The case for and against the gargoyles in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame
A Century of Disney
[Transcript of the hearing of THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES V. THE GARGOYLES]
ALL RISE!
You may be seated. Good morning, everyone. We have a long day of cases ahead of us, so let’s just get straight to the point. The defendants today — Hugo, Victor, and Laverne, colloquially known as The Gargoyles From Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame — have been accused of tarnishing an otherwise fantastic film. The alleged crime was committed on June 21, 1996, in the midst of what later became known as the Disney Renaissance era. But before we get too deep into the film itself, I believe some background information is required.
In 1831, novelist Victor Hugo released his book Notre-Dame de Paris. It was a love letter to the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, which, over the centuries since its construction, had fallen into disrepair. While a large portion of the novel is devoted to describing Notre-Dame in great detail, Notre-Dame de Paris is more known for its central story and characters, namely a hunchback named Quasimodo, who lives in the cathedral’s bell tower. He falls in love with a Romani girl named Esmeralda, who also attracts the affection of the Archdeacon Claude Frollo and aristocratic military figure Captain Phoebus.
The story was a massive hit and the novel was published around the world, with its English-language title becoming The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. With this success, of course, came cross-media adaptations.
The first question when Disney planned to adapt The Hunchback of Notre Dame into a children’s animated musical was inevitably, “How will they make this novel palatable for kids? How will they remove all the adultery, torture, rape, murder, and suicide?” Hunchback is no stranger to
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