Quasimodo sings and celebrates from the balcony of a church with the beautiful Esmeralda and his gargoyle companions, while overlooking the city of Notre dame
Summary:
Born with a severe hunchback and a giant wart that covers his left eye in the city of Notre Dame, Paris, during the 15th century is the protagonist Quasimodo of the Disney Fiction Story The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Quasimodo, with a name meaning “half made,” is a product of a world of which he is considered a monster. As a baby Quasimodo was nearly killed by Claude Frollo, the minister of justice, before the Archdeacon of Notre Dame came to his rescue. Frollo is forced to keep the child by the Archdeacon, but only does so because he thinks the child may be of use to him one day. Frollo is bent on “purging” sin from the world, also known as Gypsies and people who are born disabled because he thinks they are products of sin. Fast forward to Quasimodo as a young man, he now lives in the bell tower of the church of Notre Dame, hidden and out of sight. In addition, living in the bell tower eventually gives him another disability of being mostly deaf. It is not until Quasimodo decides to sneak out and take part in the Festival of thieves that the two other protagonists are introduced, Esmeralda, a beautiful Gypsy, and Phoebus a handsome soldier. The three with the eventual help of all the Gypsies, unite to fight against Frollo’s cruelty, his plot to destroy the homes of the Gypsies the Court of Miracles, and his belligerence against the church.
Analysis:
The story of Quasimodo is based in the Middle Ages. During this time, disability and illness were commonly linked to sin. This is supported in Will Reckase’s comment in his write up Disability in the Medieval Period, “Thus, medieval disability had an element of sin attached to it, and with it, personal responsibility. People with disabilities were expected to go to confession and grow in their faith before they could receive help from God.” The Church and community, during the time this film is portrayed, viewed disability as something that was a burden and constantly needed to be taken care of or cured, whether it is a spiritual or bothersome obligation. The churches of this time ruled and gained a lot of their following through these practices. Though, current day isn’t as strict as the 15th century, these misconceptions are still engrained in some aspects of society today. Dolmage, in An Archive and Anatomy of Disability Myths summarized this best, “The result is that disability can be rendered as a personal tragedy, or even a punishment delivered to one individual, and not the product of either chance or of social processes (Dolmage, 43).”
Though the negative connection between disability and sin were incorporated in the period this film was portrayed, this children’s film, by itself, embodies a few of the many stigmas involved with disability today. Some of these seen throughout this novel would be the connections between disability and inhuman traits, and isolationism. In an effort to educate the reader on the common stigma involved with people with disabilities being portrayed in media Laurie Block states, in Stereotypes about People with Disabilities, “The person with a disability will be compensated for his/her lack by greater abilities and strengths in other areas–abilities that are sometimes beyond the ordinary (Block).”
Quasimodo is portrayed as the hero of this novel for his courage to stand up for a people, or society, other than himself that initially deemed him a monster. Though he is a hero and does what no other non-disabled person will do, there are still aspects of this novel that portray him as, seemingly, inhuman. This can be seen in the festival of fools, in which Frollo is crowned “King of Fools,” but though he is praised initially, the guards and community start to publicly humiliate him. They rope him down, only to discover that he has super-human strength. These inhuman traits can also be seen in the few scenes of Quasimodo hoisting Esmeralda to safety. He jumps, climbs, and swings effortlessly from the roof and rafters. Though Quasimodo was being portrayed as a hero, this scene gives a portrayal to the reader that Quasimodo is less of a human being, and more so a, dare I say, monster. With this, one can also see the isolationism portrayed throughout the film. The “myth” of the “man that lived in the bell tower,” attributed to his the feeling of Quasimodo being portrayed as inhuman.
There are many stereotypes and assumptions involved with people with disabilities, and those can be seen in this children’s book in what is seemingly modern day. Though this story reflects hope, resilience, and strength, depending on the viewers view, this reflection touched on a few of many connotations, or “myths,” of disability. There needs to be a reflection of the past to change the future.
Discussion ?’s:
- What would it take for a person without a disability to cross into the genre of including a person or person’s with a disability within their novel/s, films, etc.?
- Due to the fact that one of the avenues for the wrong misinterpretation of disability for the youth are books written by an adult without a disability, how would the landscape change if the books were written by a child not yet exposed to the stereotypes and stigmas associated with how disability is perceived today?
Sources:
Reckase, Will. “Disability in the Medieval Period.” Rooted in Rights, 1 Jan. 2014, http://www.rootedinrights.org/disability-in-the-medieval-period/.
Block, Laurie. “Education: Essay.” Disability History Museum–Education: Essay: Stereotypes About People with Disabilities, http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/edu/essay.html?id.
Dolmage, Jay Timothy. “‘An Archive and Anatomy of Disability Myths.’” Disability Rhetoric, Syracuse University Press, 2014, pp. 16–38.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Dir. Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise. Perf. Demi Moore, Jason
Alexander, Mary Kay Bergman. Walt Disney Feature Animation, 1996. Hulu. Web. 1, january 2018,
Quasimodo sings. Digital Image. iTunes Preview. 1, January 26.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/the-hunchback-of-notre-dame/id292004872
Challenging Bodies 
Going along with your second question, I have seen behavioral psychologist conduct tests whose nature is similar to what you stated. Having children who “supposedly” have not been exposed to stereotypes/prejudices yet give their opinions on matters regarding the disabled community sounds like a good idea. However, even very young children who can barely speak have an implicit bias towards certain minority groups. Even when presented with a picture or video of their own minority, these children still displayed signs of implicit bias.
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I agree with you Scott. I think your point about intrinsic biases in an important idea when thinking about kids viewing disabilities, and one that I’m sure not many of us have thought about. An important step in eliminating prejudices in society would be teaching kids at young ages that this type of bias is not acceptable, and that these disabled people are still people. That was a very interesting study that you brought up, and I think it really applies to this class and this discussion.
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Concerning your first question, I think for writers to cross genres and tell a story about someone who is disabled, it helps for them to have been impacted by the disabled in some way throughout their life. Every author or director or script writer sets out to tell an interesting story, and having been affected by the disabled in some way would give an these creators a base to write about. I believe that most stories are partially inspired by a true story, even if the truth is very minor, and an author’s or filmmaker’s experiences greatly influence the story they produce, so if they have a an experience sometime in their life with the disabled, their work will be more likely to depict this.
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I agree with Noah that any writer or media creator who wants to include good representation for people with disabilities should be impacted in some way by a person with a disability. Additionally, in order to make sure they’re doing their disabled character justice and accurately portraying disability, the creators should do research, talk with people who have experience with the disability that they’re portraying, and run their ideas past those disabled people to make sure their portrayal is accurate and not offensive.
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For your second question, I think that having a child who has not been exposed to prejudice in any way would be an ideal situation. It would definitely create less stereotypes and stigmas from the media because a child would be writing it. However, I agree that even children have some bias or exposure to prejudice when it comes to minority groups. They will have had less time to develop their own ideas and opinions, but they may just take on the stereotypes from their parents or the stigma within the media currently. That can unfortunately shape how a child views another person.
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The second question you asked was incredibly thought provoking. When I first thought about it, I wasn’t really sure how to answer, I’m still not 100%. Although, I feel like the child could write a story without any accident or traumatic life experience causing a person to be disabled. Their disabled character would be just that, a character with some kind of disability. But then that would be the extent to it and I’m not sure if the disability would cause obstacles for the character.
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The second question is a tough but good one, and I believe that if those books were to be written by children who have not been exposed to stereotypes, they would write them with very few or no stereotypes. They would write them as innocent as they are and show how people with disabilities are the same as people without disabilities. They would not know how to differentiate the characters and make them all have similar characteristics. There would not be such attention on the disabled, since they don’t know how much they are stereotyped in the real life.
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In regards to your first question, I think it is crucial that a person does their research in what they are are including in their piece of work. I think working closely with someone who has that disability to have that first hand experience is what could give them credibility if they themselves do not have or have been closely personally affected by the disability (such as a spouse or child). I could see this solving a lot of the problems when it comes to misrepresentation of people with disabilities in the media. This could also help with the problem of children developing stereotypes at a young age due to these misrepresentations.
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I think your second questions is a great question and really causes us to put into perspective the differences in thought that people have because of what they have grown up being told regarding the stereotypes and stigmas. I think it would be really interesting to see how a child understands disability without the world tainting his/her viewpoint. Children are very blunt and don’t necessarily have social skills in terms of discussing sensitive subjects, yet at the same time, children are pure and are not jaded by worldly thinking. I think this combination could amount to something very special and unique – portraying a person with disabilities in a very honest and raw light with no negative connotations that come from the disability. I do think that it could come across as insensitive due to the nature of how children speak and process thoughts, but I don’t think that this insensitivity would necessarily be a problem since there would be no false conclusions or stereotypes layered on to it because children are not aware of those stigmas yet.
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I think you pose a very interesting second question! First I believe that a child would need to be educated on disabilities. But, I think it would be beneficial if they are educated by someone who has a disability. Although some may say this will cause the child to be bias, I believe it will shed a completely different light on how someone interprets disability. Through this, the child will know of no stigmas or prejudices against people with disabilities and instead understand the conditions and circumstances without that sense or pity attached to them. Stigmas, stereotypes, and prejudice I believe is learned. It would be refreshing to be taught “I can do what you can, I just do it differently”, instead of “they can’t do everything you can”.
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