cavenoreille

I know I've probably discussed this topic to death, but I've been thinking about it again.

I just went onto Disney+ and rewatched all of Quasimodo and Esmeralda's interactions in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as well as scenes where Quasi talks about Esmeralda when she's not present. Having refreshed my memory, I can safely say this, one and for all:

To call Quasimodo's feelings for Esmeralda "toxic" is nonsense!

Their friendship is lovely. Quasimodo is never anything but polite, friendly, and helpful to Esmeralda, while she feels nothing but warmth and esteem for him. In no way does he ever make her uncomfortable. In no way is it his own fault that she doesn't love him romantically.

Yet the fans call his love "toxic." Ad nauseam and again ad nauseam, they claim that he objectifies and dehumanizes her by putting her on a pedestal as a perfect angel, "just like" Frollo demonizes her as a temptress and a witch, while only Phoebus sees her as the real woman she is. If you dare to discuss any aspect of the Quasimodo/Esmeralda/Phoebus love triangle, in any capacity, you can expect at least one person in the comments to chime in that Quasi "sees Esmeralda as a Madonna, while Frollo sees her as a Whore, and only Phoebus treats her like a human being." Quasi and Frollo are lumped together as "the bad choices" for Esmeralda, in contrast to Phoebus as "the good choice," when the movie's actual main contrast is between Quasi and Frollo, the "man" vs. the "monster," with Phoebus not even part of the equation. And again and again, people say that the reason why Esmeralda falls in love with Phoebus instead of Quasi is because she "doesn't like the way Quasi treats her," as if they all saw some alternate version of the movie where he makes her uncomfortable by worshiping her too much.

And why? Because just once, in the song "Heaven's Light," when Esmeralda isn't even present, he calls her "an angel."

My dad used to call me "my angel." Does that mean he was a toxic parent who didn't see me as a human being? And my mom used to call our dog "our little angel." Does that make her a toxic dog owner?

I don't disagree with the claim that Quasimodo idolizes Esmeralda just a little too much for an ideal romance, or that of the three men who have feelings for her, Phoebus is the only one who relates to her entirely as an equal. But I think there are other reasons why Quasi and Esmeralda might not work as a couple... more on her side than on his. She doesn't relate to him as an equal either, but pities him as a "poor creature" and "poor boy" ("boy," not "man") when they first meet, and though she obviously gains respect for him in the bell tower when she sees his artistic talent and gets to know him better, there's always a protective and nurturing motherly aspect in how she treats him. This is fine for a friendship, but for a romance? Not the ideal basis.

Besides, there are two much bigger reasons for Quasimodo not to "get the girl": (1) It lets him prove that he's the "man" to Frollo's "monster," since he accepts Esmeralda's choice and continues to be her friend, unlike Frollo who's willing to burn down all of Paris to possess her and burn her if she refuses. (2) It adds just a hint of bittersweetness to the ending, so the integrity of Victor Hugo's tragedy isn't entirely lost – just like the rewritten ending of The Little Mermaid still has bittersweetness to it, because even though Ariel survives and marries Eric, she still has to say goodbye to her family and friends in the sea. And (3) as the film's creative team has always pointed out, Quasi's dearest wish isn't romantic love, but to be "out there" among the people of Paris and accepted by them, which he gets in the end.

Yet even with all of this in mind, I have nothing against shipping Quasimodo with Esmeralda. Like I said, their friendship is beautiful, and I don't think they're inherently not a romantic match. And while I like Phoebus and Esmeralda as a couple, I understand feeling that they're a little rushed, or preferring Esmeralda and Quasi's mutual tenderness to her snarky banter with Phoebus. You want to ship them? Go ahead, just as long as you don't bash Esmeralda for not choosing Quasi in canon!

Did some people’s idea of Quasimodo’s supposed “toxicity” come with the Victor Hugo- and Disney-inspired stage musicals where Quasi has a very realistic reaction to his heartbreak in “Dieu que le monde est injuste” and “Made of Stone”? He doesn’t hide his feelings, but he lets them out.

As I wrote in a Reddit comment,

There’s [...] this double standard that many fans think Quasimodo is unfit for a romantic relationship because of his isolation and trauma, and I haven’t seen anyone send Phoebus to therapy despite the fact that the Disney-inspired stage musical makes it clear Phoebus has war trauma. Most fans go, “Oh, he’s so confident, hot and perfect for Esmeralda!” It grates me.

In my opinion, there’s nothing wrong with stating the fact that the pairing of Phoebus and Esmeralda (and Esmeralda and Pierre Gringoire in some live-action HOND adaptations) is NOT exactly original. Getting attractive characters together is actually a very conventional and standard way of creating romance in mainstream media. Likewise, as far as banter is concerned, I really feel it’s overdone at this point. To me, Phoebus and Esmeralda’s relationship is incredibly rushed. Attraction is there, but I feel the characters look like they just perform for each other all the time, trying to outwit each other with bon mots. A romantic relationship shouldn’t be about rivalry.

On the other hand, Esmeralda and Quasimodo’s interactions are natural and real. Their words sound like they’re actually spoken from the heart. I’m sad that many people find themselves bored when potential romance begins more slowly and subtly, when tension is there, but it’s hidden in a whisper, not screaming.

Quasimodo’s unrequited love is also nothing new. Culturally, people who are disabled or just physically unattractive have always been told that they aren’t enough and that they can’t ever hope for love or acceptance. It’s so rare to find a piece of media that says, “It’s OK to be physically beautiful, and being physically ugly is equally OK.” It isn’t something to be punished, rejected or despised. It’s just appearance. It’s human. It’s part of life. And yes, such a person can also be loved and seen as attractive in someone’s eyes.

I don’t like it when people look at Disney!Esmeralda and Quasimodo and say, “Oh, they’re so much like siblings. Quasi’s like Esmeralda’s little brother!” Uh-uhm, see how Esmeralda looks here:

I even interpret that line (“I’ll come after sunset!”) and the dancer’s half-lidded gaze as a subtle hint that if things didn’t work out between Phoebus and Esmeralda, she’d be open to taking a chance on Quasimodo because she really likes him.

“I’ll come to see you,” Esmeralda says pointedly. I think her body language shows she’s genuinely flirting with Quasimodo. No, it isn’t some seductive pose on her part to be more persuasive.

To me, there’s nothing motherly or sisterly in Esmeralda’s interactions with Quasimodo. I don’t know where and when this odd trend of associating friendship with almost-incest started, but I hope it goes out of fashion soon. I also wish it would just stop being taboo for a woman to fall in love with a younger and shorter man.

I also have a theory about the gargoyles:

[W]hen it comes to the 1996 Disney version, gargoyle Hugo’s obvious interest in Esmeralda’s pet goat Djali is nothing more and nothing less than a metaphor of Quasimodo’s own physical attraction to Esmeralda herself. This theory is further supported by Hugo’s dressing up as Esmeralda in the “A Guy Like You” sequence. Considering the […] medieval symbolism of goats [that represented witchcraft, but also lust and sexuality], it made sense for Disney animators to make Hugo draw Djali as a way of avoiding a censorship strike which might have resulted from sketching a nude woman’s body. In general, as an adult, I believe that the sequence where the three gargoyles make Esmeralda-related drawings explicitly show how Quasimodo perceives the woman: she’s (1) fun and playful, (2) beautiful and confident, and (3) incredibly sexy. This is because I believe Quasi would be able to see Esmeralda as a whole person, and I like the fandom theory that what Victor, Laverne and Hugo really represent is some aspects of the bell ringer’s own personality. - from my essay “The Song of the Bells and the Tambourine” (2024) (available to logged-in AO3 users)

I’m not convinced that I should just buy it that the moral of the first Disney’s HOND film is practically “You won’t be anyone’s (first) choice” or, as I wrote elsewhere, “You have to be the bigger person even when the odds are against you”. I’m allowed to not like that interpretation. I’m also disappointed by the sequel because its moral is essentially about Quasimodo having to lower his expectations for a romantic partner. He just wants a normal, loving and happy life and I don’t know why the creators interpreted “ordinary miracles” as pairing Quasimodo with a very average and shy woman. Madellaine breaks Quasi’s heart and once more the bell ringer is expected to just pretend that nothing happened, to trust Madellaine, and to show her that he is the bigger person. Why? That’s unbelievable, considering how briefly Madellaine and Quasimodo have known each other at the end of the sequel.

I don’t like Madellaine because she represents a very stereotypical ideal of femininity understood as being delicate, quiet, shy and repressing her opinions. She just doesn’t convince me in her double function of an alluring femme fatale and a jaded woman who regains her joy of life after meeting a kind man. You want a model example of such a character? Look at Megara from Disney’s Hercules. Meg is confident, fully embraces her beauty and openly speaks her mind. She even calls Herc Wonderboy.

I adore Quasimodo because his masculinity is unconventional. He’s strong, but he’s also gentle and unafraid of showing his emotions. He’s a grown-up man. True, Esmeralda calls him “poor creature” and “poor boy”, but that happens before Quasi awes her with his kindness, strength and agility. I’m sure Esmeralda would come to see him as her equal. I wish the film and the musical had actually shown that change of perception.

I wish people would focus more on discussing similarities between Quasimodo and Esmeralda. Both characters mirror each other well, both are a study of selflessness, and “God Help the Outcasts” is honestly about them. I’m frustrated by the fact that Quasimodo is constantly analysed with reference to Frollo.

He would not live to see the finished product, for he died from complications of AIDS months before its release.

This has led many, myself included, to reflect on the queerness of the Disney movies that Ashman worked on.

But I didn't even need to know that first in order to see myself in Belle, the Perpetual Outsider in a Small Minded Community.

She's weird, and even though they all want her to conform, she refuses to.

I certainly related to that a lot, but in less proud moments, I also saw myself in the Beast, who is to be seen as a monster by everyone around him, to the point in which he too has begun to see himself as a monster.

Worst of all, the only way out is to learn to love another and earn their love in return.

The realization of self-sabotage, the certainty that solitude is forever, how does one learn how to love when no one showed you love in the first place?

It's hard to convey how much this meant to me.

The movie is dedicated:

"To our friend Howard, who gave a Mermaid her Voice and a Beast his Soul. We will forever be grateful."

If the Beast's Soul is meant to be Howard Ashman's, I too am incredibly grateful.

It wasn't until I delved back into these stories for this video that I realized there was a pattern in the stories that kept me company in the closet: they're all about figuring out what to do with the self-perpetrating misery that pervades our existence without ignoring it.

They are about acknowledging it so we can stop hurting ourselves and each other and instead grow together.

I love it when stories engage with pain, misery and heartbreak not as things to avoid, but as things that we grow from."

(José Maria Luna: In Defense of Queer Misery)

Ethan Freeman and Jill Washington, London (1995)

For as long as I remember, I've always been disappointed that Esmeralda and Quasimodo did not get together in the 2002 sequel to Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This is partly because the directors of the 1996 adaptation - Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise - also famously directed the 1991 animated version of Beauty and the Beast.

GIF by @rapunzely (source)

GIF by @lokihiddleston (source)

The 1991 film is also probably only the second - after the 1987-1990 TV series starring Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman - film adaptation of the French fairy tale, which deviates from the literary original by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and shows a gorgeous female character (whose name is Catherine in the TV series) who genuinely and passionately falls in love with a man who's seen as ugly and monstrous by other people. In the TV series the main male character Vincent is ostracised from the rest of society because of his lionesque face.

It's also interesting how much Disney's animated design for the character of Belle looks like Jo Anderson in the role of Diana Bennett from the same TV series. See e.g. the GIF below.

GIF by @princessdaily (source)

My disappointment with the fact that Esmeralda and Quasimodo are not an endgame canon pairing in the Disney version stems from my wish for finally seeing a subversion of this common fairy tale trope where there are two characters - one who is physically attractive and one who is not - and then at the end of the story the power of true love makes the second character magically transform and become a model of normative beauty. Other examples of this trope could be "Riquet with the Tuft" by Charles Perrault and "The Goose-Girl at the Well" by the Brothers Grimm.

It would be nice to have seen a realistic interpretation of the fairy tale in a world where there are (preferably) no elements of fantasy and no magic so that the unattractive character's appearance doesn't change for that character to be considered worthy of romantic love.

This also leads me to a moment of reflection that some people find it much easier to root for romance potentially developing between a visually unconventional couple when the said romance happens or could happen in the realm of fairy tales and fantasy. However, as soon as this idea is explored in the real world or - as is the case with The Hunchback of Notre Dame - in a fictional depiction of the real world, some people start to resist and believe that "These two are too different. They should never be together".

I'm aware that in the official Disney sequel Quasimodo finds someone to love, but one of my problems with Madellaine is that she is, unfortunately, incredibly insecure and timid compared to some of the female characters of the Disney Renaissance era, e.g. Esmeralda, Megara, Princess Kida, Belle, and Jane Porter. I've always wanted Quasimodo to find true romantic love in someone who's kind, gorgeous, spirited, intelligent and thirsty for knowledge.

I admit it's also about satisfaction from the idea that as far as love goes, my ideal female love interest for Quasimodo is so attractive that everyone wants her and yet when she really gets to know the bell ringer, her heart starts beating only for him.

If I were to take Gaston's question ("Don't I deserve the best?") and apply it to Quasimodo, I'd answer that yes, Quasi actually does deserve the best.

Plus, whenever I look at this set of GIFs, including the one below,

I think, The way Esmeralda is gazing at Quasi here is definitely not how you look at someone who's a friend and nothing more.

So for a narrative about the leading lady staying with a man with a real disability rather than fantastical deformity, essentially modernizing Beauty and the Beast, I reccomend the 1953 movie Lili, and its stage musical adaptation Carnival:

The story is set in a circus, where an orphan young woman who considers attempting suicide after finding difficulty in getting employed in a new town since her parents died, is helped by a former ballet dancer who has become lame in a leg after surviving War, and has come to work as a puppeteer: he uses the puppets to represent different aspects himself to comunicate with her, while also having the young woman join the circus in a successfull where she performs improvised dialogue with the puppets.

Since he hasn't properly processed his trauma of harming his leg in the War and not being able to dance like he used to anymore, he acts agressively thowards the people who come close, failing to clearly comunicate his feelings as himself, so the young woman at first sees him as a scary monster.

Slowly learning to show his tenderness, he has to apologize, embrace tenderness, and reveal that the words of the puppets are his, so he and the woman who grew more confident with time can finally be together.

Here is the original 1953 movie (english and br portuguese dub):

Original cast album of the musical Carnival (1961):

And a 1990s production of the stage musical:

A piece of trivia: the singer/actor who originally played the puppeteer was Jerry Orbach, the voice of Lumière in 1991's Beauty and the Beast:

Speaking of Quest for Camelot, I've always thought that Kayley and Garrett as characters were inspired by the legendary figures of King Arthur's knights, Sir Kay and Sir Gareth. Then I found out the film was loosely based on Vera Chapman's fantasy novel, The King's Damosel (source).

Both Garrett from Quest for Camelot (which is a fantasy film after all, with magic and dragons) and Paul (as played by Mel Ferrer in Lili and by e.g. Jerry Orbach in Carnival) are still portrayed as handsome men. As a matter of fact, the animated Garrett has always reminded me of Prince Derek from The Swan Princess in some way.