eyes are defined as eyes often appear to shift in color from a brown to a green. Throughout the movie, Belle's eyes will shift from green to brown depending on the lighting. This is why dolls and collectibles throughout the 25 years since it's release have varied in eye color from green to brown.

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    1. Exactly! I got her for my birthday after the movie came out and the Barbie of her (first Belle Barbie they made) had hazel eyes. I still have the VHS and you are right, throughout the movie they change. Everyone saying they changed them in the remastered version must not have been around when the movie first came out. Or they did not pay attention....

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    2. Exactly! I got her for my birthday after the movie came out and the Barbie of her (first Belle Barbie they made) had hazel eyes. I still have the VHS and you are right, throughout the movie they change. Everyone saying they changed them in the remastered version must not have been around when the movie first came out. Or they did not pay attention....

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  10. It was such a big deal because a lot of girls identified with her because she looked like an everyday girl in the film, not some Barbie. Brown eyes are always underrated, Caucasians are often cartoonized as blonde, blue eyed. We don't all live in the sunshine states.

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  11. I saw this movie in theater when it first came out and still have the VHS. They were not always solely brown. Even in the original film they change back and forth from brown, to green, to hazel to honey brown. True eye colors are so complex that in different lights they can appear differently. So there is no need to argue. Everyone is right about her eye color.

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    1. HAZEL is only true eye color for Belle. Everyone who says otherwise is a liar.

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  12. Exactly! Belle has medium to dark brown eyes. It was only in the re-released special edition that her eyes were hazel.

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  13. Exactly! Belle has medium to dark brown eyes. It was only in the re-released special edition that her eyes were hazel.

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  14. Sorry to tell everyone on the Hazel board...watching the Blu-Ray right now on a 4k Ultra HD tv...her eyes are brown. Depending on the light of the scene they do lighten a bit like natural brown eyes...but they've never once appeared hazel.

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    1. 100% they are brown. They do not turn green ever in the original film. Plus, brown are prettiest anyway. I hate blue and green eyes. I would like to see a blonde with brown eyes though. I don't think we have one yet.

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    2. too bad you hate it, because taking the brownish haze from the film reveals she has emerald green eyes, the shirt that should be white being skin tone when compared to a control sample in image editing reveals a lot, you subtract it, and readjust the hue using natural hair lips and shirt as a key, and her eyes are just green, her eyes only look brown, and hazel because of wierd editing choices in post.

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  16. in spite of being brave, outspoken and independent, nonetheless "are forced to behave passively as others help them achieve their respective goals."[90] Michelle Munro, writing for Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology, felt that even though Belle shares several traits with her more passive predecessors, the character introduced "new possibilities for princesses."[91] Girls in Capes wrote that Belle pioneered a generation of princesses who taught "about ambition, self-discovery and the pursuit of what we want."[86]

    Additionally, Belle remains Disney's first and only princess to have hazel eyes.[92][93]

    She has hazel eyes this can be found on Wikipedia under Characterization and themes right at the bottom! HAZEL eyes people!


    O hara only said brown so people also assumed belle looked like her if you voiced belle you would want her to have your eye colour.

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  17. One thing I noticed as a graphic designer looking at all the photos of belle from the film is that the colors are terrible, her shirt which should be white is the color of skin, so I adjusted the color temperature to correct for it, and the hazel color comes out strong, but her lips are a shade of purple hued magenta, and everything is off, so i gotta adjust the hue to get it perfect lip shade, and lo and behold her eyes are emrald green, all color corrected, eyes are emerald green, that's shocking, but the original image is so washed out with this brown haze over a twisted unnatural hue, it makes it look like it was made on parchment a hundred years ago, which takes the green right out of her, dulls it down to these shades of brown. this also means her outfit becomes cyan under the brown, rather than the original light blue, I suppose Disney had all this stuff made, and decided the original color palette was too vibrant, such as to be distracting, and decided to dull the colors to an earthen hue to add a more dramatic tone, at least that's what it looks like to me. >https://twitter.com/servivigiledeus/status/1166339927124004864?s=20

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  18. if you color correct for the warm palette, using hair lips, and her white shirt as a key as i did below you can see that her eyes are emerald green, it's just a washed out palette, clearly added in post production to magnify the dramatic tone of the film.

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  20. It's a big deal to us brown eyed girls who looked for non-blue-eyed Princesses as children. I always loved the Belle's eyes were brown (like mine) when I was a little girl. I wish they wouldn't change things. I was a HUGE Disney fan as a kid and I remember everything very clearly... to see it changed kind of sucks.

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