#hond

🎉 New collection of Hunchback of Notre Dame merch debuting in August at D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event!

🔔 According to the official DisneyParksBlog, this upcoming collection to honour the 30th Anniversary of Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame, features a Spirit Jersey*, ear headband, trading pin, mug, and more!

🛍️ Items will be available to purchase on-site at the D23 Marketplace in the Anaheim Convention Center during D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event, as well as at Emporium at Disneyland, Off the Page at California Adventure and World of Disney at Downtown Disney.

🛒 The collection will also be released online at the DisneyStore, at a later date.

I don't think I'll ever recover from this!! 😭🥹😍🤩

Last Friday, I got to spend the afternoon at Notre Dame with Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the lyrics to Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame - both the animated film and the stage musical.

He also wrote the lyrics to Pocahontas, Enchanted and The Prince of Egypt. And he wrote the lyrics & music for several Broadway musicals including Pippin, Godspell, Children of Eden...and most famously, Wicked. I've loved Wicked since the OBC, and I finally saw it on Broadway in 2022. The Wizard and I certainly hits differently now! 🥹

In June, when I hosted "The Official Unofficial Fan Celebration for the 30th Anniversary of Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with the production team of the film, including Stephen, we all took a few minutes before the livestream started to test mics, sync Zoom/YouTube, do a bit of small talk, etc. I said to everyone "Let me know if you're ever back in Paris and want to see Notre Dame again!". And Stephen said "Ok! How about in 2 weeks!?" 🫨

I loved hearing all his stories about how he wrote the lyrics to the songs (especially Out There), and how the stage musical has evolved over the years!

So, fun fact! While Alan Menken was working on Beauty and the Beast (before working on The Hunchback of Notre Dame), he had already started playing around with melodies that would eventually turn into the song Out There. For the line "And out there, living in the sun", the note of "there" was originally written to go up, but while collaborating with Stephen, they decided to change the note to go down instead, because they felt it made the song sound more interesting and less classical! 🎶

Also, if anyone is wondering, the real reason why The Hunchback of Notre Dame stage musical has never been on Broadway or The West End (aside from the concert) is because of Disney and their branding! It "doesn't fit with the Disney brand" like the other more family friendly Disney musicals do... but the team behind the musical itself (Stephen, Alan, etc.) DO want to bring it to Broadway and/or The West End and they are trying very hard to make it happen! But professional productions are frequent in Europe and in languages other than English, and I'm excited for the new revival tour opening in Germany later this year! 😍

Of course I had to tell him about all of the different productions I've seen around the world, and how much of a die-hard fan I am of the original 1999 production of Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (hence the shirt!)...even though he already knew that. The first thing he said to me when he joined the fan celebration was "I see how much you love Der Glöckner...I see a lot of Der Glöckner stuff!", referring to my posters and merch in the background (a lot of which he signed this afternoon!).

I was also very happy to tell him that a piece of his work is inside Notre Dame! When I was given the opportunity to write a short note and sign it, and have it inserted into one of the beams of Notre Dame's new roof, I included a lyric from Top of the World, my favourite song in the stage musical.

I'm always hesitant to quote praise in fear of coming off as arrogant, but I just wanted to share my appreciation for the compliment he gave me while I was giving him a tour of the exterior, "I've learned so much, even more than I did while I was working the movie!" 🥹

Last August, I saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame in Concert on The West End. The day after, I found out that he had been sitting just a few rows ahead and I thought how much I would have loved to have met him... It's funny how life works sometimes! 😉

Good morning, fellow dash-dwellers. Pull up a chair, because I am completely exhausted by the media literacy crisis currently rotting this website. We need to talk about Disney's 1996 masterpiece The Hunchback of Notre Dame, specifically the endless, lukewarm discourse surrounding Esmeralda. I constantly see people writing her off as "oversexualized," and frankly? It’s giving puritanical nonsense. Let’s dismantle this step-by-step, because our girl deserves a defense essay written with actual logic, canon facts, and emotional intelligence.

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The Visual Fact-Check

Look, I kinda get where the surface-level critique comes from to an extent. But at the exact same time? I absolutely do not.

Let's be real: Esmeralda is stunning. She has a gorgeous, curvaceous figure, she is well-endowed, and Demi Moore gave her a sultry, feminine, wonderfully husky, raspy voice. And yes, that iconic Festival of Fools scene where she performs in the red dress absolutely emphasizes her curves, her cleavage, and her toned torso.

But can we look at the actual frames of the movie? There is never a scene where she wears something outright revealing, let alone any nudity. Aside from that single, specific theatrical performance costume, she spends the entire movie wearing an off-the-shoulder long-sleeved top, a long purple skirt that hits her ankles, and a purple sarong. She is dressed for survival, movement, and her culture.

Object of Desire vs. Object of the Camera

Here is the core distinction people miss: despite being deeply desired by almost every male character in the story, Esmeralda is never presented by the narrative as a shallow sexual object. She does not exist for cheap fanservice or viewer arousal. (Yes, I’m looking at you—the men, the women, and the little boys who can't look at a confident woman without projecting your own baggage onto her!)

She is never just a pretty face with a sexy body. She has an absolute powerhouse of a personality. She is:

• Rebellious and street-savvy

• Cunning and assertive

• Fearless, sassy, and brave

• Free-spirited and resourceful

• Resilient, courageous, and fiery

• Independent, stubborn, and determined

• Kind-hearted, compassionate, loving, and completely selfless.

The Canon Evidence of a Queen

If you think she's just eye-candy, you haven't been paying attention to her actions. She literally saves the entire moral compass of the film:

1. The Ultimate Call-Out: She openly shows compassion to Quasimodo, climbing onto the pillory to free him from his restraints, and publicly calls Frollo out for his cruelty and hypocrisy while the rest of Paris watches in terrified silence.

2. Combat and Agility: She uses her stage tricks, acrobatics, and raw athleticism to outwit Frollo’s armored soldiers, and later holds her own in a literal sword-and-staff fight against Phoebus inside the Cathedral.

3. Surviving Systemic Violence: She constantly stands up to Frollo, an abusive authority figure who corners her, threatens her life, sexually harasses, gropes, and assaults her without her consent. She never shrinks away; she calls out his creepy, predatory actions to his face.

4. The Purest Soul in Paris: While trapped in Notre Dame, she doesn't pray for herself. During "God Help the Outcasts," she prioritizes the safety, mercy, protection, and justice of the poor, downtrodden, and marginalized over any personal gain.

5. Unconditional Kindness: She befriends Quasimodo, looks past his appearance, and fiercely assures him that he is not a monster, showing a level of empathy no one else in his life ever provided.

6. Unwavering Loyalty: She literally pulls a half-dead Phoebus out of a river to save him from drowning, staying out of sight to keep him safe.

7. The Ultimate Rejection of the Patriarchal Gaze: Tied to a literal stake with fire rising around her, she chooses to spit directly in Frollo's face rather than submit to being his mistress, completely denying his predatory lust and rape fantasies.

8. Strength to the Last Breath:

Even at the climax, while physically weakened and choking from severe smoke inhalation, she uses every ounce of her remaining strength to hold onto Quasimodo to keep him from falling to his death.

The Fierce Verdict

So no. Esmeralda is not an oversexualized character.

She is a sexy-looking, beautiful female character who also happens to have one of the most engaging, morally profound personalities in cinema history. She completely owns her agency, her sexuality, her femininity, and her absolute bodily autonomy.

She stands in the exact same legendary lineage of fiercely independent, gorgeous, physically capable, and deeply complex women who own their narratives—just like Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power or Asami Sato from The Legend of Korra. They are complex, they are beautiful, they fight back, and they refuse to be minimized by an audience that can't handle a woman who is both desirable and dangerous to the status quo.

~

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: