From a Vulture recap of Season 4, Episode 5: Kimmy and the Beest!
Hudson tells Kimmy not to worry, because the Beast is a good guy in the end, but she disagrees: “What’s the message here? Take a girl prisoner, tell her what clothes to wear, then she’ll fall in love with you because you didn’t straight-up eat her?… Kiss girls while they’re sleeping? Climb their hair whenever you want? Bust into ladies’ houses and steal a shoe? I always knew this fairy-tale stuff was lousy for girls, but it stinks on ice for boys, too.”
Kimmy’s right, of course, and Titus, who grew up where theater was considered gay by the state Board of Education, is the perfect example of how patriarchy hurts men as much or more than women.
I’ve never seen the show, and so this is not a specific critique. However, the framing in the recap is a perfect example of how our modern imaginations about fairy tales, and indeed anything not of “the moment,” have been so corrupted as to miss the point completely followed by a celebration of the bungle as a form of virtue signaling. I can only hope that our show pushes back against this tendency in some small way.