A post about Frollo in Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame the musical, entertaining villainy, and fantasizing about bad boys.
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So, having seen the sexless and joyless Frollo in the current Finnish outdoor production of HoND, and having then read the director's mini essay in the programme where he says that even though this version of the story gives Frollo comprehensible motives, we do not have to agree with said motives or relate to them, and that Frollo is scary because people like him really exist... I just feel like shaking everybody involved and yelling YOU DON'T GET IT at them. And it's not the first production like this I've seen, either!
To me, it feels like the people setting up these productions are so worried about appearing like they're endorsing Frollo somehow, they refuse to give him that spark of likeability (whatever that might be in Frollo's context – personally, I think giving him a moment or two of comic relief silliness works pretty nicely, as long as the actor is talented enough a comedian to pull them off) that's the key of creating a truly great, memorable, entertaining villain.
It's like they think this show is such Serious Business, there's no way the audience is expecting to be entertained by a Disney fairytale with fearless heroes and villains we love to hate, clearly they're all here to observe a true-to-life cautionary tale about why sexual harassment is wrong and bad... so you get these serious, one-note, boring Frollos that don't even have the sickass hat from the movie going for them.
Also. Here's something else I think many people setting up this musical either genuinely don't understand, or feel too uncomfortable about to acknowledge: some girls like bad boys, and Frollo is the baddest/worst of them all.
I mean this: to some of us, Frollo is a fantasy and a tumblr sexyman, and (for the majority at least, who am I to kinkshame if someone feels otherwise) it's not because we think it's good that he stalks, assaults and ultimately kills Esmeralda – but because the thought of a very powerful man falling so completely in love/lust with you that he literally goes insane about it, abandons his faith and burns all of Paris for you is, well, kinda hot.
Imagine that you were Esmeralda, but unlike her, you thought Frollo was a bit of a hottie and were willing to play his game. You would have the man wrapped around your little finger, doing your bidding as your willing slave. If you agreed to be his, he'd direct all that destructive energy outwards and annihilate anyone and anything that tried to get between the two of you. Of course, irl, none of that would happen, he'd just be abusive and awful, we all know that – but in the realm of fantasy, our love could fix him enough that he'd be eternally loyal to us, but not so much that he wouldn't still be insane about it.
I'm sure that you won't believe me when, after having written all that, I'm now going to say I'm too asexual for all that personally. I am though! But I do enjoy the idea of it. When I watch the scenes with Frollo and Esmeralda, I want to feel the vibe that were she to choose him, there'd be a small but existent chance that it wouldn't be pure torture for her, that she could maybe even enjoy being with him. And I can't feel that when the character is portrayed as a one-note caricature of an abuser without a single redeeming, interesting or entertaining quality!
In short, I don't want Esmeralda's choice to be quite as simple as live with a 100% horrible man vs. die. I want it to be ~75% horrible vs. death – and for that to happen, the actor and the director have to put in the work to make Frollo more three-dimensional and charismatic than he is in the script.
I don't feel too optimistic about ever getting to see a production with a Frollo like that again. I feel like as a whole, this musical is getting past its best before date here in Finland at least, the musical's very stereotypical depiction of the Romani clashes rather uncomfortably with the fact that racism against the Finnish Roma is a common and ongoing problem here... so I don't think I'll be getting too many more chances, and even if I do, the likelihood of them getting Frollo right doesn't seem all that high.
Even so, I shall manifest:
Before we do away with this show completely, I'm going to see a production directed by a fellow Frollo girlie (gender neutral). I will see it, I will love it, and it will leave me feeling satisfied.
