1991's "Beauty and the Beast" has a pretty obnoxious co-lead in the form of The Beast. He is loud, rude, impatient, and you know, he imprisoned Belle's father until Belle agreed to live in The Beast's castle even though she did not want to have anything to do with him. It's hard to make audiences root for a main character who is so awful in every way.
To offset all that, the film gives us a sympathetic backstory for The Beast, where he and his entire hall of courtiers were cursed by an evil Enchantress for the sin of being too prideful. Sure, pride's bad, but nothing that warrants decades of being trapped in a castle as a hulking beast or assorted furniture and cutlery — especially when the royal courtiers could not possibly be blamed for their master's behavior. But according to a theory by Amanda Mannen of Cracked, the Enchantress had much bigger beef with The Beast than his prideful nature.
The Enchantress was a former lover to The Beast when he was a regular prince, whom he spurned after growing bored with her, something that royals of old were well-known to do. The court of the Prince similarly treated the Enchantress poorly since they were completely loyal to their liege. Consequently, the Enchantress decided to place the curse on the Prince and all his royal courtiers to teach them a lesson about respecting women. A lesson that they finally learned with Belle.
