A Genre Approach to The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
[Content warning: Romani slur, sexual assault and harassment, genocide, cursing]
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) – Genre
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This week for Review Roulette, I had a priority in the choice of film: I wanted it to be a Disney film. This may be controversial at the moment after their cowardice in the face of the FCC and broadcasting networks when they pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s show, but I think it’s important to understand why they reinstated him and what our role was in doing so: the general public with Disney+ subscriptions pulled their support by canceling those subscriptions. Disney saw an immediate drop in their revenue and reversed course. This is an excellent outcome. I think you should resubscribe if you can.
That’s the controversial part. These studios gave us a gift with subscriptions. Never before would a studio have reversed a decision like this in less than a week without 24/7 protests at their gates. In the past, they would wait for ratings or sales drops or protests to build, but we don’t have that kind of time right now and we also don’t have to give it to them because they gave us an immediate economic lever to pull at our will to show them we are not fucking around when it comes to free speech violations in our cultural media (something I am deeply passionate about). But, and this is crucial, you only have that lever to pull once. When this god forsaken administration pulls this shit again and Disney inevitably cowers, you need to be able to pull that lever again which you can only do by resubscribing. Inevitably they will make it economically disadvantageous to resubscribe at will, but while you can, if you can, I think it’s an important power we currently have. If you have the discretionary income to do so, please consider resubscribing.
It’s also October now, which is the official start of Spooky Season, so we’re going to do a series on monsters in cinema. Therefore, this week I watched a film that scared the fuck out of me as a child and only a little bit as a young adult and then again like hell now: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). Interestingly, the Review Roulette wheel landed on Genre as our approach and my immediate reaction was “this is a children’s film that is not for children,” but watching it this time changed my mind. This is such a phenomenal film for kids even if it does rightfully scare the fuck out of them.
The story is based on Victor Hugo’s novel Notre-Dame de Paris. 1482 (1831) and follows our protagonist, Quasimodo (Tom Hulce), the bell ringer of Notre Dame with physical deformities and a heart of gold, who has been raised since birth by the most evil motherfucker in all of Disney canon, Judge Claude Frollo (Tony Jay). Frollo killed Quasimodo’s Romani mother in his crusade to exterminate their population (note: the film uses the word “g*psies” to refer to the persecuted community as a mark of their persecution. I’ll refrain from using that term, but I do think it’s actually quite thoughtfully used in the film, especially in the song “God Help the Outcasts,” Disney’s most beautiful song by far.). In the present day, 1482, Frollo is at least 20 years into his genocidal campaign against the Romani for bringing diversity, vibrancy, music, joy, and ways of living that challenge the iron hand of Frollo’s extremist abuse of Christianity. He uses his power as a judge to sexually harass our badass female lead, Esmeralda (Demi Moore), whom he intends to rape, blaming her for his lustful desires. Helpfully, Frollo gives her the ultimatum that she either commit herself to a life as his sex slave or he will burn down all of Paris and finish his genocide of her people (which, we can surmise, he would do either way).
Pretty fucked up.
And you might be like, “V, what the fuck? You just said that this is a phenomenal film for kids? Are you some kind of sick fuck like Disney filmmakers in the 1990s?” And, yea, kinda. How many moments in reading just that little synopsis did you go “well that sounds familiar”? A rapist leader threatening to round up and imprison innocent people because they’re different, because they live lives untethered to his own “norms”, because they dare to enjoy being human, because they provide for themselves and their families by creating art and music, because they promote self-expression, kindness, generosity, and justice? Sounds like something to warn against and to teach kids young that that’s the worst, most evil motherfucker Disney could think of.
Beyond Frollo, the film depicts the average cops as bumbling, racist fools. The head of the guard, Captain Phoebus (Kevin Kline), is not bumbling; Phoebus stands up to protect the Romani people and refuses to partake in the murder of innocent people. His underlings – one of whom, the dumbest, most oafish is voiced by Bill Fagerbakke, using the same voice he uses for Patrick Star – however, are instigators of violence. Police who are ready to escalate violence or act with impunity are dangerous enough, but when paired with a population that sways so easily, following the tide of the loudest ones present (majority or not), that vicious police force of aggressive oafs can be riotous or worse.
In an early scene, at the Feast of Fools festival, the crowd fears Quasimodo’s differences until Esmeralda encourages them to embrace him as a member of the celebrations. They do, fully, cheering as he is crowned the King of Fools until the oafish officer pelts Quasimodo with a tomato. The crowd, itself full of horrid fucking idiots, follows the guard’s lead and escalate the situation so far that Quasimodo’s clothes are torn and he is latched to a wheel and spun around to experience ridicule, assault, and terror from all angles. Esmeralda is the only one who stands to stop this torture, freeing him from his confines. Frollo yells, “Silence!” at her insolence, to which Esmeralda responds with a defiant “Justice!”
And I just think that’s important for kids to see.
One of my soap boxes is that kids’ media has the potential to be some of our best cultural messaging because it breaks down big concepts into understandable, easily accessible stories. Obviously I’m not the first person to think that, there have been stories and fables we tell to children in those ways since the dawn of children, but I do think children’s films and tv shows often get thrown into this category of inconsequential, uninteresting, unsophisticated “low-culture,” a term I despise. But Hunchback? Hunchback is one of the most sophisticated films in the Disney filmography for how it makes such huge themes accessible to children including genocide, justice, manipulation, sin, morality vs. legality, racism, allegorical fascism, and obscene abuses of power.
In that wider category of Disney’s animated films, Frollo is also the villain that corrupts his position more than any other. Ursula, Jafar, Scar, Hades, Maleficent, they’re all outside of the power structures of their worlds and trying to obtain power, outcasts in some way who commit morally corrupt, villainous actions to get to the top of the power structure. Frollo, though, is the power structure as far as we can tell. The only power wielded above him is that of God, the moral power in the film that challenges Frollo’s claims that he is not to blame for wickedness he feels forced to commit in the upholding of the law.
Now, I am not a religious person personally, but I have so much admiration of true faith. Frollo is a fascist cunt. He is not a religious person; he hides behind religion and the law to commit genocide, and God (spoiler) gets his ass in the end in a beautiful display of poetic justice. The film reinforces this idea that evil doers can wrap themselves in unjust laws and bible quotes to shield themselves from criticism and twist their own minds into thinking the inhumanity they perform every hour is righteous despite all evidence to the contrary.
This past week, Da Chicago Pope got MAGA’s ass when he clapped back to their bullshit by saying it’s not really pro-life to oppose abortion, back the death penalty, or support the “inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States.” Get ‘em, Leo. Obviously Da Pope is now facing horrid abuse from the Frollo stans among us, but it gives me real hope to think about Da Pope confronting them directly. We know they’re Frollo stans, but would they see themselves that way?
As the Romani spokesperson in the film, Clopin (Paul Kandel) asks at the beginning, “Now here is a riddle to guess if you can… who is the monster and who is the man?” The answer to that riddle is presented as obvious before Clopin even asks it, but it sure does rely on your definition of “man” and who fits into its parameters, and I don’t know that some of my fellow Americans would be able to answer it right now. I don’t know if that’s because they’re like the crowd at the Feast of Fools, easily swayed by whoever is speaking the loudest, or if it’s because they really do have a definition of “man” more limited than mine, and I think that’s why kids need to watch this movie (and some of their parents need to pay KEEN attention while they do so).
If you have never seen Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, I truly recommend it for everyone. I seldom recommend films because de gustibus, but God damn is this an important movie. It’s visually stunning, the music is phenomenal, Jason Alexander is incredibly annoying but it is a kid’s film, and it’s powerfully challenging for all audiences, not just young ones. It’s a thought-provoking movie, and it can be an amazing starting point for crucial conversations with your fellow viewers. Highly recommend it, and if you still aren’t sold, please at least listen to “God Help the Outcasts” and really hear the juxtaposition between the congregants praying for self enrichment and Esmeralda’s plea for her people. Stunning.
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