Latest / To All the Men I've Tolerated Before / Guest Spot: Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous and the Hunchback of Notre Dame

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Guest Spot: Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous and the Hunchback of Notre Dame · To All the Men I've Tolerated Before

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Hey tolerators, this is Natalie and we are still on our summer break for
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all new episodes. When it comes to to all the men I've tolerated before,
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I just wanted to jump on really quick and let you know that this
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week on the Feed, we are presenting one of my favorite guest spots.
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You'll recognize Julia Washington from our Still Comfy episodes and a slew of guest spots
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on this podcast, like Being a Single mom Our, Britney Spears episode,
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and more. I went on pop Culture Makes Me Jealous during their Disney focused
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season and did a review of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and just like
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my Fixing Famous episode, I do believe that this is some of my best
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work. During the episode, I mainly focused on the character as Merelda and
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what it meant to me as a child to watch her be objectified by the
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men in the movie and all of the things that come when Disney decides to
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make a children's cartoon that somehow is very sexy and also very very scary.
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So that's what this episode is this week. Make sure to check the show
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notes so you can follow alone with pop Culture Makes Me Jealous and Jelly Pop's
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book Club and stay in contact with Julia. I will see you in September
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with new episodes of To All the Men I've Tolerated Before. Hey, friends,
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this is pop culture makes me jealous, where we analyze pop culture through
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the lens of race or gender, and sometimes both. I'm your host,
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Julia Washington, and on today's show, we're heading to Notre Dame. The
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Hunchback of Notre Dame was first released on June twenty first, nineteen ninety six.
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But before we dive in, let me introduce you to my guest.
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You know her, you love her. She is one half of Still Comfy,
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the host of To All the Men I've Tolerated Before. Natalie Katona is
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here. Well, Natalie, I am ready for the eyes of No Trick
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dun. I just realized I'll love my glasses in the other room. It's
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fine. She wary, sick, sick, she weary from misogynists, rich
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white men. I beg. I meant, you know what I meant to
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do before today. I meant to look up like Victor Hugo's version, just
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to kind of get like refamiliarize myself when I totally forgot. I have never
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read the book, nor have I watched the actual black and white movie,
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because the cartoon is scary enough. Yeah, yeah, okay, let's kick
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it off with like, okay, so we're gonna kick this bitch off with
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the summary, and y'all know it's from Google, because that's what we do
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here. An animated Disney adventure follows disfigured Quasimodo, the bell ringer of Notre
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Dame Cathedral, who bides his time locked away in a tower with only gargoyles
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to keep him company. Quasimodo longs to be with the other people, leading
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to his chance encounter with the enchanting gypsy Esmerelda. When the beautiful young woman
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catches the attention of Quasimoto's guardian, sinister Frolo, Quasimoto must help to keep
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her out of his clutches. Yeah, because he's completely racist. That's why
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I love the bell ringer of Notre Dame Cathedral who bides his time locked away
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in a tower. Only he's not bided his time. He's literally he's a
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captive. He's a captive, and he's a captive instead of just being chucked
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into a well, which was the original plan. Finding thing, I'm sitting
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there. We'll get into it. But I was like, this is from
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Children Byce is her watch this movie? Her and your friend watch Saturday night
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movies together where they text one another, which like Annie and who much like
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Annie and I torture to ourselves every week with Ann just like that. Yeah,
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And she watched this and she was so pregnant with my nephew and she
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just kept panic texted her front to be like, are they gonna throw that
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baby in a well? Like, what's going on? What a baby in
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a way? God? Bad? So bad? Okay. So, at
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the time of its release, our resident misogynist Roger Ebert gave this movie four
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stars. And y'all, we've been doing this a while, and I am
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shocked because I cannot recall the last time we covered a movie where mister Pullett,
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surprise himself, gave four stars, calling it quote the best animated features
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since Beauty and the Beast, A whirling, uplifting, thrilling story with a
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heart touching message that emerges from the comedy and song end quote. I need
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everyone to write in whether or not they were uplifted At the end of The
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Hunchback of Notre Dame of course he gave this one four stars because he himself
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is a frolo of movies, so he was like, yeah, we're persecuting
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travelers, people of color, disfigured people are so ugly. They gotta be
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in that tower. They need to be locked away, the lies that Frolo
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tells. And then he's like, Jason Alexander's here, what, Oh my
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gosh, so is Frank from Murphy Brown and so is our favorite noun from
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Sister Act. I know, and this was her last movie. Oh I
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know. She was Aunt Marching Little Women, the nineteen ninety four version.
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I just feel like Roger Eber giving this movie four stars just backs up the
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points that I've made countless, countless times on the show and on Still Comfy
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that Roger Eber was a bad man. He was a bad man, and
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he was a misogynist. Yeah, and he hates women, so of course
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he loves the movie where literally the main woman is likened to be the seductress
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from Hell Burning Fire. Yeah. So when did okay, so tell me
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about when you first saw this movie and what that experience was like. Sure,
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I was all of seven or eight years old when the Hunchback of Notre
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Dame premiered, okay, and I know we did not go to the movie
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theater to see it, so I did watch it on its movie at home
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VHS release. Nice. My mother immediately hated this movie, so my she
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was terrible because yeah, yeah, because she's like, this movie is scary
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as a hell. What the hell kind of cartoon is this? And my
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parents are not the kind of parents to all of a sudden being like,
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we can't watch this. No, I was wildly unsupervised. Yeah, however,
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so my sister and I are convinced that we only watched it like once
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or twice as kids. However, my mother is a Walmart a target at
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TJ Max one day, and what should be on clearance but the Esmeralda bedroom
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set. Oh, and there's two twin sets on clearance, And so my
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sister and I had the hunchback of Notre Dame Esmeralda bed set for this movie
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that we did not watch. And when we brought this up at our house
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the last time we were all at her house together, she was like,
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you all really liked the Goat, And I was like, we did like
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that goat. The goat was awesome. We did like Dolly and and so
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my childhood experience of the Hunchback of Notre Dame is getting to watch it once
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being like that lady is so pretty, and then spending a large portion of
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my childhood tying my bedroom like she yeah to my waist and dancing around clapping
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my hands while I made my sister leap like a goat around me. Nice.
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And thus my fashion aesthetic be born because I do. I do pride
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myself in like always being like very colorful and jingly and all of them.
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I love that. You know what else? I thought when I was watching
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the movie to this time around, Sure should it have been to me more?
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Because I know, like as Morelda, she's she's a brown woman,
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right, like she's a woman. It was brown ink to animate her,
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and it's voiced by me more. She was like, this is making me
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uncomfortable. And I don't know if I'm valid in this or if I'm just
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being overly sensitive. One of my notes is that her voice I had filled
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in what her voice sounded like in my head, and it is nowhere near
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close to what she actually sounds like in the movie. Her voice is not
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smoky, it is not soultry. It is not doing anything to bring this
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hell fire seductress to life. And I'm like, ooh, Demi more o
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this They needed that Jessica Rabbit lady to do, but a movie like literally
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anyone who was gonna put some bubba ba rooom yeah, or just like you
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know somebody who's not white? Yeah literally, but like literally anyone who's not
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white? Is the voice actress for Jasmin White? Or did we do it?
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Okay? There, I don't remember. I don't remember either. I
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just know the page O'Hara got to do a love voice acting work for Disney.
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Yeah, that contract was solid. I'm sure. Yeah, I don't
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remember, but I just the whole time, I was like, I don't
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know how I feel like, does it because you know, nowadays we have
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what's called digital blackface, where using like memes of black people or like the
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black people emojis. I was like, is this nineteen nineties version of digital
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black face? Yes? It made me so uncomfortable. I would really like
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so. And then the blonde man is like, look at that beautiful woman.
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Oh my god, I'm mesmerized, and like, of course he's a
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blonde man going after a brown sister, Like so a lot of my favorite
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voice actors in the D and D can Unity. They do a lot of
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anime, and I'm always like, and again, you're hired to do the
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anime or whatever, And I'm like, okay, how so, thinking about
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my extensive knowledge of Pokemon, how would I racially classify ash Ketchum? And
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then I'm like, and then am I okay with ash Ketchum being quite you
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know? And it just like it boggles my mind, and I feel like
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there is such a like wall between the character that you're actually playing in yourself
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when you were a voice actor. So I understand. I'm sure that Demi
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Moore was more than hot in this year in the nineties. I'm sure it
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was. I'm sure she's kind of one of the only big names in the
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movie, Like Phoebus was someone I did not recognize, Frolo someone I did
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not recon So it's really her and Jason Alexander, whose name you can get
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people to look at on a reister, right. Yeah, I don't know,
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I mean, it doesn't I mean, all these years later, I
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don't know if it is something to like make a big deal out of.
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I just I guess it was. It's definitely not something that I thought about
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as a kid. No, and her voice irritated me the entire movie because
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I was like, this does not fit my memories of Esmeralda R. I
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was like, because as Merelda probably is one of my first like brushes with
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female sexuality. If not, I don't know who came first, Aladdin or
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Hunchback Aladdin. But yeah, so we've got we've got Jazzmine in the red
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outfit and we all know it, we can all picture it. And then
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as Merelda, those are probably like none of the other Disney princesses like broach
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their sexual No, they don't know. Isn't that interesting that they're both brown
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characters? Yes, from what I'm sure ignorant white people who sat in a
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room and wrote this movie would call from exotic lands, right backgrounds. Right,
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So that then, and there of itself is also a problem that are
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first two like that are the only two characters from the nineties that we can
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think of as being in tuned with their sexuality? Are the two brown characters?
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Well? And also there are as I was watching it, I would
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see more and more parallels to Aladdin, to where I was like, I
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wonder if They reused a lot of the staff and the animation. They have
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a narrator at the top to set our scene with like a little song.
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You know. Esmeralda is the female version of Aladdin, right. I think
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that a lot of that red costume and like from Jasmine translated very well into
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Esmeralda's costume when she's dancing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting that
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you can't compare it to Aladdin because it does have a lot of like similarities
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because the scene where they're dancing, where they're like, hey, it's our
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day, where they can come out of you know, hiding and do the
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big ceremony and forget what it's called fools, thank you, The Feast of
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Fools feels very much like the big scene in Aladdin. You have to bear
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with me because it's been a minute since I've seen Aladdin, But when all
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of the princes are coming to meet Jasmine, it has that kind of vibe
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to it. Yeah, well, and probably a lot of Prince Alee's vibe.
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Oh maybe that's the scene I'm thinking of. That's he rides in on
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an elephant, right he does, Yeah, it's right after. So there
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are two scenes that basically follow one another. So she's meeting her suitors and
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the boom, here comes Princely and right, we've got a big musical number,
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right, that's right. I also saw a lot of parallel same high.
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You know, Quasi's hiding and Jasmine tries to hide. Yeah, go
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ahead, So you saw parallels. I saw parallels between Quasimoto and Hercules too,
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especially between the out There Song and Go the Distance. I'm like,
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these are the same tunes. Yeah, yeah, interesting. Did they just
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start phoning it in towards the end of the decade, I believe. So.
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I've watched enough behind the animation scenes of Disney to know that they have
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always recycled animation. Yeah that makes sense, I mean yeah, because especially
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in the days of hand drawn animation. M hm okay. So in twenty
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one, the New York Times took did a look back at the Hunchback,
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and the headline read the Hunchback of Notre Dame at twenty five the most r
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rated g you will ever see, and said quote. However, it came
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about a ratings bort made up of parents decided that a film with a musical
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number about lust and hell fire and a plot that involves the threat of genocide
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against gypsies was appropriate for a general audience. The Times even goes into detail
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about how the filmmaker didn't want to take this century old Victor Hugo tail and
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Disney Fayette. So do we agree with the Times? Is this the most
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R rated G rated movie? I'm going I'm leaning towards yes, well number
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one. I thank you for backing me up with The New York Times.
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That makes me feel fancy because when I pitched you like Luish do the Hunchback
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of No No Dom, you looked at me because what a choice, And
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I said, it's the scariest sexiest movie you could ever think of. Well,
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in the first ten minutes or hot or not even ten minutes, it's
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like five minutes when the gypsies are trying to like flee Frolo because he's a
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monster, and she's holding her baby and yeah and all and then he just
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like in Cold Blood, murders her and we see the murder. That's not
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something that Doorbilly happens in a Disney movie. I believe we heard the gunshot.
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We did not see the gunshot for Bamby's mom, correct, I was
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like, oh, you guys, just straight showed that and then this fucker
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is like, oh, this baby is hideous. Where's the nearest water source?
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Like what we have to drown the monster baby? Which when I read
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the book, ooh, this would be a good screen to adaptation because I
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loved all of her books. When I read the book that inspired the movie
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The Other Bolin Girl, uh huh about Anne Bolin that launched my obsession and
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my soul connection with Anne Bolin. They talk about her giving birth to a
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disabled baby that does not survive, and like the parallels between Frolo reacting the
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Quasimoto and what people said about Anne Bolin and this baby that she lost.
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Huh one in the same dang Yeah, monster full of sin. This only
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comes because the devil punished you with it, like not in breeding, and
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breeding has nothing to do with potential, you know, Earth defects, not
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anything like being malnourished and on the run because you're a traveler. Yeah,
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my comment was in reference to Anne Bolin, sort not not Quasimoto, but
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also both. Like I the thing is, it's like, what a time
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for the Renaissance to be happening and all of these ridiculous thinkers to be on
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the scene and like Leonardo da Finci had to contend with people still believing that
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God would just smite you every time you were bad. Yeah. Yeah,
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then, I mean the whole plot is that one privileged white man is so
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hard up for a traveler and he's so racist. He can't deal with the
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fact that he gets a boner for a traveler a woman. So his only
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solution is genocide, right God is He's like, I have to kill my
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temptation and I was like, oh yeah, dateline set tells me all the
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time that that's why men kill us, because we tempted them away from their
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God and the Bible backs them up. I go. However, Jenna's that's
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an extra step. It's unnecessary. It's an unnecessary step. And also what
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confuses me about this whole like, in the name of God genocide is then
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why then are you safe in the church? Uh? I believe only because
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of that one bald man in the who stays in the steps of Notre Dame
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so for a low can't murder people in the church. Yeah, He's like,
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He's like, I'm the archbishop. You can't come in here and fuck
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shit up. And you're just like, good on you, but also do
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you serve the same god then because his God told him to do this?
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Like it just is like one of those things where just like, this is
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why religion makes no sense. If people want to have religion, great,
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don't don't. Don't murder people in the name of your religion because that math
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ain't math in I mean to be and it's one of the later questions.
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But to be a thirty four year old and have to be face to face
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with Frolo again and to be like, oh, this is the evil of
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man. Yeah, this is Jeff Goldblum being like, God kills man.
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God creates dinosaurs because men will use God until they do not need God,
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and then they will kill God to make sure that they get their way.
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Yeah. The whole time, I'm like, this movie is so like,
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this is very clearly like this man is full of hatred for no reason.
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He's clearly racist. The treatment of the Gypsies is horrific. You know,
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when she's dancing and gets all that many and then the guards are like,
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oh, gypsies don't do anything legit for their money. They don't know how
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to earn money. Just the language that they use to disparage them like her
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people. It just is so like, how is this the kids movie?
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And it's one of those things that made me think, like when white parents
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are like, well, I can't we can't teach Black history to our children
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because it's too gruesome they and they shouldn't have to bear that burden, and
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you're just like, now, I want to ask, do you let them
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watch The Hunchback of Notre Dame because that's kind of a primer of what you
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did to black people earlier, you did, what was done to black people,
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what your grandma did, what your great grandmother. Yeah, so it's
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kind of like truly, it's like one of those things where I'm just like,
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no, you don't get to pick and choose, like and we know
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from like I mean, we don't study European history in this country in the
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way that we probably should. But from my rudimentary knowledge of European history,
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this movie isn't that far from the truth one percent. It's just the hunch
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Wreck of is a fucking trip the entire time. Like I I was like,
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I remember it being scary, m M. I remember it being a
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movie that is all about and you know, the nineties were so big on
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abstinence and purity that they're like, I was like, you, how dare
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you make the villain be the person to be like lust will be the reason
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that you burn in hell? I don't now, I'm gonna go fuck everyone.
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That guy was mean, like terrifying, like terrifying, terrifying, and
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it's like how manipulative he is? And this kind of answers the next question,
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which which which is do you think this movie ended up disneyfied. My
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answer to that is I don't think so. He's so. I mean,
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yes, he is a manipulative in the way that all the evil villains are,
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but at least no white stepmother tried to kill her with an apple and
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not throw her in a body of water, right or burn her out of
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her home? Uh, I mean or burn her at this stake. I
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looked for disneyfied ways that this that they were like, no, it's a
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Disney movie, we promise. And there are talking gargoyles. Yes, that's
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the one thing. There is an animal sidekick. Oh, yes, number
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two. Mm hm. There is a banner of a soundtrack. Yes,
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it is like Prince of Egypt level banning of a soundtrack. Yeah, yeah,
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it is in the dark of the night Anastasia like boom boom, like
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that yellow Fire song. Damn. Yeah. It does try to wrap up
24:27
in a very nice moral, but the moral of the story is you're human
24:32
enough to have one friend, but ugly enough you'll never find love. Like
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that's the Fozzy Motos story are I was like when he like put their hands
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together and was like held their hands in his hands, I was like,
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baby, you can have love too. Why are you why is this movie
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telling us that he can't have love? Like the nineties are like, are
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you trying to tell us that he's being a bigger person by saying like by
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that's like his way of giving permission for them to be in love and like
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he's not allowed Like I just it just made me so I was just like
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you guys looking And they created an unlikely love story between a thief and a
25:15
cop. M h right, because Phoebus is a cop, he's the head
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of all the cops. He's ahead of all the cops and he tries to
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be like, I'm a good cop though, because he saved her life twice.
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Yeah, I'm a good cop. I should get to fuck this lady.
25:33
I'm enamored by her. I'm enamored by her and her traveler curves.
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You know these you know, these fools are sitting somewhere going I'm so proud
25:48
of myself for Huntback. We did it. We did it, We did
25:51
it. We brought in the church, we brought had the anal, we
25:56
had the goat sidekick. That's the best part about that movie, Women's rights,
26:02
Women's right. We foo for women. We proved that this population of
26:07
people doesn't deserve genocide from this movie. Also, no one was on board
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with Frolo and his genocide. No one, not a one in America when
26:18
Trump was like, ugh, genocide, there were people on board and the
26:26
Hunchback. In Hunchback of Notre Dame France with Frolo, people are like,
26:30
man, you're just wild in we how did you get into this place of
26:36
power? No one is truly on board, right, I just like there's
26:41
just like I don't like. I do not want our friends at home to
26:45
misunderstand. I did enjoy this film because the music was fantastic. When you
26:52
peel back the layers and start looking at it, because you know I hate
26:57
the people, well I don't hate them. It bothers me when people are
27:00
like, well, don't think so deeply about it, sir, I don't
27:03
know how to do that, sir. This is a movie that I watched
27:06
when I was nine. Yeah, Like, I'm gonna start thinking about things
27:11
in a way that maybe you should do. As a nine year old,
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I was taught well, dance sexy because it's fun. But then no,
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it's a sin and you're the devil and a man could murder you for this,
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and it turns out very valid lesson, Thank you, Disney. That
27:30
is one hundred percent true. A man could murder me by with the justification
27:36
of my feminine joy alone. Yep, have you heard of silent reading parties?
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While the Jellybops book Club is now hosting our very own silent reading party
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called the Reading Salon. We meeted a local business, order drinks and snacks,
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then read for an hour or so, and then after the reading time
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is over, you can stick around and talk with fellow book lovers about what
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you're reading, or what authors you love, or what books are your favorite.
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Purchasing a ticket gets you into the party, but a VIP ticket gets
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you a bag full of book themed goodies. To learn more, about the
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reading salon click the link in the show notes. Come for the reading,
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stay for the friends. You've heard me talk about my artwork on the show,
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but what you might not have known is I started painting in twenty twenty
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as a way to cope, and spent a year working with watercolor painting people.
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But then I started painting cards because I realized how much I love sending
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click the link in our show notes. Okay, let's talk about Esmeralda.
29:25
Sure, we already kind of touched on the fact that it makes me uncomfortable
29:27
that de me Mour is her human voice. It's so annoying just sound wise,
29:33
it does not fit the animation because because you have this very brown woman
29:40
with these deep green eyes and this gorgeous wavy raven hair. Mm hmm,
29:49
and she's voiced by a white woman. Yeah, it's it's a it's a
29:53
rough time, it's a choice, it's a rough time. I think the
29:59
most interesting thing about Esmeralda is they leaned full into like her sexuality was the
30:10
driving force of all of the conflict in her story. And the only other
30:17
time I can think of Disney making a choice to make sexuality be the front
30:23
of a woman's character is in a very in an animated way, is in
30:29
a very silly way. With who framed Roger Rabbit and Jessica Rabbit, right,
30:34
it was part of the bit, it was part of the joke.
30:37
And then to have this just juxtaposition to where it's like, put Esmeralda is
30:42
going to die because of this seductress hell Fire. They write an entire song
30:49
about how she's going to bring the entire country of France to hell right through
30:56
a tambourine, right, And it's almost like I feel like that's definitely like
31:02
a subconscious bias situation because Jessica Rabbit is a pale redhead that is the stuff
31:10
of dreams for every person attracted to women everywhere. And then as like I
31:17
said, Esmeralda is brown, beautiful, raven hair, stark green eyes,
31:22
and it's her. It's her, It's what's the word I'm looking for.
31:30
It's a detriment, a detriment, yes, Whereas for Jessica Rabbit, it's
31:34
you know, how, it's how she maneuvers. And I guess you know
31:38
Esmeralda is using it to maneuver and survive in the world too, because as
31:41
women we have to learn how to do that to survive. But the end
31:47
messaging to your point is very different in the case of Esmeralda. H yeah,
31:56
and don't get me wrong, both very much a part of my journey
32:00
of like shouldn HATIY date women? And the answer is yes, sexual awakenings
32:05
happened, and the awakenings happening. Thank you Zena, Jessica Ravit and Zmailda.
32:14
But also thank you for allow and abusive Christianity for making me go no,
32:20
never mind, my family will hate me and all of France. Yeah,
32:25
shout out to France for being my number four or number five country.
32:30
Nice listeners, love it, love it. But it is one of those
32:36
things where it's a real interesting stance to take that the reason why travelers were
32:45
prejudiced against in France had nothing to do with their quote unquote bohemian lifestyle or
32:52
that they were people who were I believe driven out of their original home and
32:58
that is why they became travelers. Correct, So they didn't actually fit into
33:05
your country's culture or whatever. They were very counter culture. It has everything
33:09
to do with share and is Morelda being trampy and they make us upset right
33:17
right, and it's like it's like again it falls into that unconscious bias situation,
33:24
and in this case with Esmerelda, it's very biased, Like it's not
33:29
unconscious at all, like Frolo is very very biased. But I mean in
33:31
terms of like creating es Merelda and choosing to use fifteenth century gypsy culture as
33:42
part of like the structure of and foundation of who's Esmeralda and her people are
33:47
like It'd be one thing if we saw consistently that our Disney heroines all had
33:55
a level of sexuality that was similar to what Esmerelda had. But we don't
34:01
because Cinderella and snow White and Belle are demure and chaste and you know,
34:09
lovely, and Esmeralda is strong and powerful and like and but they're all shaped
34:16
kind of you know, differently too, like so it's like one of those
34:20
things where it's like all of our white Disney leading ladies are quote acceptable,
34:25
like you the most like, the most egregious one, if you want to
34:30
say egregious, is Belle, because she reads like that's her defying action.
34:38
And I would have to wonder should there be a scene thrown in where not
34:50
only does Frolo just need to masturbate a little bit to the idea of Esmeralda
34:55
and just like get out all that pent up aggression, but if we had
35:00
had like a scene where like a little white French scullery maid also became an
35:07
object of his fixation, and then we can place blame back on him because
35:15
he's repressing urges that I'm like, you're not the pope and you're not the
35:21
archbishop. Why aren't you fucking right? What right? Why? Why do
35:27
you not have a wife? Why aren't you fucking Then we can place the
35:34
owen's back on him. It's Henry pressing. It's him self sabotaging. What
35:42
do Christians do when they beat themselves self flagellating? It's him, it's him
35:52
towards train and it's all because of his warped version of reality. But because
35:55
it's only Esmeralda, and it's only as Maeralda that we see dancing in the
36:00
flames, and she is one of I don't think Pocahontas is out at this
36:07
time, but if it is, she's one of three Disney hero wins of
36:10
color. Yeah, that's a really good point because and now are we now
36:19
are we up to Are we up to five? Because of Malana and Tiana?
36:24
Or am I missing someone? I know there was that little girl who
36:31
has Sophia the first I know that there are some Disney Channel cartoons. Hunchback
36:38
is after Pocahontas. I just wanted to come from that. So now we
36:42
have one of three three or in the teens, twenty teens, I think
36:52
I was in college because I went with my college boyfriend I was gonna say
36:55
I was an adult because there was a full on conversation of I cannot believe
37:00
you didn't give Tiana a black prince to fall in love with, Like that
37:05
was a whole internet storm that we don't have time for to have that conversation,
37:12
because that is not why we are here. Okay, you can cut
37:16
this out. What nationality is Nabam? Is that not his name? I
37:22
think that's I've been seen the movie in a while. Yeah, I mean
37:25
I haven't either. Hold On, is he French? No? I think
37:30
he's Middle Eastern. Oh okay, and yeah, I will cut that part
37:37
out, but I think he's Middle Eastern. I think I still coded him
37:49
as a black man. Oh that's interesting. Bruno Campo's plays his voice.
37:54
Who is if anything, I coded him as a mixed man. He's got
38:04
okay, hold on, he's Brazilian the actor that plays him, Oh,
38:13
okay, Brazilian so a man of color. Oh, he's like international.
38:22
He grew up in Brazil, Toronto, Bahrain, and Houston. Either way,
38:29
The point is is they did not hire a black man to voice him,
38:32
and they did not like present this character as a black character. Anyway.
38:40
So back to yeah, we've got one of three, uh heroines of
38:49
color. And I would argue that Pocahontas does also sexualized in a very odd
38:54
way. I was gonna bring that up because I remember really thinking that,
39:00
wow, she's like when I was a kid when it came out, because
39:05
I think it was eleven when Pocahontas came out. I remember thinking like,
39:08
very different thoughts about Pocahontas in a way again back to that, like,
39:15
she's strong, she's fiery, she's a little bit more sexual, but I
39:20
didn't have the language at eleven to say sexual right, right. And I
39:24
think the thing of it is is it's always the presence of a white man
39:29
deciding that, except for maybe Jasmine and Jafar, but white ideology, coming
39:37
into a culture that is not based in white ideology, and then going like
39:42
I'm kind of thrilled by this, but that's also scary. And there's always
39:47
like one guy in the room who's like, but I'm okay with it,
39:51
and then he's a hero, and then the villains are like, I'm going
39:54
to destroy their entire culture, right, which is how Colonization played out.
40:04
There's some new movie coming out with Leonardo DiCaprio in an entire native cast,
40:08
like an Indigenous Americans. And I literally screamed out loud during the preview when
40:15
I went and saw bottoms, and I was like, do not fuck that
40:20
white man. Do not It will not work out for you or the people
40:25
of your nation. If she was five, we know that he won't.
40:31
No, I'm pretty sure that they fuck in the movie, like it's one
40:36
of those dancing with Wolves things, except for Kevin Costner found the white lady
40:39
in like Native America, right, like just all of these really fucked up
40:45
ways that white men still code women of color to where it's like she's exotic
40:51
and she's thrilling, and she's not like the other girls because the other girls
40:55
are upholding all of the white man patriarchal bull shit that you prey under,
41:01
right, and she's free from that, well not in about two years after
41:07
you were uin her life, right, And that's the thing that I really
41:10
I think that's the thing that I as much like I loved the Esmeralda character
41:15
so much because she was very much like, how dare you be cruel to
41:21
Quasimoto? Like I, why would you allow such cruelty to happen because he's
41:27
a cruel man, is the answer. But they give her these moments where
41:31
she is so fully human, but then they don't allow her to remain there,
41:37
you know what I mean. And that's the thing that bothers me,
41:40
because it's like, it's a hurdle for people of colors, especially black women
41:47
specifically, to be seen as fully fleshed out human with a full range of
41:53
emotions that aren't just quote sexually deviant or advanced, Like there are so many
42:05
courtesies offered to little white girls that aren't offered to little black girls. And
42:10
as much as like I know that this is just an animated feature, that
42:15
kind of bias is coming through in this movie. Well, and I think
42:21
something that's also fascinating about Esmeralda and is that she's willing to play your game.
42:29
Like she goes into the steps of Notre Dame, she claims sanctuary,
42:34
and then she immediately is like, hey, God, it's me you girl.
42:38
Yeah, I've been told that you don't want to talk to me.
42:43
But there's a whole lot of people in France and on Earth in general that
42:47
are literally just being persecuted for living correct and that, and I like balwled
42:58
my eyes out during God helped the Cass because you see all of these like
43:02
rich presenting white people being like I ask for wealth, I ask for love,
43:12
I ask for power, and that's what they're praying for. And she's
43:15
like, I ask for nothing. I can get by, but I know
43:19
so many less lucky than I. And literally she's just asking, I mean,
43:24
honestly, bring back as Maeralda, do a reboot for the millennials,
43:30
because Esmeralda just be asking what we be asking and make her the center of
43:35
the story. We don't need quasi modo, we need no, we need
43:38
Esmeralda to be the hero of her own story, who isn't overly sexualized,
43:44
who is fighting like she is what Robin Hood wishes he could be. M
43:50
hmm, Like she's a millennial hero. And quasi motive kind of does represent
43:58
a lot for me what we're all going through currently, Like we didn't create
44:05
these towers that are oppressing us and keeping us shackled, like capitalism, misogyny,
44:12
racism, all of it, but we sure are held back by it,
44:15
all right, right, And every time you try to break out of
44:21
that mold, there is going to be some cruel white man who takes away
44:25
your abortion rights, or tells you that you deserve to be in poverty,
44:30
or tells you that if you weren't so trampy, maybe things would be better
44:34
for you, right, or if you know you didn't do enough to be
44:39
trampy, but not in that way, they wouldn't say it like that.
44:43
Well, if you were more if you are more willing, if you're more
44:46
sensual, so willing to do what, don't touch me. There's a fine
44:52
line between sensual and slutty, and the only person who knows about it is
44:58
a pervy white man m hm. And they get to dictate that line,
45:04
and they get to move it because I also, I do find the character
45:09
of Quasimoto to be a very endearing character. Yes, he's sweet, he's
45:15
got a big heart. That that ending scene where that little girl just moves
45:22
her hands through his face and then hugs him, and he's finally just like
45:27
because they've all been aware that he is a member of their community, but
45:31
he doesn't get to be a member of their community. And again that wasn't
45:36
on their terms. And then the Feast of Fools kind of brings it forth
45:43
right that like, well, he's a member of your community that you've known
45:45
about forever. It's like when you have that weird neighbor that everyone's real concerned
45:52
about, but no one's willing to go check on, Right, I don't
45:55
knock on that door, knocking on that door. Quasimoto is weird Barbie CAUSINGO
46:01
to walk so weird but Arby could run. Yes, he is the weird
46:08
Arby of France, and he's very sweet, And of course he's very sweet.
46:15
He he gets to live under one cruel man, but he doesn't actually
46:22
live under like the cruel man's society, right, so he kind of gets
46:28
to it's There are a lot of parallels between Frolo and Mother Gothel, to
46:32
the point where they almost look like siblings. Yeah, but I could also
46:38
see them hooking up in the bathroom of club House of Mouse, that cartoon.
46:45
Everyone remember that cartoon when Mickey owned a nightclub and you never knew who
46:51
was showing up. I could see Mother Gothel and Prolo hooking up in the
46:54
bathroom hot stuff. Hey, what up? You want to press some use
47:00
today? You got a tower waiting for me? What? Oh my gosh,
47:08
Oh makes me wish I could do animations. That way, I could
47:13
like do a little mini video of just for me, Just for me,
47:21
so funny. He's like, hey, girl, can I get you a
47:25
what's you drinking? You want me to get you another one? You need
47:29
to refill. Because they're the same person, evil could only present itself in
47:36
so many ways, right, They're the same person. They believe all of
47:40
the same things, and they have a righteousness to their evil. And that's
47:46
what it is. It's the righteousness that kills me. Because even if someone
47:50
isn't evil and they have a righteousness to them, I'm always like an I'm
47:53
out. I'm out if you do something bad and you can look me in
48:00
the eye and be like, whoo, that was a misstep. Yeah,
48:02
okay, thank you for not being a sociopath. But if you're just frolo
48:07
twirling in Notre Dame being like God, I didn't mean to be turned on,
48:13
and I did not mean to kill the woman who was Quasimodo's mother.
48:17
She made me do it because I couldn't handle my boner. It's not my
48:22
fault. There's truly nowhere we can go with you. Throw you all the
48:29
way away, throw you off of the top, off of the roof of
48:35
Notre Dame, like we threw Gaston, just throw them Yeah, yea,
48:43
yeat, we don't. We don't need that, we need more Gastons in
48:47
the world. Do you know that there is a subset of men also a
48:52
French story, also a French story. Do you know that there is a
48:55
subset of men who believe that Gaston is truly a vic of the like nice
49:00
guy's finished last, Yeah, Gaston is not a nice guy. I've seen
49:07
Reddit posts and I'm surprised I haven't seen it on TikTok. But it's one
49:10
of those things where it's like, what, he just wanted to marry her.
49:14
No, he bought out her father a couple of times. No,
49:16
he just wanted to take her out to dinner once. I believe in ex
49:20
also reiterated all of this to me, like it's the whole Devil's advocate of
49:23
Like, well, through Gastan's eyes, he's the hero. He was trying
49:29
to save her from the beast, and I was like, oh, well,
49:35
in the first fifteen minutes of the musical, he tries to hit her
49:40
right, and I remember not being prepared for that because I've always viewed Gaston
49:49
as a very ridiculous villain. Yeah, just very like your run of the
49:54
mill himbo who really thinks he's something. And then in the musical he go
50:00
to hit her and I screamed because I was so taken into seeing Beauty and
50:06
the Beast on stage for the first time, and I was not expecting that,
50:10
and like, oh my gosh, just a sound rained through the theater
50:15
and it was for me, Oh my gosh. I would definitely go see
50:21
The Hunchback of Notre Dame on stage, though, And I'm kind of really
50:24
sad that it didn't do as well on Broadway as I think it should have
50:28
done. Yeah. Well, it's that unconscious racial bias, right, I'm
50:32
sorry. Were we trying to uplift people of color? So let's not talk
50:37
about how And I know you touched on this already a little bit, but
50:40
how different watching this movie is now from when you were a kid. Well,
50:47
Number one, I am still always in forever shocked by how overwhelmed and
50:57
surprised I can still be about the evils that live inside of privileged men.
51:01
Correct, So here I am. I'm thirty four years old. I've viewed
51:07
privileged men. I've been hurt and abused by privileged men. And I've watched
51:12
Men on Top destroying my country, my life, my home, and my
51:15
heart, and yet still watching the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I'm like,
51:21
shit, he's literally just gonna do genocide because he's so uncomfy with his natural
51:29
sexual urges. He's John Wayne Gacy, I don't know. Yeah, and
51:37
you're just watching it and you're like, this can't be real. And yet
51:42
name eight people who remind you a frolo, who are literally causing harm just
51:45
because they believe others should suffer because they are uncomfortable, right right. I
51:55
guess the movie tried to prepare me for this. I don't know. I
52:00
was gonna say, it feels like it feels like as much as there is
52:02
like flaws with this film, it's almost like, hey, kids, we
52:08
know it is Disney. We've done a really good job at making you think
52:13
there is justice in this world and you have a voice, but actually you
52:20
don't, and things be shit. I don't know how the person who spearheaded
52:27
being like, oh, we should definitely do a Disney version of the Hunchback
52:32
of note or Dom. I don't know how they convinced Disney because I was
52:37
reading about it. The guy who directed it, who was like the spearhead
52:42
you know who was he was dedicated to like not disneifying. Yet the Disney
52:50
CEO at the time took a hands off approach like that was part of the
52:53
agreement. Was he like hands off with all of Disney or literally just this
53:00
project, just this particular project. I still don't know how this movie got
53:06
backing. Like, when I think about this movie in comparison to every other
53:12
Disney movie we have watched, even movies that deal with racial oppression, like
53:16
Frozen two, it still stands apart in its very own story structure and how
53:24
like how close to home this villain could be? Right? And that's part
53:30
of why I wanted to like give myself a refresher on Victor Hugo's original story
53:37
because it was like, I forget which article it was. It didn't make
53:40
it into ridge review. It was because it didn't make it into the script
53:45
for us today. But he was very much like, we are not doing
53:49
that to Victor Hugo. You see what you did to Pocahontas, We're not
53:52
doing that here. And yeah, so now I'm like, how much like
53:59
how how distilled did this story become because it, like you said, it
54:04
doesn't really fit within the way that Disney tells our stories, especially nineties Disney.
54:09
Yeah, this movie came out in twenty fifteen and we were running out
54:15
of stories, and we were like, well, I guess we're gonna give
54:17
stories to people of color. You can't tell snow white seven times, right,
54:22
you can't do it. I would, I would understand that it's a
54:27
little grittier, but for this to be nineties Disney, like the Disney of
54:30
our childhood. Yeah, like pocahont Pocahontas is a really great movie with a
54:37
banner of a soundtrack. It's not scary. No, I think the only
54:44
movie that really unsettled me the most out of Disney that isn't The Hunchback of
54:51
Notre Dame is. For whatever reason, I was really terrified of The Great
54:55
Mouse Detective. I do not know why. I also I also found it
55:00
like boring but also scary enough that I was like, I could walk away
55:05
from this and never watch it again. But I truly cannot think of other
55:08
unsettling Disney movies other than I mean, like Fantasia, but that was generations
55:14
before us. Oh, I love Fantasia. I do too, but I
55:17
think that if a certain age group sees it like, there can be really,
55:21
there can be really some parts that might feel like a little scary.
55:24
But I don't know if nowadays because we've had so much, I don't know,
55:31
but I think Fantasia you can grow out of it being scary. Like
55:37
I'm pretty sure we always skipped the ending of Fantasia with like the Demon right
55:43
because my sister didn't like it. But you grow out of that. I
55:46
don't think you can grow out of the hunchback of Notre Dame being scary.
55:51
No, because we're grown ass women and we were very like distraught. Yeah,
56:00
I was distraught the entire movie. Yeah, okay, friend, I
56:04
really appreciate you coming by today. Tell everybody where they can find you,
56:07
where they can support you. Hey, everyone, I'm the host of your
56:12
weekly podcast to All the Men I've Tolerated before. It's a weekly look at
56:15
everyday misogyny. Uh. You could also catch me on Instagram at Men I've
56:21
Tolerated pod or Natalie Kay one two four nat Lee k one two four is
56:25
also my TikTok handle, where you'll see me doing a number of weird things
56:30
live on the internet. But what do you know how you make money on
56:37
the internet. You make money on the internet by doing weird shit. Okay,
56:40
okay, that's how you trick polos into giving you their money. Yeah,
56:49
oh my gosh, sorry, keep plugging. I didn't mean to distract
56:53
you. My life. Some things I haven't talked about on the show before
56:58
that are kind of new to all the men I've tolerated before is we've had
57:02
a Patreon, but now there is that free tier option, like pop culture
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makes me jealous did with their free trial, so that's open for all tears.
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We now have a blog and a newsletter, so literally a link when
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you go to find me on Instagram that you can find all of that stuff
57:22
and will link it in the show notes, to make it everybody, to
57:24
make it everybody, to make to beat it everybody's business, I was gonna
57:29
say, to make it easier for everybody to find, to make it everybody's
57:31
problem. Yes, yes, yes, it is always a good time when
57:44
Natalie stops by, but when your friends come on the show, it's not
57:46
even work. I mean, we laughed, we didn't cry, We mostly
57:52
laughed, and it was so great. If you also have similar feelings about
57:57
the Hunchback of Notre Dame, please let us know. You can DM either
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58:29
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58:37
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58:59
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