CURRENTLY IN MOVIES

THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME
DISNEY, 1996

From character to caricature
Gordon Nickel

Once upon a time, Disney cartoon villains were easy to understand. Nowadays, reviewers of the latest Disney feature cartoon, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, are wondering what young viewers will make of the film's villain, Judge Frollo.

The Claude Frollo of Victor Hugo's 1831 novel starts out as a good-hearted but strict theology student who later uses his power as an Archdeacon for selfish purposes. He sees magic in the street show of a gypsy girl, yet is rumoured to practise the occult arts himself. A celibate, he cannot control his lust for the gypsy girl, and finally lets her die because he cannot possess her for himself.

There is much to like about Disney's adaptation. The cartoon portrays Quasimodo and Esmeralda as attractive and sympathetic in order to make a worthwhile point about discrimination and intolerance. In order to do this, however, it removes the moral ambiguity from these and other personalities and presents them as fun-loving innocents (all have their dark side in the novel). It focusses all evil in Judge Frollo.

This has the effect of changing Frollo from a tragic character into a trite caricature of a person who speaks out publicly for moral standards. This caricature send the message that a call for public morality necessarily conceals hypocrisy and evil motivation.

How deliberate was this particular choice of villain? Disney certainly does not select its stories carelessly. Michael Medved has noted the tendency of recent Hollywood films to find homicidal maniacs in people of Christian faith. Disney itself is presently under attack from the Southern Baptist Convention and others for an "anti-Christian and anti-family trend" typified by its association with the film Priest. Is Frollo a way of getting back at critics?

Certainly the Middle Ages had its share of religious people who misused power, including the scaffold. Hugo invested that history in the character of Frollo. The caricature is that religious faith leads to hateful intolerance which will kill innocent people in pursuit of "purity". Disney's cartoon reinforces that stereotype.

It won't be long before this film is playing non-stop in the VCRs of many Christian families. As they sit with the kids and point out the film's good-self-image message, will parents also help them untangle its caricature of a public moral voice? Or is it "just a cartoon"?

GORDON NICKEL IS AN INSTRUCTOR AT BETHANY BIBLE INSTITUTE IN HEPBURN, SASK.

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