The Scoliosis Sufferer of Notre Dame
• originally published on August 08, 2008 •
“What hump?”
— The hunchback Igor, from the movie
“Young Frankenstein”
ALONG WITH CERVANTES, DANTE, SHAKESPEARE, KIPLING AND a few rare others, Victor Marie-Hugo is one of history’s literary giants. He was the creative genius who gave us the enduring Les Miserables. Oddly enough, Hugo never wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame. The book he penned was titled, Notre Dame de Paris in the original French and was re-named Hunchback of Notre Dame when it was translated into the various languages, not including Baby Talk.
Nearly two centuries later, Hugo’s work was renamed again.
A while back, Elli Mackenzie, a British producer, put on a knock-off of Vic’s epic and called her stage production: “The Bellringer of Notre Dame.”
Why? She didn’t want to offend people with back problems.
I’m not making this up.
(DISCLAIMER FROM JOHN LOVES AMERICA HQ: Please note that JLA Corporate, in no way, shape or form, is suggesting that all French people (especially the Parisians) look like, walk like, or drool like, Quasimodo.) / Public Domain
After a fruitful dialogue with a disabilities consultant, producer Ms. Mackenzie thought sufferers from scoliosis or spina bifida might find the term, “hunchback” to be negative.
Hugo’s original story is about a deformed hunchback — or, as we say in P.C. down at the saloon when no one’s looking — a P.O.S.
“Person of Slouch.”
The tale is about the scoliosis sufferer, Quasimodo, and his love for the fiery, beautiful Gypsy girl, Esmeralda. The tragedy is set in 15th-century France, before the country voted to change their name to Surrender Monkeyville.
I mentioned Hugo retitled the book, The Hunchback of Notre Dame?
Why?
Because it’s got a really great hunchback in it.
Not, Cripes! Someone Help Me Get Out Of This Damn Couch of Notre Dame My Various Lower Lumbars Are Tightening Up Again.
A hunchback.
“Uh-blah uh-blah-uh-blah shuffle sideways uh-blah uh-blah…”
Bon sang.
I shudder to think what Ms. Mackenzie would do if she got her mitts on Tennessee Williams. We could watch Cat on a Nice, Cozy Porch because certainly we wouldn’t want someone who lives in a trailer with 346 felines to be offended by a pussy singeing its paws on a hot tin roof or get sued by the SPCA.
After conferring with Libby Biberian, a representative of the British Scoliosis Association, Ms. Mackenzie decided to translate the title into sensi-speak. Ms. Biberian was happy at the change, telling reporters she “…would be embarrassed and offended by the original title.”
Please. Is there a public servant somewhere who isn’t offended by normalcy?
I could see English literature being a whole lot shorter if Ms. Mackenzie and the Politeness Stage Police were to get out the black felt pens and scissors.
MacBeth would be a whole lot shorter. I’m guessing they’d start with the title because “Beth” suggests some sort of male-dominated unasked-for familiarity and gender-offensive. They’d have to call it, MacPat.
Or, MacAlex.
Or, MacRiley.
Or, MacRobin.
Or, MacCasey.
Or, my favorite, MacSam.
The new, improved story has Lady MacBeth manipulating her husband to kill the king and take the throne. But, instead? Lord MacBeth decides he’s just borderline depressed. After switching from mutton to a diet of green, leafy vegetables, getting some regular exercise and taking a hot yoga class, he feels just fine and doesn’t need to kill anybody. I’m thinking after the rewrite, MacBeth is five, maybe six lines of iambic pentameter, with vague pronouns and one of the planet’s great tragedies has a perky ending.
In France, or here in the USA, it’s something not even your best friends will tell you. Perhaps you’re a smidge overdue for a waxing? / Public Domain
Pygmalion?
Elitist.
Othello?
Racist. Like all those war movies in the 1970s, it’s always the black guy who gets bumped off in a heart-wrenching battle scene.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers?
Zero interpretation from a gay perspective.
Do you think that’s what the Brit theatre was attempting? I can just hear the director giving instructions to Quasimodo —
DIRECTOR: “Do you think you could play the spinally challenged acoustical macro-instrument engineer a bit — straighter?”
ACTOR: “I AM playing him straight!”
DIRECTOR: “No. I mean, stop all the lolling about and dragging your knuckles and stand up straight!”
ACTOR: “But I’m supposed to be a hunchback…”
DIRECTOR: “If you stand up straight and tall, ALL the people in the theater — including the ones way in the back — will be able to see you…”
ACTOR: (considering) “Good direction… I can use that.”
I can see Quasimodo and the lovely Esmeralda wench breaking out of the story into a song-and-tap dance number about the common sense of good posture and to make sure you bend your knees to lift anything over 3 pounds.
The producers of the new-&-improved “Bellringer” promised not to monkey with Victor Hugo’s story.
Much.
I see nothing but trouble when medical groups start rewriting our rich heritage of literature. Instead of attracting the likes of Charles Laughton, Lon Chaney or Anthony Quinn, Quasimodo will be played by a straight-as-nails Keanu Reeves.
With no hump.
And, except for wincing after the big karate fight number where he gets shot 28 times, no angst.
Sigh. As they say in gay Paree, “Putes peintes de Babylone…”
Or, here in the States: “Painted whores of Babylon…”
Just wait and see. Now that even Victor Hugo isn’t safe, one of these days, I’ll be asked to plop down 125 bucks to see, All The Fine Young Vegetarians…
(John Boston, who suffers from lower back pain but doesn’t whine about it, unless there’s a fetching and compassionate stewardess nearby where he can beg, “…hold me…” is not, has never been, nor intends to be, a hunchback. He also promises not to scamper about Paris’ swank Notre Dame Cathedral (as it is still under re-construction after the 2019 blaze which French investigators blamed on either a tossed high-tar European cigarette or faulty wiring which he blames on either those annoying Parisian Just Stop Oil people or Hamas). Boston has 119 major awards and no, you can’t borrow any of them…)
(P.S. — Notre Dame Cathedral is scheduled to fully reopen December 8, 2024. Catholic staff asks visitors, especially Catholics, do not show up dressed like Hunchb… er, Scoliosis Sufferers…)