So Hunchback is far and away my favorite movie from Disney’s
Renaissance, and it always makes me so happy that yes, people seem to
appreciate it, people seem to love it, but I’mma go into exactly WHY it’s my
favorite, and WHY I think it’s so crucial, and WHY I think it should be
required viewing for young boys specifically.
We all know that a huge bulk of the media we’ve grown up
with consistently has that one frustrating message: Being the hero means you’ll get the
girl. Many boys let this mentality bleed
into reality. We have “nice guys,” who
feel that their niceness entitles them to romance, when obviously that
discredits a female’s personal choice. We
all get this, we all know this, and a lot of us get that it’s a toxic message.
So check out our hero.
He’s an incredibly good person who isn’t conventionally attractive.
Check out our lady.
Super good person, conventionally attractive.
The movie so deliberately builds up Quasi’s hopes. There’s a whole fucking song about it.
But Esmeralda, who is her own person with her own
motivations and preferences, chooses another man, who is also good and also
attractive.
A lot of people criticize this aspect of the movie, the fact
that Quasi doesn’t get the girl BECAUSE of his appearance. But my argument? This is the best damn message a movie could
ever send.
Because when things get dicey, when Esmeralda’s life in in
danger, when Quasi would be putting his own life on the line, he knows that
romance is no longer within the realm of possibility. He knows he won’t be “getting the girl.” He knows this, and he allows himself a moment
of bitterness, he risks falling prey to the “nice guy” trope, and he almost
succumbs.
“She already has her knight in shining armor, and it’s not me.”
BUT THEN HE DOES THE RIGHT THING.
He has NO ulterior motive for saving her life. NO ulterior motive for opposing the man who
raised him. And he doesn’t know that he’ll
get any reward, he knows he could straight up get killed for his actions, and
yet he still acts.
And there’s no bitterness.
There’s still so, so much love between him and Esmeralda, pure awesome
platonic love, and love between him and Phoebus, and just fucking love all
around, it’s amazing.
I’ve heard so many people express distaste at Quasi not
ending up with Esmerelda. Like he was
cheated out of some kind of reward. But
have they watched the ending?
Does that look like a man cheated of his reward? Does he look like he “lost” to Phoebus? No dude, that’s a man who has everything he
ever wanted, and that’s also a man who didn’t “get the girl.”
If that’s not an essential message for young boys to hear, I
don’t know what is.
The writers described HoND as a “Rolling Stones” ending: Quasimodo doesn’t get what he wants (Esmeralda’s love) but he gets what he needs (freedom from his abusive guardian and acceptance by the city in general). And yes, that totally counts as a win for him.
An excellent opposite to this would be the plot to The Phantom Of The Opera (the book) He does not embrace her personal choice.
On a scale from Hunchback of Notre Dame to the Phantom of the Opera, how badly did you handle a lifetime of isolation based on deformity, and losing your crush to a guy who would absolutely place second to you in a singing competition
Posted this on twitter already but uhhh here we go again
PSA to Inktober Artists:
As of August 27th, 2020, it was revealed that Jake Parker (the creator of inktober) had plagiarized the work of black artist Alphonso Dunn in Parker’s upcoming book ‘Inktober All Year Long’.
