Cocteau's La Belle Est La Bete

In this film the character of the suitors who want Beauty's hand are all squeezed together into a single man, Avenant, played by Jean Marais. Jean Marais also played The Beast and Prince Ardent (the beast in handsome prince form). In the DVD commentary there is discussion of how Cocteau had structured the revelation of the prince to be an anticlimax, and seeing this it suddenly struck me why I always dislike the prince. He's boring. As the beast there was real character, real emotion, real conflict, but after his transformation everything is perfect and boring. And I also dislike how the moral seems to be gender biased: The Beast is good DESPITE his ugly (and therefore evil) form but Beauty's attractiveness is a manifestation of her virtue. So a good girl should be able to look beyond an ugly man's features and see that he's a good guy, but an ugly girl is probably evil. Doesn't seem fair.