"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996, G)



Full disclosure:  I adored this movie when I was a kid, full-on loved it.  This, Aladdin, and Mulan were my Disney trifecta.  Seeing it again, I still love it.  Is it Disney’s best?  Naw.  Is it a faithful adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel?  Of course not.  But so help me, I’m a fan.

Our eponymous hunchback is, of course, Quasimodo, the bell-ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral.  He’s spent his whole life in the bell tower, taught by his disgustingly vile guardian Frollo that others will call him a monster for his physical deformities.  Despite having internalized these ideas about himself, Quasi dreams of the world below and finally takes his chance during the annual Feast of Fools.  Naturally, the outing is a disaster, but it kick-starts some major change in Quasi’s life.  At the festival, he meets (and falls bashfully in love with) Esmeralda, a fiercely passionate, kind-hearted gypsy who sees parallels between Quasi’s public shunning and the oppression of her own people.  The two begin to help each other in different ways and, through Esmeralda, Quasi finds the strength to 1) love himself, and 2) finally stand up to Frollo.

I’ll start with Quasimodo and Esmeralda, our “in” to the story.  Quasi is Frankenstein’s monster, Fanny Price, WALL*E, and Kieren from In the Flesh rolled into one Disneyfied package.  He’s a recluse who wants so badly to be social that he’s nurtured friendships with the cathedral’s stone gargoyles.  He’s disabled in a time when people with disabilities are viewed as burdens at best and monstrosities at worst.  He’s been taught to see himself through the eyes of the ableist rabble who will find him hideous, and he’s an ardent lover of beauty in all forms; he’s named all of the bells, he leaps about the cathedral buttresses to find the best views of the city, and he spends his free time carving figurines for his model of Paris.  There’s so much crap piled on him, but he still finds untapped stores of good in the world, even if he needs help to see it in himself.

And Esmeralda – she’s not a Disney princess, but that’s because she’s too busy being hardcore awesome to become royalty.  She takes a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-to-work approach to poverty, she’s not afraid to be the lone voice speaking out against injustice, and the bystander effect doesn’t exist for her; she stands up in the middle of a huge crowd of mob-mentality a-holes to come to Quasi’s aid.  She’s tough and can hold her own pretty well in a fight, but she’s also caring and empathetic.  She knows that the way she expresses her sexuality is her business and that, unless she actually speaks the words, she’s in no way asking for it.  Plus, she dances, does sleight-of-hand, and lays down good snark.  Esmeralda FTW, all the way!

The theme of outcasts banding together against those who fear them because they’re different is a powerful one, and it really rings true – humanizing the dehumanized.  The animation is pretty gorgeous (the cathedral looks stunning,) and the music is excellent, too.  “God Help the Outcasts” usually gets most of the attention, but “The Bells of Notre Dame” is a splendid opening number, and “Out There” is such a heartfelt “I want” song.  Also, “Hellfire” is hands-down the creepiest Disney-villain song of all time; it’s practically the Disney version of the judge’s “Johanna” from Sweeney Todd.  Maleficent may be freakier, but Frollo is just awful. 

Warnings

Some violence, scary stuff, suggestiveness, and dark themes.

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