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                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 24, 1992                   TAG: 9202240215
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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NOT GLAMORIZED BUT TRANSFORMED

I BELIEVE that Dick Mallen ("Our society glamorizes `Beasts'," (letter, Feb. 12) has missed the moral of "Beauty and the Beast." Rather than the Beast being glamorized, he is transformed when Beauty chooses to look beyond his beastly looks and ferocious demeanor to see the goodness, kindness and gentleness inside him.

Others had reacted to the Beast's ugliness and feared and rejected him. When Beauty fell in love with Beast because of what he was, not what he looked like, then the ugliness fell away.

It may be that Beast was transformed only in Beauty's eyes. When someone loves you for what you truly are, not what you look like, then it doesn't matter how you look to others, because you will always be the "handsome prince" to the one who loves you. Mallen missed a wonderful opportunity to explain that to his grandson. JEANNE S. MOOMAW ROANOKE

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