Disney confronts its critics?
it itwould would be difficult to find a more be difficult to find a more thoroughly thoroughly film, one Christian film, Christian one which stands the which devoutlystands anticlerical the devoutly anticlerical Victor167 novelist Victor Hugo on his novelist head. Pinsky on hisa head. IsHugo Hunchback ChristianPinsky film? 167 Does it stand Hugo on head, so to speak? That is, is Is Hunchback a his Christian film? message of this film on the his opposite of so Hugo s anti the Does it stand Hugo head, to speak? Christian message? That is, is the message of this film the opposite of Hugo s anti-christian message?
Positive Depictions of the Is Notre Dame s Priest a positive Depiction of the Church? Or he He representative Church? Of the powerlessness of the church? Church as ineffectual?
Anti-clerical statement? The Secularization of Frollo Disney calls him a judge, not a priest. However, according to Pinsky, the animators did everything visually to indicate that he was supposed to be a priest. Does Frollo present as a priest in Disney s The Hunchback of Notre Dame?
Anti-religion, anti-god? The association of the church with this kind of evil leadership implies a church that is ineffective if not full of vice - the very thing Hugo was criticizing in the original novel. Religion appears as an impotent, irrelevant caricature By relegating the church, and more specifically God, to irrelevancy, Disney refuses to admit a serious role for religion. Ward, p76. Do you think religion is irrelevant in this film? Do you think God is irrelevant in this film? Do you think the Church is irrelevant in this film?
What are the religious implications of this scene?
God Help the Outcasts What is the basis of Disney s vision for Christianity here? What is Disney advocating? What is Disney condemning, if anything? Can you, as one Christian minister asks in Pinsky s article, hear the gospel in that song?
Hellfire Disney may well have had their religious critics in mind when creating this scene, suggesting that it is they, rather than Disney, that are obsessed with sexuality, seeing it everywhere they look, censuring others in the hope of overcoming their attraction to what they condemn. Fadner, 24 Do you think Disney was criticizing the sexual hypocrisy of fundamentalists, televangelists and other church officials here? Is this a plausible interpretation? Televangelist Paul Crouch Sex scandal 1996 Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, sex scandal 1988
Homosexual people are under attack in this country for having propensities that are judged by others to be abnormal and grotesque; their self-esteem is continually assaulted by those who, usually speaking in the name of God, declare their very existence to be a monstrous threat to human society. Quasimodo s story takes on increased personal depth and social significance when it is viewed against this background. Fadner, p. 18 Is this song (and Heaven s Light an unspoken advocacy (in part, or in whole?) for the gay community? Or, simply a plea for openness for anyone who is different? Out There Heaven s Light So many times out here I've watched a happy pair Of lovers walking in the night They had a kind of glow around them It almost looked like heaven's light I knew I'd never know That warm and loving glow
Nature of evil? Now here is a riddle / To guess if you can / Sing the bells of Notre Dame / Who is the monster / And who is the man?/ Sing the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells, bells / Bells of Notre Dame - is this a film about what it means to be a man? Virtually every evening s paper brings a new story of a man who has killed his estranged wife or lover, and often their children, and then in remorse turned the gun on himself, attempting to possess in death what he could not control in life. Fadner Is Disney s The Hunchback of Notre Dame a commentary on restrictive (Conservative Christian, patriarchal) gender roles for men - control rather than compassion?
Esmeralda: It appears we've crowned the wrong fool. The only fool I see is you! Is Disney s Hunchback a response to the Baptist Boycott? Film released almost immediately after - 10 days after - the boycott was announced. But early complaints, early calls for Boycott would have happened while the film was being made. At exactly the time when Disney and religion were being discussed in the media as a result of the boycott, Disney enters the debate with a film that highlights questions of the true nature of Christian virtue, morality, practice, etc. Disney as a competing voice to Conservative Christian critics: All my life, you have told me that the world is a dark, cruel place. But now I see that the only thing dark and cruel about it is people like you. Is Disney issuing a condemnation of hypocritical fire-and-brimstone religion here? What kind of religion is Disney advocating instead?