The book mostly is told from the POV of Pierre, a self-insert who is failed author and, I cannot stress this enough, utterly pathetic 

Quasimodo damaged his hearing as a teenager from years of bell ringing and now uses sign language whenever he can

There is a scene where Quasimodo and a fellow deaf guy have to have a conversation without using sign language because they’re in a courtroom and the jury doesn’t know sign. It goes about as well as you’d expect 

Frollo has a little brother, Jehan, who he raised after their parents died. Jehan is now a frat bro in college whose hobbies consist of getting drunk and being mean to Quasimodo. In his first scene Jehan complains about college DEI because an Italian guy got a scholarship he wanted. 

Esmeralda is accused of witchcraft because she taught her pet goat Djali how to do math

Djali may or may not be sapient. He can and does imitate human mannerisms to make fun of people on purpose. He does this while on trial. 

Yes. They tried the goat for witchcraft, too. 

Pierre writes a whole play riding on the pun of dolphin/Dauphin. Nobody likes it. 

Frollo is an alchemist and has a secret mad science lab where he writes on the walls

Jehan literally pulls a “buy my silence” and frollo gives him money to make him shut up

There’s a trio of catty girls who bully Esmeralda like it’s Mean Girls

Quasimodo and Frollo literally have Cryptid Status— Parisians circulate rumors that Quasimodo is either a familiar, a homunculus, or the result of demonic mpreg, and that Frollo is a wizard with wizard powers and/or a ghost

There is a little old woman who lives in a hole and shouts slurs at people. She has a tragic backstory. 

There is a homicidal con man/king of thieves named Clopin Troillefou (surname translation: The Fool of Fear) who deserves tumblr sexymanhood.

Pierre learns how to carry chairs with his teeth 

There’s an entire chapter dedicated to the layout of the streets of Paris in painstaking detail

There’s another chapter that is a rant about interior design 

Esmeralda and Pierre get platonically married due to Clopin’s murderous shenanigans. Pierre tries to make a move in her but ends up being more emotionally attached to Djali the goat than to her. I think that should be grounds for divorce

There is a scene where Pierre has to choose between helping Esmeralda escape or helping Djali. He picks Djali. 

Frollo hides from his own brother by laying face down in mud and playing dead. Somehow this works 

There is a Plot Significant Tiny Shoe. A Tiny Shoe Chekhov’s Gun. And Victor Hugo will not stop telling you just how Tiny this shoe is. 

There’s a soap opera style plot twist that involves a false accusation of cannibalism and the woman in the hole who shouts slurs

Quasimodo makes up a stupid little song that doesn’t even rhyme to confess his love to Esmeralda, who remains oblivious

He then attempts to demonstrate his affection via convoluted metaphors that involve props. She doesn’t get it. Boy please say what you mean

Frollo pulls the classic discord groomer tactic of threatening self-harm if Esmeralda doesn’t give in. 

Jehan rolls up to a party/rescue mission scheming session in Clopin’s secret hideout in full plate armor (how did he get that???), drunk off his ass, and acts like he owns the place. Everyone finds this so ridiculous that they just let him

Hugo goes on and on about how innocent and naive Esmeralda is but then casually reveals that Esmeralda carries a dagger on her person at all times to fend off assault. When Frollo attacks her and Quasi intervenes, she takes Quasi’s knife and almost kills Frollo (fair!) but he flees. She contains multitudes?

Frollo has a psychotic breakdown in the middle of a field surrounded by chickens and hallucinates skeletons everywhere 

For the first half of the book Esmeralda is like 70% sure Frollo is a ghost, not helped by his aforementioned Cryptid Status

Jehan eats a moldy piece of cheese off the ground 

Frollo tries to send Pierre on a suicide mission in drag. Pierre objects to the suicide part but not the drag part  

Clopin’s preferred weapon is a scythe, he’s very good at using it, and he sings when he fights. Again: sexyman potential. 

Victor Hugo has a foot fetish. I initially dismissed it as Frollo having a foot fetish until Victor Hugo included a foot fetish torture scene without any Frollo in it. So I can only conclude that the foot fetish is authorial in nature. Unfortunately the foot scenes are important to the plot. 

Frollo is canonically 36, he just aged like shit and is bald. The narrator will not stop telling you just how bald he is.

Despite being in full plate armor, Jehan gets splatted like a bug

Pierre gets trapped under a mattress and almost accidentally set on fire while he’s stuck under there

Jehan draws a picture of Frollo with a giant nose on the wall of Frollo’s room

Quasimodo is as close to canonically autistic w processing difficulties and/or intellectual disabilities as the Victorian era can give us— “the external world seemed much farther away to him than to us” and “impressions of objects underwent a considerable refraction before reaching his mind”

Frollo has an antivaxxer monologue where he tells a sick man that medicine isn’t real. FROLLO HAS A MEDICAL DEGREE.

Clopin interrupts Pierre’s play to wail pathetically

Frollo and Quasimodo go on little outings around town but they both get bullied by schoolchildren every single time

Quasimodo sometimes likes to tackle the bells and ride them like a bucking bronco carnival ride. WHEEEEEEEE

Frollo and Pierre are friends. Pierre stalks random people recreationally. Frollo stalks Esmeralda specifically because he is obsessed with her. I can’t help but wonder if they bonded over this creepy, creepy hobby.

Djali the goat can tell time. Accurately. Without even looking at a clock or hearing the bells. We don’t know how he can do this.

Quasimodo does, in fact, treat the gargoyles as imaginary friends and talk to them when he’s alone. He also has named the bells and given them personalities (his favorite is Marie).

There’s a character who is so absurdly, exceptionally French that her name is literally Fleur De Lys.

Frollo’s non-pervy hobbies include searching the church for secret clues to the location of the philosopher’s stone, amateur archaeology, and believing in conspiracy theories

Esmeralda does Djali’s mani-pedi and paints his hooves gold

Jehan falls asleep on a pile of cabbages

Quasimodo is really, really good at parkour. He loves scrambling and scuttling around on the walls like a spiderman or perhaps a dracula

There’s a chapter-long tirade about how much Hugo hates minimalistic buildings. Me too buddy

Djali snitches on Esmeralda for having a secret crush. Because he can spell.

the goat

can

Okay, I will try to explain this topic as well as I can. I will preface this with the fact this comes from personal experiences, and that they may not apply for everyone who has ties to this culture, but let's get to it:

What's the issue with Fortune tellers / "Exotic" circus performers, sexualized belly dancers and other forms of orientalism/Romani depictions?

So, as someone in the TTRPG world (specifically, the DnD community), this sort of trope is seen quite a lot. From the portrayal of Vistani (which has been tried to be fixed, but not... too well), to player characters in home games, as well as popular canon characters and podcasts, it's got quite normalized. Most of these tropes are based on Romani, which is a widespread ethnicity present all across the globe. Now, it feels almost strange to call it orientalism, given how Romani have been in Europe since the Middle Ages, even though they do have roots outside of Europe.

Romani face one of the biggest diaspora in the world: You will find Roma people under many names in very different countries, with cultures and traditions that can clash heavily. Their numbers can range from few hundred in some countries, to over a million in those they have a biggest presence. My own experience is tied to Spanish Roma, known as Gitanos, which is where my mother's side family comes from.

Gitanos are a widespread group, although they're most numerous in the southern part of Spain, Andalusia, where their presence has shaped the culture. Flamenco is thought to have been born from Gitano culture, and it has been adopted as a staple of the Andalusian identity, and the whole of Spain. Gitanos are hard to understand as their own ethnicity in Spain: There's been centuries of Gitanos and Spanish people mixing, and the average Andalusian is quite tan to start with (given Muslim presence there has also been pretty firm). It means it can be hard to "clock" a Spanish Romani person from a non-Romani one. It means you can find Romani people most would consider white, at least by Spanish standards. Most of the discrimination Gitanos face is cultural (and the whole ordeal can be a bit harder to explain from a more US-centric view).

Now, even when Gitanos have influenced Spanish culture a lot, they still face plenty of discrimination. They are one of the most marginalized groups out there. Laws have discriminated against them for centuries, on and off, which have put them in poverty. And poverty often develops into criminality, which has only seeded the idea that Gitanos are criminals, "lowlies", the bottom of society, "uncivilized", etc. Now, here comes a bit of my own experience with this.

My entire family is Andalusian, but both sides moved from there (the south) to Catalonia (north-east) in order to find a job during the Francoist (fascist) dictatorship. I won't get much into the specifics of the Catalan vs Andalusian beef because that's a bit of a massive topic too, but the important thing here is: My mother's side is Romani. My grandma faced some horrifying forms of discrimination, including the theft of her first child during the fascist dictatorship, which was taken from her by nuns (who ran hospitals at the time) to be placed into a "proper" family. (This is something that happened repeatedly at some hospitals during these times).

Now, she had two other children: My mother and my aunt. My aunt remained closely knit to Romani culture, and took part in it, which included marrying a Romani guy. She always did her best efforts to be part of it. I know she was into some culturally-related dances, which included some forms of bellydancing (which is also partially tied to Roma culture). But my mother decided she'd rather cut ties with her culture and become "civilised", by abandoning said culture.

This isn't too uncommon for Gitanos, to be honest. I've met a few people who come from similar backgrounds through my life. One of them was in university, where a fellow classmate gave an oral exposition about how his family had done a great job at "becoming civilised" by cutting ties with their own Roma roots. My university was a fairly progressive space, but no one batted an eye at that: The sheer hatred of Roma culture runs so deep even people who normally abhor racism and xenophobia consider Gitanos to be worth the hate.

There's a social pressure to do that, too. Everyone "knows" Gitano are criminals. I can't really even begin to explain how deeply does this sort of discrimination run. Roma are amongst the most hated minority groups in all of Europe (as well as most of the world). You will find that even in very leftist circles. People will try to erase the fact Roma have their own culture, and just make the world equal to "criminal", call them gy***** (which is a slur, btw), and detach them from being an actual culturally (and often racially) distinct group.

Now, this is only empowered by how media has taken our culture (it is almost hard for me to call it "our", given how much my mother ensured to take that away) and made it into a bad trope. Growing up, I was told my aunt was a sexual deviant who partook in indecent dances. Bellydancing is often seen as something very sexual (Wasn't, in origin), very unfitting. In media, bellydancers veer on the side of being a f*tish, and the common trope is the "bellydancer who seduces people in power for their own benefit". There's also the whole idea of shady fortune tellers and other magical tropes, that sort of weird mysticism that falls rapidly into orientalism. The idea that Roma will hex you, curse you, place an "Evil Eye" on you. And also the idea of travelling circus, people who perform in them being again full of that alluring exoticism, but beware! For they will enchant you, steal from you and run some massive criminal schemes on the way.

Now, when every tie a culture has on media is portrayed in a negative light, it's much harder for that culture to recover any sort of respect from the general populace. And that includes even people who are part of said culture, or people who have been removed from it. It has taken me so many years to unlearn a lot of these biases and realize where it has come from, and now I'm far too distant and far away from my grandmother to actually ever significantly connect to my heritage.

I've had the opportunity to witness what Romani culture is actually about, as I used to live with my grandmother during summers. A lot of the "mysticism" she took part of was actually about wards and protection. A lot of them were actually medicinal in nature, even if others were more superstitious. Red thread in the forehead for sickness and protection to curses, parfums (which contained alcohol or other antiseptics) on wounds, that stuff. My aunt was never a "sexual" deviant, she was keen on recovering and partaking on traditions from a culture that is slowly disappearing. The entire "promiscuous" idea is bullshit, Gitanos place a massive amount of power to marriage and loyalty. I had the luck to witness my cousin's marriage, which was a festivity like none other I had seen in my life, a colorful spectacle full of the most delightful attires, and my mother was whining the entire time over about how it was all an "uncivilised circus".

Now, this is why representation in media is key. Roma culture is broken into a thousand pieces and lost with every passing day. When someone decides to write an ambulant circus performer/fortune teller clad in exotic clothes full of golden jewellery, writes them as a criminal and makes the entire thing extremely sexual, they are feeding into the negative stereotypes about Roma.

Now, there's a lot of people who aren't even aware what culture does that trope even actually come from. I've seen people draw characters clad in Romani attires (often in, uh, rather pin-up or sexual contexts) and claim they're inspired by "x piece of media", where the trope is portrayed in the first place. I literally saw someone make a drawing in that way and call it "inspired by x (non-Roma) artist" instead of acknowledging where does all that come from.

I'm not asking people to not portray Roma people in media. Far from that. I just wish representation was better. Good representation is key towards making a culture seen in a more positive light, and teaching other peoples about it, and making people from said culture resonate with it. The very few times I've seen positive representations of Roma I've felt a bit of that connection with something that was taken from me. I want people to do a bit of research before giving a try to a Roma-coded character. Make an effort to not make Roma always the morally dubious fortune teller, the exotic alluring circus traveller, the bellydancer seductress. It's hard for Romani to produce widespread mainstream media because of how impoverished most communities are (because of the systematic discrimination Roma face all around the world), so the least non-Roma people can do is to be kind when they use their voice to talk or represent us.

Phoebus: Frollo kicked her and she fell and broke her neck.

Quasimodo: What? How did you know?

Esmeralda: Clopin tells the story to the kids every Tuesday. Everyone knows.

Phoebus: Even I know. I was riding past his stall last week and stopped to listen. He has all these puppets and everything. It was really well done.

Esmeralda: You know, I should really find him some age-appropriate stories…

A very Talkative Bridal Night

Sorry for the inactivity lately, but life has been hectic.

I wanted to do (another) post on the Disney adaptation of Hunchback of Notre Dame. It’s one of the most popular, widely-known movies that portrays Romani people, and I can guarantee you that the first thing most young people think of when they hear “Gypsy” is Esmeralda (or maybe TLC).

I would firstly like to point out that I *PERSONALLY* like this movie, especially the soundtrack; however, liking it does not take away the criticisms I have.

1. The original source material (the novel by Victor Hugo) is extremely racist. It perpetuates disgusting stereotypes and misinformation about Romani people as well as using slurs (esp in English translations). This isn’t an opinion; it’s a fact. So, understandably, anything based off of such source material is going to run the risk being just as racist.

2. My main issue with the Disney movie is how they portray Quasimodo. In the movie, as well as in the novel, Quasi is explicitly Romani. There is legitimately no reason why Disney had to white-wash him. For the record, his parents looked like this:

Pretty obviously not White people. The quality is a little shoddy, and it is dark but for comparison with White characters see these:

Pretty obviously a different shade. Here’s one of most of the goodguy!Main Characters:

Notice how Clopin and Esmeralda are noticeably darker and different tones than Phoebus and Quasi?

Before anyone gives me the “but there are light-skinned Romani” argument, A. I know, as I am myself a light-skinned Romani person, and B. there was no reason for Quasi to be light-skinned AND have completely different hair and eyes than both of his parents. Also, AFAIK, genetics don’t usually work that way? I mean what are the actual statistics that two brown-skinned, black-eyed, and black-haired people would have a child with extremely light skin, green eyes, and red hair? (I’m genuinely curious about the stats on this, though).

I’ve also heard “but Quasi was shut inside the cathedral for about 20 years so he could just be pale from that!” A. he was able to go into the sunlight (as seen in his show-stopping musical number “Out There”), and B. that wouldn’t make his other features suddenly lighten.

Now, I’d just like to say that I am well aware that the idea that all Romani have to look a certain way is very dangerous, and has lead to some pretty horrific events involving Romani children being forcibly taken from their parents for looking “White”. Genetics are weird, I get it. But Disney had no reason to make Quasi White-passing, other than I guess the fact that they thought a movie with mostly brown characters wouldn’t sell? Anyway, that’s my MAIN issue with the movie.

3. The movie portrays most of its Romani characters as racial caricatures. Here are some screengrabs of the background Romani in the film:

Notice how most of the women are “ugly” (intended to be far from standards of beauty) with extremely exaggerated noses.

Again, what is with the noses? And notice how many of the Romani characters have extremely weak chins and many have hooded eyes. 

80% of the Romani in this movie are racial caricatures. And the main Romani female characters (Esmeralda and Quasi’s mother)? They both have White facial features (I’m thinking mostly of how their noses were drawn). It’s almost like Disney didn’t bother to look at actual Romani people when doing character designs…

4. The use of slurs. Now, for me this is complicated because I think that having some characters use “Gypsy” is appropriate (like Frollo, because why WOULDN’T he use it? and also that random lady at the beginning who says something like “they’re Gypsies, they’ll rob us blind). Like I get that, because that happens in real life. But wouldn’t it have been great if, at some point, one of the Romani characters explained that, gee, we actually call ourselves *this* and that word is kind of gross and misleading (implying that we came from Egypt, which we did not - we came from India). Think of how great a teaching moment that could have been! 

All these points are kind of leading up to my final point:

5. General lack of research. I’ll give Disney some slack and believe that they did *some* research, but honestly it doesn’t really come across like they did. Like, at all. Here’s what Paul Kandel (voice actor for Clopin) had to say about his role:

[Caption]: I invented Clopin’s accent. Although the film takes place in Paris, the Gypsies are a separate society. They’re not from Paris, and they’re not quite Russian, French, or Czech. So I went with an accent that you can’t quite put your finger on.”

Ok so. This tells me that Paul, at least, didn’t bother to do ANY research. If he had, he would know that obviously we aren’t any of the European nationalities he listed, and that we actually DO have specific accents depending on what dialects we speak! Isn’t that mind-blowing? That people have REAL accents and that making one up is kind of insulting? 

In conclusion, while some of this is honestly my own ranting, I think it’s safe to say that the Disney version of Hunchback isn’t exactly free from criticism. Nobody is telling you you can’t watch and enjoy it, but please do so with the knowledge that this isn’t the best portrayal of Romani people and does have some issues. 

Najis tuke! Thank you!

Romani Herstory is an account dedicated to celebrating the lives of Romani women in politics, entertainment, and history. Also what mainly drove me to make this post is that Emilie Herbert-Pontonnier, the woman who created the account and a Romani researcher, is working on a project dedicated to Romani women directors, so if you ever want to support more media created by Romani, I’d keep an eye on that, as well as following this account!

Kale Amenge is a Spanish-based independent Romani collective movement

The Dikhlo Collective

E-Romnja

The European Roma Rights Center is an international human rights organization founded by Romani activists, dedicated to fighting against discriminatory practices against Roma individuals.

ERIAC is a Roma arts account dedicated to showcasing contemporary art.

Giuvlipen is a theater company founded by Mihaela Dragan, which focuses largely on performances based on issues relating to the Romani community, as well as the racism experienced by Roma. Mihaela recently 

Terms of Engagement is a grassroots organization dedicated to Romani-centered history, as well as current events pertaining to the Romani.

Romani Uprising is an account dedicated to talking about the culture and history of the Romani, as well as the history of anti-Roma racism. 

Roma Culture is another account that talks about Romani history, pertaining to specific communities in specific nations.

Romani Design is a fashion brand founded by Roma designers from Hungary

Gypsy Dance was founded by a former member of the Russian ROMEN theater company, based in both the UK and Russia. It focuses on the Russian style of Romani dance, and is currently doing online classes for those wishing to learn!

Individuals to follow include: 

Mihaela Dragan

Antonella Lerca

Alina Serban

Tayo Awosusi-Onutor

Selma Selman

Zita Moldovan

Jessica Reidy

Silvia Aguero Fernandez

Franciska Farkas

Riah May Knight

tw: g slur

[source]

Terms_of_Engagement on Instagram

Just for fun I plugged it into Google Translate to see what modern Greek thinks of it and

every single non-black person who has posted #blacklivesmatter this week needs to take a step back and analyze whether or not their actions (not just their words) have shown that they truly believe that statement. it’s a clear and obvious choice to speak out against the brutal murder of an innocent man. however, if you are not making the obvious choice every day to speak up for us when your friends/relatives make racist jokes, if you are not listening to and respecting the black people you know in real life, if you have not sat down to analyze the ways you actively benefit from this system, if you have not worked to start unlearning the biases you were raised with, or if you thought “black lives matter” was a controversial statement until this week, do not pretend to care just because everyone is talking about it right now.