Disney’s 1996 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame will celebrate its 30th anniversary in a couple of weeks, so I thought it would be worth looking at how anti-clericalism has made its way into film, even children’s films from back in the 1990s.
The alleged source material for the film is Victor Hugo’s book, Notre-Dame de Paris. I say “alleged” because the film has virtually nothing to do with the book. Not that one would expect a children’s animated film adaptation to be a faithful rendition of a 600-page Gothic novel, of course, but the moral universe of the film is almost the opposite of that in Hugo’s novel. The book is dark, grotesque, morally complicated and, frankly, not remotely suitable for children. Disney turns it into a story about self-acceptance, prejudice and the need to be nice to people who look different.
