Let's take a moment to go back; all the way back to the early 1990s. It was a time following the wildly successful nascent Disney Renaissance and the mostly lucrative career of Andrew Lloyd Webber and his high-octane melodramas. So from this ecosystem rises a most unlikely musical adaptation of a literary classic. "I'm at a new Andrew Lloyd Webber musical based on The Hunchback of Notre-Dame." "It's called Hunch." This parody in the ABC animated comedy The Critic came out in 1994. ♪ "The Hunchback of Notre Dame!" ♪ "That's me!" Two years before Disney would go: "Let's do that but, you know, for real". ♪ "...out there! Like ordinary men!" ♪ "Yes, I got a hunch this is love!" ♪ Enter Disney's 34th animated feature film The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, a film that traumatized countless millennials with its dark story line, a score that makes Church music seems sunny and cheerful by comparison, [extremely dramatic church organs and choir] and the scarring miscasting of Jason Alexander. "It's hopeless, absolutely hopeless." "Ya' tellin' me, I'm losing to a bird!" --You know we gotta cast that obnoxious little gargoyle character what's-his-name. --Oh yeah, Hugo. While even at the time Notre-Dame de Paris, known in the English-speaking world by its published English title The Hunchback of Notre Dame, seemed an odd choice for Disney Animation to adapt, it was nothing if not a logical progression given the one thing that studio had Jeffrey Katzenberg thirsted for above all else. [ ♪ Hooray for Hollywood ♪ ] In addition to that, this was also with a prescient eye toward Broadway, with Disney knowing that a successful animated movie can be aged up for an extremely lucrative theatre audience. Said producer Don Hahn in the 1996 interview with Entertainment Weekly: "In this case we wanted to push Alan and Steven to write songs that were more pop opera, like Les Miz or Phantom of the Opera". Beauty and the Beast wasn't the first attempt towards a darker even adult tone for Disney Animation, but it was the first that ended up working really, really well and being really, really lucrative. Then came Pocahontas and well, they tried. "See how I glitter!" So to expand the type of story that Disney dares to adapt, Katzenberg got the creative heads behind Beauty and the Beast to adapt a dark novel of great historical importance. "I'm losing to a bird!" Back in 1993, creative affairs VP David Stone pitched the idea to Jeffrey Katzenberg because he was impressed by quote the truly great scenes and affecting storyline end quote he had encountered when he read the Classics Illustrated comic version as a kid, and then later the book. And basically it seemed like a thrilling challenge for the Disney Company to produce a streamlined, restructured treatment of it. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, fresh off their success directing Beauty and the Beast, were originally working on a treatment of The Orpheus myth, that was about a whale exploring the ocean. But Katzenberg quashed that to get them onto Hunchback instead. --During that time while we were working on it, we got a call from Jeffrey, said "Guys, drop everything. You're working on Hunchback now". Flash-forward to 96, people are already getting kind of tired of this whole Disney Renaissance thing. "I like you." and lo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame. "Alright, alright. Pour the wine and cut the cheese!" But as with Pocahontas, the reception to Hunchback of Notre Dame was... mixed. --At the time it did not receive great reviews. And these criticisms were not unwarranted. Hunchback of Notre Dame had tone problems. "Citizens of Paris! Frollo has persecuted our people, ransacked our city!" [Goofy holler] ♪ "Be mine or you will buuuurn!" ♪ "I'm losin' to a bird!" Most people's post-mortem will agree that the centrality of these grotesquely cartoonish gargoyles in a dark and serious story did far more harm than good, and despite mandatory toyatic elements this was an awkward movie to push toys for. There was criticism of Esmeralda on all sides. Christian mom groups were more on the Frollo side of things. "So typical of your kind to twist the truth to cloud the mind with unholy thoughts." While progressives weren't too wild with Esmeralda being the latest in a string of women of color who are way more sexualized than their white counterparts. "Look at that disgusting display." "Yes sir!" Quote Jason Alexander in a 1996 interview with Entertainment Weekly: "Esmeralda is awfully provocative. She's up there in the Pocahontas category for babe of the year. She is a little more voluptuous than Pokey was." Pokey? Pokey!?! But the most common complaints about Hunchback as its fatal flaw is simply the way it changes the source material. It takes this dirge on the barbarism of human nature in which nearly every named character dies, and turns it into this bright and hopeful inspirational tale about social justice, acceptance and the ultimate goodness of humanity. This, according to some, not only misses the mark of what made Notre-Dame de Paris work as a story but also completely ruins the spirit of Hugo's working, completely misses the point of what Hugo's novel was about. "I'm losing to a bird!" And you at home may be wondering "are you really about to explain why Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame actually secretly does somehow adhere to Victor Hugo's intent?" Well no, mostly no, I'm less interested in Hugo's intent as it pertains the Disney movies so much as how it has changed over the decades in various interpretations. Maybe it has lost Hugo's original intent, but consider that if this story is to remain relevant, maybe Hugo's original intent doesn't so much matter as much as the way people reinterpret it. "But you're not like other gypsies. They are... evil." And consider also that Victor Hugo might be okay with that. This is Notre-Dame Cathedral. Construction began in 1163 after the previous Cathedral of Paris, the 4th century St. Etienne, was allegedly deemed too shabby for its purposes by Bishop Maurice de Sully. While it was consecrated in the 1180s, construction itself didn't end until 1345. Notre-Dame Cathedral was an engineering marvel. It is particularly notable in being one of the first uses of flying buttresses. "If I may draw your attention to the flying buttresses." And this was not originally planned. Prior to the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Cathedral had survived both a massive vandalization by the Huguenots in 1548 for being deemed an idolatrous armpit. In 1793 during the French Revolution, much of the building was damaged and plundered during its brief conversion into a temple for the Cult of Reason, a state-sponsored atheistic religion which threw a lit ass party inside Notre-Dame called the 'Fête of Reason' as a giant 'F*** You' to both the deposed king and to the Catholic Church. You know the eyes in the Disney movie? "...the eyes!" Well, those guys are supposed to be the original kings of Israel, but the French revolutionaries thought they were supposed to be kings of France and so they had of them all beheaded. Yeah, that happened. By the 1830s Notre Dame was, shall we say, a little busted. By Victor Hugo's time, the cathedral was over 500 years old. By now destroyed by the ravages of time, changing governments and a general lack of care, young Victor Hugo begins writing Notre-Dame de Paris as a point of interest and research for himself, entertaining the idea that a piece of writing might draw public interest to the building. So this is before the modern concept of historical preservation, an idea which really only took hold in Europe and especially in the United States after World War II. This was largely due to this [censored] named Robert Moses, who was a city planner for New York City... ...the original Madison Square Garden, that eyesore, that's not the original that was, you know, a mistake by Robert... It wasn't even 100 years old. It was like maybe 60 years old. And he just knocked it down because it was inefficient, and it was in the way, and he was like "no, we need to have like the Avenue open", so then he knocked it down... So out of pure intellectual curiosity and, you know, a desire for money, Victor Hugo takes it upon himself to, well, "Educate yourself!" And he falls in love with it. You know, the building, that is. While most of what people actually remember about the book concerns the melodrama of Esmeralda, Frollo and Quasimodo, Notre-Dame de Paris, the book, is actually a lengthy screed about the importance of architecture and the way it shapes the lives, ideas and culture of those who occupy its spaces, that before the printing press and the subsequent rise of literacy came along, architecture was the dominant way to communicate and dogmatize big ideas on a wide scale. That all of the characters in Notre-Dame de Paris are stupid, or victims, or inept, or cruel, ultimately that doesn't matter because the building outlives and outlasts any of these individual human's flaws, and ultimately weathers all of humanity's flaws and is still a much bigger shaper of French cultural identity than any of these individual people. So Victor Hugo wants to write a story to spark the public's imagination and make them fall in love with this piece of history and architecture like he did. At the time Hugo was already a successful playwright and essayist, but with the rise in popularity of this new exciting form of writing called the novel, that would earn Hugo international fame. So in 1828 Hugo signs a contract with publisher Gosselin to write this book about Notre-Dame de Paris for a really pretty sizable, for that time, advance of 4,000 francs, with the promise that it would be done in April of 1829. But like most writers *zing* Hugo quickly burns through the advance and puts off writing the book longer and longer, so he can stay in his comfort zone of writing plays. So time passes, he hasn't really done any work on this book, but then he goes ahead and starts trying to sell the stage rights to a completely different publisher. But then his original publisher that gave him this giant advance finds out about this and is rightfully really pissed. So after some negotiating, Hugo successfully convinces the publisher to push the publication deadline back, to December 30th of 1830. But then the July revolution happens because it's France, and early 19th century France was averaging about one revolution per month. And Hugo ultimately finishes the novel on January 14th of 1831 While there were socialist undertones in later adaptations of Notre-Dame de Paris, and even in Hugo's later works it's safe to say, you know, he was a businessman, and if he and Walt Disney had been contemporaries, they probably would have at least shared a good firm respectful handshake. And if a Burger King commercial where a nine-year-old girl happily plays with a puppet of Quasimodo seems gauche "It was Quasimodo!" everything points to this author having dollar signs in his eyes, or franc signs, before the book was even finished. If Burger King had existed in 1830s France, I'm sure all the kids would be wanting a Quasimodo textile mill finger protector. "And then, I got carried away just like Quasimodo." "I'm losing to a bird!" But here's the most important thing for Hugo: it worked. Did he just hide a stack of cocaine there? Through writing this novel and his activism Hugo saved Notre-Dame. He woke people up to this historical and architectural marvel sitting in their midst, and that new consciousness led to an extensive renovation in 1845 led by Viollet-le-Duc, and including the addition of this spire that Quasimodo sings on which was definitely not there in the 14th century. And that is why Notre-Dame Cathedral is the fancy tourist attraction we know and love today. But the veneration of this building was not the main reason why the book got so big. So before we cast dispersions on Disney for changing things, first we must ask, what is the Hunchback of Notre Dame about? While I think it's fair to assume that most modern audiences associate this story with themes of social justice and progressive societal change, this is more a product of pop culture adaptations than of the book itself. More on that later. The novel concerns itself very little with the plight of marginalized groups and has a much darker, more cynical take on society and humanity at large. Quasimodo is a curmudgeonly lap dog who does Frollo's dirty work for him, and he's also deaf from those bells and does not have the angelic voice of human flower crown Tom Halls, ♪ "Knowing them as they will never know me." ♪ Claude Frollo is a straight-up attempted rapist. Phoebus resembles Gaston more than any other Disney character. He's just down to nut but at the end of the day, Phoebus is only here for Phoebus Esmeralda is your basic romantic representation of a Madonna whore trope, sprinkled with some genuinely harmful racism that gets buried in later adaptations. You find out at the end that Esmeralda isn't really Romani. She's actually a white girl who was stolen as a baby. Yeah. Yeah, they cut that out in the Disney movie... yes, good. Good. Thank You Disney. "Stay away, child. They're gypsies." Esmeralda is reunited with her birth mother, who was also a waifish, tragic, driven mad by having lost her baby. Right before both characters die horribly. In fact, everybody dies horribly except for Phoebus, and a not-so-subtle stand in character for Victor Hugo, Pierre Gringoire, who was cut from the Disney movie. He is a poet and at the end of the novel when given the choice to save the life of Esmeralda or the goat, but not both, he saves the goat. Yeah, the goat lives, and yes the goat was created by Victor Hugo. Not Disney. The main plot that takes up most adaptations that we know is the background noise to Hugo's main point, which can be summed up with the following excerpt: "Our readers must excuse us if we stop a moment to investigate the enigmatic words of the archdeacon... ...this will kill that. The book will kill the edifice." Victor Hugo's book was mainly concerned with how the printed press, and subsequently mass literacy, would kill what he perceived as the original common language: architecture. So the themes we, the modern audience, have come to associate with the Hunchback of Notre Dame, whether everyone lives at the end or not, these were not themes that were necessarily present in the original novel. The original novel is not terribly concerned with the plight of the marginalized or the abused. Victor Hugo was so unconcerned with the main melodrama we know, that when the original English language translator Frederic Shoberl switched the title from Notre-Dame de Paris to The Hunchback of Notre Dame, essentially because it sounded, I don't know, more tantalizing to English-speaking audiences, Hugo was notoriously pissed off. So there's an interesting irony in a book that says: "This will kill that. The book will kill the edifice", its original meaning and intent will get killed off by... visual mass media. One does not go from a dark and violent story about fate and death of the church, to "I'm losing to a bird!" so easily. Let's look at a few examples. La Esmeralda was an opera written in 1836, and if you're wondering why this production that I pulled looks like a production of Rent with priests in it, I kind of wonder that too. This opera failed in a big way, so it doesn't get like 600 productions a year like La Bohème does. La Esmeralda has a much less dour ending
than the book. Censors demanded that every reference to
Claude Frollo being a priest be removed... and lo, the framework of modern adaptation begins. Quasimodo in this version was shunted to
minor character status, and while Phoebus ends up dying a noble death because of love, Esmeralda survives. And this stage adaptation was written by Yeah, even though this version
is largely forgotten by history, it is relevant because we already see
the author actively engaged in rewriting his own book for a
mass visual consumption and bowdlerizing its own message to
make it palatable for a larger audience. I've got a hunch this bites. La Esmeralda was followed by multiple adaptations over the following decades, and the material was retrofitted again
with the rise of film, including one version directed by
Alice Guy-Blaché in 1905. But for the purposes of this video let's skip ahead in time to the 1923 Hollywood movie starring Lon Chaney, the first adaptation that was a massive success. Not only did this film bring Hunchback back to the popular consciousness in a big way, it also positioned Quasimodo as one of the original Universal movie monsters. Lon Chaney wanted to be Quasimodo to the point where he was actually looking to form his own production company for the sole purpose of getting this movie made. Producer Irving Thalberg had been wanting
to make a big production that was more epic and adult
than the usual Universal fare, and pitched it to studio head Carl Laemmle
as a love story. And thus "The Hunchback of Notre Dame:
Tragic Love Story" enters the public consciousness. The film banked a record three million dollars and got the ball rolling in this conga line of film versions and why you will eventually have to sit through
the Dark Universe version of Hunchback starring Ansel Elgort in 2021. I hope, please God, let it happen. I want it... Frollo is still not a priest, although his brother Jehan,
a minor character in the book, is... and Phoebus is good now! Quasimodo dies at the end
so the breeding pair can go forth unfettered because he is an uggo and well, really... this is about as nice of a monster as you were going to get out of a 1923 movie. But all in all, despite this being one of the last big versions with the Esmeralda racism reveal, it's still fairly conventional 1920s fluff. But already in 1923 we have lost any real connection to Victor Hugo's message
about the novel destroying the edifice. Because visual mass media has destroyed the novel. [crowd gasps] "No, no, don't spoil the fun, Frollo. Stay here." In 1939, Hollywood producer Pandro S. Berman demanded an exact remake of the Lon Chaney film, reusing a majority of the sets from the 1923 version. William Dieterle, already a successful director
in his own right before fleeing Nazi Germany, delivered on this for Berman. Charles Laughton starred, delivering a truly memorable performance as Quasimodo. "Why was I not made of stone like thee?" And at Laughton's own behest, they brought in relative newcomer Maureen O'Hara to star as Esmeralda, who in this version is not a stolen white baby,
but actually Romani. So, I'm not sure where this falls in the whitewashing conversation, but there you go... "She is a gypsy, sir." "Who cares about her race? She's pretty." And it is this version more than any other, including the original novel, that Disney borrows from the most. There is also a very sharp humanist lean
into the concept of justice in regard to people versus buildings in history. Esmeralda in this version isn't just some innocent hottie who wanders in the misfortune by pure bad luck. She literally breaks into the city of Paris,
where the Romani have been actively banned from, to plead with the King of France
to let her people live freely. "They tell me gypsies are a lot of thieves." "That's not true, your majesty." "Whenever we steal,
it's because we're hungry." "My people have good hearts, and we love you." "You have a good heart too, sire,
because you've promised to help us." It is also one of the rare versions where the Romani are not demonized in some way, shape or form. Still looking at you, Disney. ♪ "Where the lame can walk!
And the blind can see!" ♪ ♪ "But the dead don't talk." ♪ Their plight is just that, a plight. "Why did you stop us?" "Because no gypsies can enter Paris any longer
without a permit! It's the new law." "If the others can enter, why can't we?" "They're Frenchmen. Your gypsies, foreigners." "Foreigners... You came yesterday, we come today." The movie is constantly reminding us that the lives of innocent, persecuted people are at stake. The Esmeralda-Quasimodo-Frollo melodrama that everyone loves is still in there, sure, but there is an active undercurrent
in this movie that ties in with bigger struggles that isn't just an old building that has weathered time. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was the only film that was screened in Cannes that year, a film festival which was itself created in opposition to the fascist presence at the Venice Film Festival. So, that a movie that features the Romani as a persecuted underclass while Hitler was gearing up to slaughter hundreds of thousands of them, at a festival that was created to oppose Nazism,
there's something incredibly powerful in that. Something that has nothing to do
with Hugo's original intent. So with the success of this movie, and it was a huge success, we gained the "justice for the oppressed" theme,
which plays very heavily into the Disney version. So in a lot of ways,
this adaptation is certainly the most cohesive. And it is telling that many future adaptations try to mimic the anti-fascist theming. "JUSTICE!" while at the same time not always grasping it. ♪ "We find you totally innocent.
Which is the worst crime of all." ♪ So it's 1992, and Disney is plotting out
its five-year plan for the conquest of Earth, after the staggering success of Aladdin,
Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid. If Disney wants to adapt Notre-Dame de Paris, which version do they really want to adapt? Right off the bat, it's fallacious to look at
Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame as an adaptation of the original novel, because that read ignores a whole
century and a half of filmmakers recontextualizing the story
for each new generation. Again, the idea for the Disney movie
didn't come from the original novel, but from a picture book adaptation of it. And even if the original Notre-Dame de Paris was as close to perfection as the early novel could get, film is just a different medium. It's a common fallacy
that adaptational changes happen because greedy filmmakers want to bastardize
and water down a beloved creation to get as many butts-in-seats as possible. "Why, I'm the Cat in the Hat!" And well, that is sometimes true... but just as often as changing the story
to fit a visually temporally locked medium. Yes, sometimes adaptations are cheap cash-ins... but it is just inaccurate to assume
that all Hollywood adaptations are, when there are often teams of artists that care deeply about making the best product possible, which usually means changing some stuff. But more to the point, aside from the fact that the Disney movie changes the ending in a big way, and that's the aspect that people tend to focus on, what did it really change? Rather, the real question is, what versions did Disney pull from? Because the real originality is in the aesthetics, the music, the visuals. Not so much the story. That Frollo is no longer a priest comes from Hugo himself in La Esmeralda. Same with Phoebus being a good guy
and not everybody dying. And that theme of justice for the oppressed, well, we can thank Charles Laughton
and a German filmmaker fleeing the Nazis for that. The "God Help the Outcasts" musical number pulls heavily from this scene in the 1939 version. (overlapping prayers) "Take all I have. But please, help my people." ♪ "I ask for nothing
I can get by" ♪ ♪ "Please help my people
The poor and downtrod" ♪ Or the scene of Phoebus rallying the citizens of Paris. "Citizens of Paris!" [Trumpet] "Parisiens! Parisiens!" That also borrows from Gringoire
doing similar in the 1939 movie. Well, let's take a look at what
the themes of the Disney movie even are. I think Esmeralda put it best. "JUSTICE!" First, there is the theme of oppression and injustice. ♪ "Judge Claude Frollo longed to purge
the world of vice and sin." ♪ The corrupt judge Claude Frollo begins the film
by way of unjust oppression. ♪ "And for one time in his life of power and control" ♪ ♪ "Frollo felt a twinge of fear for his immortal soul!" ♪ "What must I do?" Then there's the theme of humility before God, and that Notre-Dame itself acts as
a sort of embodiment of God. ♪ "But you never can run from
nor hide what you've done from the eyes"♪ ♪ "The very eyes of Notre Dame" ♪ By basically embodying injustice,
Frollo positions himself as an enemy of God. But that Quasimodo embodies justice
positions him as almost angelic. Observe the contradiction
between Heaven's Light... ♪ "I swear it must be Heaven's light" ♪ and Hellfire. ♪ "Like fire! Hellfire!" ♪ But the unique thematic element
in the Disney movie is this: ♪ "Who is the monster and who is the man?" ♪ This idea is present to some extent in all of the versions, but the Disney version is the first to put this theme of internal versus external monsterhood front and center. ♪ "You are deformed"
"I am deformed" ♪ ♪ "And you are ugly"
"And I am ugly" ♪ Quasimodo, and indeed everyone but Esmeralda, take it for granted that he is a monster, you know. "I am a monster, you know." Because of the way that he looks;
but it is Frollo, who is the monster. The most monstrous character Disney has ever created. ♪ "It's not my fault!
I'm not to blame!" ♪ Because he is much more grounded and real
than any other Disney villain. This aside from the general quality of the writing is what makes Hellfire so brilliant. ♪ "Protect me, Maria!
Don't let the siren cast her spell!" ♪ ♪ "Don't let her fire sear my flesh and bone!" ♪ Unlike other Disney Villains songs where they're just singing about how being evil is fun, ♪ "An even grimmer plot has been simmering
in my great criminal brain" ♪ Hellfire is about the anguish it causes him
to be the way that he is. ♪ "It's not my fault
if in God's plan" ♪ ♪ "He made the devil so much
stronger than a man" ♪ Said Kirk Wise in a 1996 Chicago Tribune article: And it is in their interactions with Esmeralda
that their relative monsterhood is revealed. "I am a monster, you know." So yeah, hold on, I am about to defend this creative decision, bear with me. I remember even back in 1996 hearing the argument where if differently abled kids should see themselves just as valuable as everyone else, then why doesn't Quasimodo get the girl at the end? To which I would respond: a) Getting the girl as a reward should never be the goal; ♪ "And let her taste the fires of Hell!
Or else let her be mine and mine alone!" ♪ and b) it's what sets Quasimodo apart from Frollo. He accepts and values Esmeralda's friendship. But he's also able to let her go
so she can be with the guy who was basically an accessory to genocide
up until about five minutes ago. He's fine with it. He's fine. Really. He's fine. See? He's fine... He's fine, it's fine. It's fine. This is fine. It's fine. See again that contrast between Heaven's Light and Hellfire, both of which revolve around Esmeralda. Esmeralda gives Quasimodo positive attention, and that's the first time he's ever experienced that. "Do you think I'm evil?" "NO! No, no, you you were kind and good and and... "And a gypsy. And maybe Frollo's wrong about the both of us." And his hope is that she might one day love him. ♪ "I dare to dream
she might even care for me" ♪ But Frollo's position is "if I can't have her,
literally possess her, no one can." ♪ "Destroy Esmeralda!" ♪ ♪ "And let her taste the fires of Hell!
Or else let her be mine and mine alone!" ♪ So this is the binary between a monster and a man. Quasimodo respects Esmeralda's autonomy,
and he lets her go. Frollo would rather die. So... this is fine. He's fine. It's fine. He's fine. This is fine. It's fine. He's fine. This is fine. It's fine. Don't worry, they gave him a
hot clumsy girlfriend in the sequel. ♪ "Was it just a lucky day
that it turned to look my way?" ♪ And on that same token, that's part of why Quasimodo needs to not die at the end of this version. Losing his love, either to someone else
or to death by hanging, doesn't kill him. Part of Quasimodo's goodness
stems from him being stronger than that. And rather than getting a sexy lamp as a reward he finds happiness in being accepted by the people which... is maybe a touch unrealistic? But, certainly a better message than either dying or getting a sexy lamp as a reward. And to be clear, Esmeralda in this version is super proactive and not a sexy lamp. And Quasimodo, unlike Frollo, does not see women as possessions. So there's a lot going on here that kind of gets buried under the criticism that they changed the ending,
and therefore softened it. Even with the damned gargoyles in the picture... The overall dark tone kind of worked against
the movie's favorability ratings. Even at the time a huge part of the confused reaction was the distance between the marketing [Yelling] "I think the cavalry is here!" "This coming summer, experience the adventure." "Sit!" "Whoah!" "Mom and dad had a special surprise waiting for me." "It was Quasimodo!" And the product. ♪ "You are deformed"
"I am deformed" ♪ ♪ "And you are ugly"
"And I am ugly" ♪ ♪ "And these are crimes for which the world shows little pity" ♪ --partly because people thought it was too serious and too dark. "Now your kids can get all four puppets!" "Take them from her." "She ran." "This is an unholy demon. I'm sending it back to Hell." --the marketing department at that time thought, "We'll... maybe fool people into thinking that it's, you know, light-hearted happy Disney." "And then, I got carried away just like Quasimodo." --They'll play up the gargoyles,
they'll play up the Feast of Fools, and so all the marketing at that time was
"It's a celebration! It's a festival!" It took nearly 20 years
before we saw that coveted stage musical, and with it, attempts to address some of the criticism about the weird tonal dissonance in the Disney movie
by sticking closer to the original novel. It ran in Germany for several years before premiering with a revised book in America, with performances in San Diego and at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey. It never made it to Broadway
and probably never will for... union reasons. I'll just leave it at that... Union stuff. The American production goes even darker, sticking much closer to the everybody dies ending. But I'd argue it ends up being less enjoyable than the movie because it runs into the same tone problem, but now in the opposite direction. It builds on the same foundation as the movie but then it has a different payoff that isn't really built to. It's different, not better. It was less successful, however, than the most financially lucrative
non-English language musical in history: Notre-Dame de Paris,
the French-Québécois musical, which... while one of the more accurate adaptations of Hunchback... [Singing in French]
All three: "Who'll throw the first stone at her?" [Singing in French]
Phoebus: "Torn! [Between the two women I love]" [Singing in French]
Quasimodo: "Dance my Esmeralda..." Well, if your cheese is three men wailing melodramatically over a hot lady to a Chris Isaac song by way of spa music, then Notre-Dame de Paris is for you. There's always a desire to tell and retell popular stories. This is how we share and create culture. In some ways this is the reason why culture even exists so it's important to understand, not just that story sometimes change, but why. The changes to Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame weren't just rooted in the fact that it's Disney and we can't just kill everybody. --and yet it's a lot lighter than the novel. --Oh absolutely. The novel, everybody dies! Although that is certainly a part of it. Changes to narratives over time are inevitable and in the case of Notre-Dame de Paris, it's because sometimes problems actually do get addressed. Historical preservation wasn't really a thing in the 1830s, especially in France. But now it's hard to imagine a France where
historical preservation isn't a huge priority, and a lot of that is thanks to Victor Hugo. Several years before publishing Notre-Dame de Paris, Hugo wrote an essay called
War on the Demolishers, in which he stated: We can't step into the reality where Hugo never existed, so we will never know. But it is fair to say that
if not for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Notre-Dame Cathedral might not even be there today, or at least it would still be pretty busted. But we live in a world now, in Europe anyway, where Hugo's primary concern was solved. So if this story is going to stick around, it needs a new concern. A more humanist one. Hugo's writing changed priorities as the priorities of the time he was living in changed. And I think that shift in perspective
is no better illustrated than in Hugo's other great work, Les Miserables. Which takes a wildly different attitude
on the value of human life. Les Mis's theme is that individual lives,
though crushed by an unjust system, do matter, and the choices of individuals do affect history. Just look at the kindly bishop who didn't turn in John Valjean at the beginning of the novel, and gave him a second chance. And how John Valjean uses that second chance to better the lives of others. This is a primary theme of Les Miz: human goodness overcoming unjust systems So Notre-Dame de Paris gets this sort of makeover where it's sort of making the same point as Les Mis. Justice for the oppressed. "JUSTICE!" True monstrousness is not a reflection of how society sees you or what you look like. And inhumanly strong protagonists. Hugo is a big fan of those. If you want to decry the Disney movie for the changes they made to make it kid-friendly, well, that's fine. But if one calls out the happy ending because it blunts the original misanthropic tone of the novel, but doesn't call out the anti-inequality
or social justice aspects... Well, it's not only missing the forest for the trees, but it's also a rather shallow reading and omits basically all of the context in history. And yeah, part of that is just Disney being Disney,
but part of that is what we need now. Like Hugo making a point about
the historical importance of the building was what we needed in the 1830s. Quasimodo has gone from pitiable wretch and tool of the system to a movie monster, and then back to pitiable retch but nicer this time, and then all the way to hero of his own story. It's also noteworthy how really the Disney version is the only version that explores how abusive and weird Quasimodo's relationship with Frollo is, and has him overcoming it. "All my life you have told me the world is a dark, cruel place!" "But now I see that the only thing dark and cruel about it, is people like you!" [cheering loudly] And it really is remarkable that Disney had a protagonist with a legit physical deformity. And I don't mean like beastly deformity. I can't think of another kids movie that does that except well arguably Shrek, and Shrek... Well, Shrek looks like 90% of stand-up comedians. This movie was the first that went into production after Aladdin was a huge success, and it shows with these forced comedy elements that have only aged more poorly over time. "Fly, my pretties! Fly, fly!" And improvising Robin Williams is not the same as Jason Alexander. "Alright, alright. Pour the wine and cut the cheese!" The service though it may have been to this movie, Disney did eventually relearn that not all sidekicks have to be voiced by comedians. Eventually. "I got a fur wedgie." But in a lot of ways, Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame was ahead of its time. It's still a hot mess. ♪ "And since you're shaped
like a croissant is" ♪ Easy as it is to say it's great except for the gargoyles, the gargoyles are still there. Yet it's still a cut above what people give it credit for and I think it would be more appreciated if it came out today. Because we need stories like this today. Fasci abusive Frollo,
justice for the oppressed, the focus on how some men really do
loathe the objects of their desire, the wholesale demonization of ethnic groups. "For 20 years I have been taking care of the gypsies, one by one." Maybe this movie wasn't really appreciated in its time because it didn't resonate as much in 1996. But it does resonate more in 2017. So if you haven't seen it in a while, give it a watch. And watch it in Dolby 5.1 HD if you can. Enjoy the sweeping vistas, the revolutionary CGI,
Alan Menken's best score for a Disney movie- that's right, I said it, don't at me -and consider that hokey though it may be at points, "What do they have against people who are different, anyway?" like Hugo's message about
the importance of architecture in the 1830s, this might be what we need in our time. "I'm losing to a bird!" Most of it.
Always look forward to her essays. In depth and well researched, always on point. I like that she filmed this one on location at both Notre Dame and Disney World!
Me watching Lindsay's latest:
"Wait. Is that Norte Dame behind her?
WAIT IS SHE IN PARIS FOR THIS VIDEO ESSAY?!?"
Lindsay you glorious goddess of the YouTubes.
She's always been my favorite content creator to come out of Channel Awesome. So glad her work has only improved since then.
I really disagree with her about the stage adaptation of the Disney movie and I wish she would go into more detail on as to why she thought it "missed the point." I thought it fixed many of my problems with the movie and overall formed a more cohesive story and themes.
Been following this channel for a while, but I've been finding it harder and harder to finish any of her videos. Her tone while filming comes off as very pompous, and it gets off-putting to me. I found the subject matter to be interesting, but not "lectured to" interesting.