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The Hunchback of Notre Dame |
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(1996,
USA)
Director:
Trousdale, Gary and Kirk Wise
Starring: Demi Moore
; Heidi Mollenhauer
; Charles Kimbrough
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A misbegotten notion from the get-go, Disney's animated Hunchback could've been jointly scripted by Bill Clinton and Bob Dole: pity the poor outcasts as long as they remember their place. Unlike Heavy and Welcome to the Dollhouse, the season's other two odes to the ogres amongst us, Hunchback suffers a surfeit of earnestness and a near total lack of irony -- I only laughed once, when the hunk with a horse called Achilles says, "Achilles, heel." The story, very roughly adapted from Victor Hugo's suitably gloomy opus about persecutions religious and otherwise, concerns a woebegone hunchback, Quasimodo, who's locked in the belltower of the glorious cathedral of Notre Dame. As a tale for kids, Hunchback is dour, dull and muddy. For queers of all stripes, it might be a better time: could lyricist Stephen Schwartz and musician Alan Menken really not have intended the double entendre of little Quasi's yearning croon for freedom, "Out There"?! Too bad about the predictable misogyny and racism enveloping the Esmeralda character -- voice of Demi Moore, dimensions of Jessica Rabbit, skin tone of Pocahontas -- who inspires the usual "I lust after her and it's her fault!" attentions of the villianous cleric-cum-judge, Frollo. At least Quasi gets one full-on embrace with the dashing hero Phoebus before blessing the perfect het union of Phoebus and Esmerelda. Bill and Bob would approve.--Elizabeth Pincus
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