Her body remains a terrain of appropriation and jealousy.
Together with Phoebus, he’s frenziedly torn-an inner strife perfectly rendered in, respectively, “Déchiré” and “Tu vas me détruire.” Esmeralda is too beautiful, too tempting, to escape the toxic masculinity of the sword and the Bible.
Churchman Frollo is driven to madness, unable to reconcile his two fixations caught between celestial celibate callings and earthly realities.įrollo has a heart, a predatory “heart to kill” when his wishes aren’t fulfilled. Phoebus, a 21st-century basic summer one-night stand, ultimately chooses his social rank and boring stability over a woman who could have changed his life. In one evocative scene during the song “Belle,” Esmeralda lies down mimicking a cross as the trio of men take turns singing their voluptuous cravings while walking toward her, reminding us that womxn’s daily experience is one of a never-ending Via Dolorosa. She’s a prey offered to a timeless phallocratic feast. Belle – Notre Dame de Paris ALESSANDRO DOBICIĮducated men such as Frollo and Phoebus merely fixate on Esmeralda’s flesh and ways to accomplish their carnal instincts. Integrity disproportionately correlates with status the “good” people are social outcasts. The so-called monster Quasimodo is the only one expressing emotions anchored in respect and humanity, alongside Esmeralda’s friend Clopin, who leads the Bohemians and has warned her of the wickedness of men.
In the gaze of these men permeates an intense desire for lust, control, and misogyny. Esmeralda combines everything that men of power hate she’s an unapologetic lower-class, foreign-born woman who follows her heart. Yet for all its medieval resonances, Notre Dame de Paris is a show that speaks to today’s unsettling violence, incarnated in relentless victim-blaming and racism.
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