Blow Hard, bless his vigilant little ass, sent me the link to this…this…this…Gggghah! Just ggghah!
“A British theater company has dropped the word hunchback from its stage adaptation of the classic novel ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ to avoid offending disabled people, newspapers reported Friday.
Oddsocks Productions has renamed its touring production ‘The Bellringer of Notre Dame’ after discussions with a disability adviser raised the possibility of offending people with spina bifida or the disfiguring scoliosis of the spine,” Reuters reports.
‘We have not changed the novel in any way, we simply felt changing the title would cause less offence of people,’ producer Elli Mackenzie was quoted as saying by the Daily Mirror.
French author Victor Hugo’s classic 1831 novel, set in 15th century Paris around the cathedral of Notre Dame, tells the tragic story of a deformed bellringer Quasimodo and his love for a beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda.
The novel has been translated into 20 languages and adapted several times for the stage and screen — including a 1939 Hollywood film starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara.
The original title of the novel was ‘Notre Dame de Paris,’ but its name was changed when the book was translated into English and the hunchback has remained part of the title until now.
Libby Biberian of the Scoliosis Association told newspapers she was pleased at the change.
‘I would be embarrassed and offended by the original title,’ she said.
Oh fuck you, lady…
I don’t know about any of the rest of you, but thanks to this tommyrot, I’m no longer looking forward to the December eggnog season. The thought of being subjected to re-touched and overdubbed reruns of Dicken’s classic “A Non-Denominational Winter Holiday Season Carol” — featuring that poor unfortunate, Modestly-Sized Tim — is just too depressing to think about.
Twisted old fruits. Bah. Humbug. Etc.
Now watch someone named Thomas complain about Jeff’s use of the term “tommyrot”.
I’m going to have to get a copy of “Young Frankenstein” and watch it and “Blazing Saddles” tonight.
“What hump?”
I have scoliosis, but it was improved surgically when I was 15. I’m still a little bent and slightly twisted but otherwise in good health. And my mother had very bad scoliosis that wasn’t operated on until she was in her 50s, so she was a genuine hunchback (and in a lot of pain: she didn’t get diagnosed with the cancer that killed her until 10 days before her death because she thought that the pain—barely manageable by the morphine she was finally given after diagnosis—was just more of the same).
Yet I really don’t feel offended by the original title of the book or the play. I can’t speak for my Mum, but I suspect that she’d be OK with the original as well, even though she was teased as a girl and called a hunchback to her face. It’s too bad that other people are so sensitive to it, but that’s humanity, eh?
But I don’t get your thrashing in anguish over this, either. In some ways, you could say this is at least as good a title as the original English translation. Neither one exactly matched the original title in French, so it’s not as if Hugo’s intended focus has been ruined by yet another change.
It may yet turn out that enough disabled people are at least as offended by the change as by the original title. I’m willing to sit back and see what happens.
I “thrash in anguish” over this, Mary, because I’ve watched a few teachers pulled in front of a university tribunal for teaching Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” (because it contained the word “nigger”). Flannery O’Connor’s story, “The Artificial Nigger” (a great piece), gets left off many a syllabus because of its title. These words were common parlance at the time of the composition. Similarly, “hunchback” was common parlance at the time of translation.
The simple fact is, the English title for Hugo’s novel (and the title of the many film adaptations) has long been known as <i>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</I>. Trying to airbrush this cultural fact out of existence is silly. These words have become the referent for the novel and the films in English.
What’s truly unseemly about this is that the very same thinking that prompted this change is the thinking that animated the NY Regents’ decision to “correct” offensive language for its statewide lit exam. Such changes have the perverse effect of imbuing the changed language with far more negative power than it would otherwise have garnered.
Ask yourself: why does the word “hunchback” have more power to offend than “scoliosis”?
People actually lose jobs over this misplaced sensitivity. It isn’t such a minor trifle.
David Howard actually <a href=”http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2002/01/22/kennedy/index1.html?x”>resigned</a> after saying he’d have to be <a href=”http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=niggardly&r=2″>”niggardly”</a> with his budget.
Hit the first link (the second is the actual definition of the word), there are a few related university incidents mentioned as well.
I as a womyn am offended by the continuing inclusion of the White, Patriarchal, Sexist, Oppressor term “Dame” in the title. In fact, the word “Notre,” which means “our” in French, also offends with it’s demeaning implication of ownership. They should retitle the play to: <i>The Bellringer of Her Own Person</i>.
[/END SNARK]
Okay, seriously—I have scoliosis too (not an acute case, never corrected, I’m not a goddamn ballet dancer so I don’t need a ramrod straight back), and I’m insulted by the so-called “disability advisor’s” implication that I and other people in my “condition” are the same kind of oversensitive ninny who has him by the short hairs all the time. Quit patronizing me, you git. (Yes, everything is ultimately about me, didn’t you know?)
That’s the spirit, A.
And <i>The Bellringer of Her Own Person</i> is perfect! I wish I had thought of it. Shit.