Watching Hunchback of Notre Dame tonight b/c despite being problematic, I’m here for disability rep & making the villain a literal incel religious hypocrite.

Hunchback of Notre Dame will *always* be my favorite Disney movie. I could write a PHD thesis on how wonderful this movie is. I’ve cosplayed Esmeralda 4 different ways across 25 years. I listen to the music weekly. This. Is. My. Jam

Look I know this movie so well that I corrected a Disney cast member about a song lyric and WON ask @Li0ness_tweets @GamingLawyerJ

Hunchback of Notre Dame by Disney starts w/ a white man of the law murdering a Romani woman on the steps of a sanctuary for the crime of being an illegal refugee *then* he tries to murder her child for being disabled. It STARTS that way. That’s batshit.

Hunchback of Notre Dame starts w/ a riddle about monsters & men then ends by telling children that disabled people are humans to respect & ableists are monsters to shun.

Look I’m trying to stfu but I love this movie too much

Hunchback movies usually portray the hunchback as mindless, little more than animals. This Disney film went out of the way to demonstrate how Quasimodo is a self-taught exceptional artist.

Every other Disney protagonist: I want fame, fortune, happiness!
Quasimodo: I literally just want a single day where ableists let me go outside. That’s it. That is unreachable to me. Yeah, we’re going there.

How is this a Disney “I-want” song:
Out there among the millers and the weavers and & wives
Through the roofs & gables I can see them
Every day they shout & scold & go about their lives
Heedless of the gift it is to be them
If I were in their skin, I'd treasure every instant

THE FUCKING WINDOWS OF NOTRE DAME GLOW AS THE SUN MOVES OK. Mid 90s. Somehow.

Oh hi Hunchback of Notre Dame by Disney has a WoC sex worker as it’s lead lady & she is never shown to be ashamed or reformed

Sorry. I’m high.

Good time to remind folx there’s a stage musical of Hunchback of Notre Dame by Disney & I have a link to the full original cast

Pole dancing. In a Disney film.

Oh hey here’s the WoC demanding justice from a white bigot of the law. Like, not subtext, it’s explicit.

Let’s have an entire song where a WoC prays to God in a white person’s church & begs he save her people b/c the white parishioners clearly won’t

This is a Disney movie

This is a mid-90s Disney movie

Just b/c someone will eventually mention it, yes the gargoyles suck, yes there are some fat jokes, yes a white woman is the voice of the WoC. Best to acknowledge the bad upfront.

How badass is this? https://twitter.com/sylviaviridian/status/1265846046279663616?s=21 https://twitter.com/sylviaviridian/status/1265846046279663616

THIS IS A RELIGIOUS DISNEY VILLAIN

Disney holy shit

In this Disney film, this is the terrorism that happens to a city when an incel is in law enforcement

Oh hey here’s Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame w/ an inter-ethnic romance between a WoC & white dude. In 1996.

Another thing great about Quasimodo: he’s not the perfect cripple stereotype. He has good things but he also has faults. He’s heroic yet petulant over a broken heart. He’s so, so human.

Love how Someday, which is a cut song but still in the credits, is woven through any Esmeralda moment like a leitmotif

The Disney Hunchback musical also had 4 leitmotifs for the 4 lead characters & anyway y’all really should listen/watch that

Just remarkable that there’s no perfect marginalized vs privileged mob here: every group in the film has good & bad elements.

The “Sanctuary” sequence may be in the top 5 Disney animated sequences *ever*. What a stunning use of computer animation. Absolutely radical, cinematic scene.

So in Disney Hunchback the background music for the “Sanctuary” sequence is Dias Irae, Day of Wrath. You think it’s a commentary on the judgement of Esmeralda by the law. But it’s the judgement of Frollo by Notre Dame.

This. Sequence.

The white vet suffering of PTSD just stirred a mob into fighting the fucking police in defense of PoC. Some peak white ally heroics here & I am HERE FOR IT.

The literal church of Notre Dame & the Catholic saints are currently murdering the fucking police in defense of a WoC b/c soldiers can’t be trusted to be just. Just. HOW.

So happy Esmeralda survives but honestly it works better in the musical when she doesn’t make it & Quasimodo has to learn to stand on his own.

Says the disabled Romani character to the white incel

The adoptive father of a disabled child straight up tries to murder him saying he wish he did it sooner so GOD HERSELF STRIKES THE FUCKER DOWN

Throuple!

And our film ends w/ an inter-ethnic couple, disability rep, religious hypocracy rejected, & justice restored for PoC & refugees. Holy hell.

We do not deserve Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. What an eternal gift.