Religion and Conviction in "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"

So, I had a great time at LTUE!

I did all right on my four panels, which was a relief, since this was my first time. I also made a bunch of friends and got to eat chicken salad croissants for three days, and I attended some very informative and interesting panels. My favorites might have been the one on Irish Mythology and the one about murder statistics.

I have varied interests. I'm a writer.

Anyway, I have a lot of good notes for my future writing, which is what I needed, because I have at least one antagonist I need to fully understand soon, since their stories need to be foreshadowed and all that. It was a good weekend, but a busy one, so on Sunday I relaxed by watching The Hunchback of Notre Dame again.

As I watched, maybe it was because it was Sunday and I've been doing a study of the New Testament, but I was struck by the way the film handles religion.

There's no way Disney couldn't discuss religion to some degree in this film. Heck, the cathedral is pretty much a character! But what I like is that they made religion a more universal trait, which makes sense for Catholic medieval France, and had many characters who held some kind of faith, and acted on it differently. That allows religion as a whole to be commented on but not praised or condemned, and allows characters to not be a stand-in for the ideas present in the film.

This can be linked to having multiple female or minority characters; when you have only one, they become the representative for everyone like them. If the film only had Frollo express religious faith, he would have become the film's only voice on the subject, but he's not.

For starters, let's look at the characters who use religion positively through the film. There's the archdeacon, the priest who stops Frollo from killing baby Quasimodo and actively tries to help and guide as he can.

 
He's not the most active character in the film, but whenever he appears, he does move to prevent bloodshed and to assert faith and hope. I'm thinking not only of his first appearance, the one I mentioned, but also when he's advising Esmeralda. The archdeacon comes across as kind and fatherly, more a mentor figure for the characters.

(Which makes me wonder if he, off-screen, did a little more than we realize in teaching and raising Quasimodo while he lived in the cathedral.)

So let's talk about Quasimodo next. Through songs like "Heaven's Light," especially, we see a simple childlike faith in Quasi. We don't get much religious diction from him, but what we do get is gentle and optimistic, seeing the good in others and in the world.

Speaking of songs, we can't ignore "God Help the Outcasts," which brings me to Esmeralda. Her faith is shown as young, not very knowledgeable, but very selfless, as she prays for those who are needy (juxtaposed with the other worshippers who pray for themselves).

A common thread I see in all these positive examples of religion in the film is a turning outward. The archdeacon, Quasimodo, and Esmeralda care more about others than about themselves. I would think that they seek more to live their faith through actions than through words, which might be why we have so little religious diction from any of them. These characters live in ways that would be accepted by a Christian faith: they are generous, forgiving, protective, and loving.

Now let's talk about Frollo. All he ever does is talk about religion; his speech is loaded with it.

However, he's the negative example because he's turned inward. In the first song, Clopin sings, about Frollo, "He saw corruption everywhere except within," which may suggest he's too turned outward, but when Frollo himself sings "Hellfire," he starts by telling the Virgin Mary that he's "a righteous man" and "so much purer than the common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd."

Frollo is a character who is cruel and does not act in a Christian way. He has turned inward on himself, thinking only of how good and righteous he is while looking away and despising others. Since I've been reading the New Testament, I'd classify him a Pharisaical hypocrite, someone who uses his religiosity for power and self-affirmation, not to help and lift others.

Which leads him, to when he feels lust for Esmeralda, to refuse the responsibility of changing himself (after all, he's perfect and righteous in his own mind) and instead blames her for the effect.

 
This movie continues to be one of my favorite Disney films because of how well they make a statement about living one's faith versus speaking it, and one religion turned outward versus inward, without praising or condemning religion as a whole. I also love how its discussion is still topical today, in the way Frollo's self-satisfaction in his own "goodness" leads him to hatred and blaming others for his own sins, instead of helping those who need help.

I don't know what you would compare this to in today's age. In the polarized world we live in, I can imagine that perhaps people on all sides of debates might be the positive or negative examples of conviction that The Hunchback of Notre Dame shows us. When someone's spoken belief no long matches what they do, when they preach love and tolerance but behave with hate, no matter what their religious beliefs or political line in the sand, they've become a Frollo, haven't they? And shouldn't we all seek to be more like the archdeacon, Quasimodo, and Esmeralda and live an outward-reaching life? Are we really as good as we think we are, or can we be better?

All this because the film didn't make one character representative of an entire idea.

I don't know if this post made any sense, but it was interesting for me to write. I'm game for discussion, or any ideas for future posts you may want me to weigh in on.

Weekend Adventures

This has been an interesting weekend.

First, Friday night I had my book launch at The King's English! It was great. We had a good turnout, and the people at the bookstore were so kind and helpful. I talked a little bit about Arts and Thefts, which was an interesting experience since it's a sequel. With Under Locker and Key, I could talk about my journey as a writer and how this whole idea came to be.

With Arts and Thefts, all that seemed important, but less important since this book was the next installment as well as something new. So I touched on the story of the series and my journey as a writer, but I mostly focused on what made this new book different and my experience writing it, on its own.

Like, how I almost wrote Arts and Thefts from's Becca's point of view, but decided that this series is really Jeremy's story. And how it's a mystery instead of a heist story, though it still maintains a high level of general thiefy-ness through the book. Such as when Jeremy crawls through some air ducts to avoid police.

But I digress. You want more, read the book.

Saturday afternoon I went with a couple friends, my brother, my sister, and her friend, up to Sandy's Hale Center Theater to see their production of the stage musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame. As I've posted about, I've seen this one before. I saw it when it was down south at the Tuacahn. But since it was going to be performed again, so close to home, I decided to see it again with the same friend I saw it with before, as well as my sibs and some other lovers of the play.

And holy cow, it was good.

The singing was good (although I'm easily impressed in that respect) and the acting was very well done. But the stage.

THE STAGE!

 
Hale Theatre performances are in the round, which is always cool because no matter where you sit, you'll have a good view. But this theatre was moved and updated, so here's what they have to work with:

- A round stage that can spin, split into segments, and RAISE AND LOWER about 15 feet
- Screens around the outside of the theatre above the audience that can display anything
- Smoke and pyrotechnic effects
- Seemingly endless space in the ceiling to hold dangling props and scenery

So, this means that they could hang the bells and chandeliers over the stage, and that they could raise parts of the stage to create the bell towers, and lower other parts to create the contrast of height. They could spin the stage to allow more frenetic motion with the actors. They could put up the translations of the Latin lyrics on the screens, and use them to surround the audience in stained glass, turning the theatre into Notre Dame, during "God Help the Outcasts."

And the song "Hellfire"? Oh, man. The screens burned with fire, the stage was raised and lowered to create depths churning with chanting monks and orange smoke, the lighting, the movement...I was gobsmacked. I kid you not, the power in the performance and the staging was such that my jaw actually dropped and I felt a thrill of terror during this villain song.

So, if you're in Utah and looking for a good piece of musical theatre, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is playing through the end of March. Highly recommend.

One thing that made the weekend so interesting is that I was doing a lot of driving, up to Salt Lake City Friday and to Sandy on Saturday, and there was a winter storm in the forecast. I was blessed, though, because it didn't hit until late Saturday night, after I'd finished up everything for the day. It was bad Sunday morning.

But, in true Utah fashion, the weather is warm enough today for me to be outside without a jacket and all that snow is melting like crazy.

Busy weekend. And now it's over, and I can go back to grading, writing, reading, and training for the marathon.

I'll keep you posted. Until then, I hope your weekends are full of fun and adventure!

Familiarity Breeds Fear and Pain

Happy October, everyone!

Here in Utah, we have rain and festive-colored trees, so it finally, FINALLY, feels like fall. I'm enjoying every minute of it. I ate Pumpkin Spice Cheerios this morning. Yes, they are real things. Happy Halloween!

I've been literarily (read it again) preparing for Halloween by reading horror books. I swear, the temperature drops below 70 just once, and I grab every book in the library about monsters and killers and ghosts. And the king of those books? Stephen King.

Over the last month or so, I've read a couple of King horrors: It and Cujo.

             

They're both good, but one left me feeling emotionally satisfied (It) and the other just bugged me (Cujo). Which was weird, because It definitely had a lot more horrifying scenes and moments than Cujo did.

So, like I do with anything that bugs me, I pick at it. And this is what I determined: It can't happen. It can't. It's a supernatural monster that taunts and scares kids and eats them. It shapeshifts. It doesn't exist in the real world, and when the book is over, the monster is dead. It can't come where I am.

Cujo, on the other hand, can happen. It's a rabid dog, not a supernatural monster. There are touches of the supernatural in this book, but not enough to place that barrier of disbelief in my mind. A dog can go rabid. It can trap a mother and son in their car on a hot summer day. The mother and son can be stuck there, day after day, as no one comes to find them. This CAN happen, and the monster is really out there, somewhere.

So it freaks me out even more.

I don't think this is a phenomenon unique to me. I had a conversation with my sister about The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney movie), and she told me she thinks the saddest part of that movie is the scene where Esmeralda and Phoebus kiss as Quasimodo watches. She claims this is worse that any other scene in this movie, and let's remember, this movie involves death, emotional abuse, and physical abuse and humiliation in the Feast of Fools scene. But no, rejection is the most painful, and I actually agree: this is the saddest scene.

I think this is because few of us know what it's like to experience humiliation on that scale, or even events like the deaths in that movie. We don't know what it's like to have food thrown at us in front of everyone. But we know exactly what it's like to be rejected, to fall in love and have the subject of our affection choose someone else. We can feel that heartache because we've felt it before.

On a related note, I remember seeing an Internet post about how Professor Umbridge from Harry Potter is the worst and most hated because we don't normally interact with terrorist dictator evil overlords like Voldemort, so we see him as evil in the abstract, whereas Umbridge, the power-mad teacher who uses her authority to hurt, is much more relatable. We know her, and we hate her, because she's familiar.

Seriously, how much hate do you feel looking at her right now?

I think this idea is interesting to think about, that the familiar hits us harder. It gives us writers a key to making stories more emotionally impactful without being manipulative. Give the reader something familiar, and they'll already have the emotions ready made. The pain of rejection, the loathing of a tyrannical teacher, the fear of a psycho dog under the control of a very real disease. Once it becomes personal to the reader, it becomes real, and once it's real, the feelings deepen.

What do you think? Do you know a story that got under your skin because something about it was so  familiar that it stirred up real, present emotions in you?

A Night At the Theatre

Hello, all! Welcome to fall! Yet another season has ended and I'm one unit of time closer to my book release.

I hope to have more news on that front for you later, but for now, how about I talk about what I did this weekend? I went on a road trip to see a play. In a theatre 4 hours away from where I live.

And it was totally worth it.

All right, story time. So, in St. George, UT, there's an outdoor theatre called the Tuacahn, that has excellent quality musicals in the summer. This year, they were performing the musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Yes, it is a stage musical. Here's a video promo of the stage show from the Paper Mill Playhouse:

One of my friends really, really, REALLY loves the Disney movie, and I like it quite a bit myself, so we planned a trip and went down to St. George to see this play. We drove 4 hours down to see the Thursday show, and then 4 hours back the next day. And yes, I still say it was worth it.

 

The set, as seen before the show began.

 

 My friends and I, having fun minutes before the show started.

The musical is an interesting thing. It's based on both the Disney movie and Victor Hugo's book. The music is from the Disney movie, with a couple songs added. I can't convey to you how much I loved the music in this play. I always loved the movie's songs and score, and it's all there! Even the added songs were great. Truly moving music, and it's something to hear someone sing "Out There" live.

The interesting thing is, I remember reading about this play in the New York Times when it premiered. I didn't pay much attention to the article (I was busy) but I remember scanning it and getting a sense that the play was based on the Disney movie but really dark. It didn't make much sense to me.

[Warning: I'm not going to give away spoilers that haven't technically been out for years, but if you don't want this play revealed to you in any way for any reason, you may as well stop here and come back later.]

It makes sense now. The play is a tragedy, and I don't mean it's bad. It was very good. It's just sad.

The play follows, more or less, the movie plot. A few details are closer to the book, but overall, it's recognizable. The very end, though, right after Quasimodo pours molten lead out the cathedral, is the book's ending. I wondered, if that's how it happened in the play, but the movie plot all the way to the end lulled me into a false sense of security. I do like the book ending, too. It was interesting, though, seeing it mixed with Disney's happy (okay, happier) take on the story.

Characters were also a combination of Disney and book. Frollo is more sympathetic, more of a tragic character. You see more of his backstory. Quasimodo is deaf, and Phoebus is a bit more arrogant and less noble than in the Disney movie. The play was kind of like what you'd expect if Disney made movies for adults instead of kids.

Although, Hunchback of Notre Dame, the animated movie, isn't exactly what I'd call a "kid's movie." There's way too much darkness in that movie. It's brought out in the play.

We had excellent performers. Our favorites were Frollo (who nailed "Hellfire" with his deep voice and played his complex character well), Quasimodo (DANG! What a voice! And also, excellent acting), and Clopin (sassy rogue, that's all I have to say).

I'm going to wrap up, now, because I don't want to spoil too much. But I want to point out one part of the play that I thought was interesting. In the opening number, "The Bells of Notre Dame," the song ends with the line, "Here is a riddle to guess if you can, sing the bells of Notre Dame: What makes a monster and what makes a man?" In the play, that line starts with the chorus singing together, and then for the last part, "What makes a monster and what makes a man?", one guy emerges from the crowd and delivers that line. Then they put the costume on him: he's Quasimodo. Frollo is actually the one who puts the hunch on him.

No interpretation here. Just interest. I love seeing adaptations; they make me think about stories I know in a new way.

And when the adaptation is a musical? Well, let's just say I'll be listening to the soundtrack for a while longer.