Frollo’s Long is nose and he wears a truss/dress Disney Hunhcback of Notre Dame
Hugo, Victor and Laverne are the agents of forced levity in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame. They all have distinct personally and looks.
Hugo Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo is the short and fat one. He has a pig nose, thin horns that point straight up, bat-like wings, hooves for hand, rounded teeth and animal-like ears. He also for some reason is the only one of the three gargoyles to have a belly button. Hugo is the most animal looking among the three. This is he is the crudest and I think Disney thinks that he’s the funniest, in the infantile sense so he has to look somewhat amusing or people are going to believe he’s the “funny” one.
Victor Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Victor is the tallest and largest of the three. He also the most muscular of the three. He’s the only one not to have horns, instead he has elf-like ears, large angel wings, an underbite, two fanged teeth and his hands are more like claws , almost human but a tad more beastly than human. His nose is stylized but almost human. His more human-like form is indicative of his prissy-like, prime, introverted personality.
Victor and Laverne singing A Guy like you Disney Hunchback of Notre dame
Laverne is the female of the group. She has the most human-like hands. Her face looks old and she has no teeth. She has cherub wings, fatter and short horns than Hugo and there’re wider. She also have like a crown like detail that frames her horns. Her ears and nose like the most human too except her nose is a bit bulbous. Her no nonsense, tell it like it is personality is the reason why her features look more human than Victor and Hugo. The human-look enables Laverne to be take more seriously. I mean if she looked like Hugo, I doubt people who believe her “old women who tells it like it is” persona.
Gargoyle Concept Art Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Gargoyles Concept Art Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Gargoyle Concept Art Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Looking at the concept art, the gargoyles went through a lot of revisions. But the gargoyles went through at lot of revisions as the film progress during the course of it’s animation. It was originally convinced that these three gargoyles were the stone mason’s cast-off and they’re something of outcast which is why Quasimodo gravitated towards these three, if the imagination theory is true (which like so many other things in this movie is inconsistent in it’s execution). The film never did played this angle. Also they were going to have tiny imperfections like a chip ear, but that was never realized either in the film.
Stains on Gargoyles Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Early in the production and this can be seen on the gargoyles in their introductory scene, the gargoyles have stains on them from the elements. The studio had maps for each gargoyle in order to keep the stains consistently placed. Then the idea was abandoned as the film progress. Funny it’s it, they tried so hard to be consistent on a detail that few noticed and then abandoned it but they very inconsistent with the light in the characters eyes.
Esmeralda is the most divergent character in the Disney version from the book in both looks and personality. I already talked about her personality, now let’s look at her looks.
Disney Esmeralda Hunchback of Notre Dame dancing
The Disney Esmeralda looks 100% a traveler*. She has a darker complexion, dark hair, and light green eyes (with no glint). Her eyes also do not change color pending on how much light is in the space, which kind of makes them look witchy. She keeps her hair pulled back which it creates volume. This bigger hair makes her look older. When her hair is down she looks younger. Her hair also has a slight curl. Though in the middle of the epic running away from Frollo, her hair looks straight but that could just be inconsistencies in animation or the wind, take your pick. But it does look straight. However it also fair to point out that this voluminous hairstyle was on trend in the late 90s.
Esmeralda complimenting Quasimodo Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Her age is very vague. Most of the Disney characters have a rough age range or they just say how old they are like Ariel and Jasmine. With this shift in Disney heroines being somewhat more independent and less dreamy, they appear to be older than the typical “Disney princess” (except Tiana, I would say she is like a compromise between the archetypal Princess and the confident independent heroine of the late 90s).
The question is how old is Disney’s Esmeralda? With the age inflation that Disney implements, I’d say she most likely 22 at the youngest, which is “old” for a Disney heroine. The long and short of it is, Esmeralda is meant to be older like “she’s been around.” This is not my phasing, watch the commentary, it’s the scene where Esmeralda is helping Quasimodo from the pillory. To listen to the commentary, The DVD.
One reason why this version made her older could have been to help establish her relationship with Quasimodo as more maternal, more like a big sister than romantic. This could have made her pairing with Phoebus appear more palatable for the audience, though given a lot of bad-faith internet discourse it didn’t really work that way.
19th Century Illustration of Esmeralda with Djali
Esmeralda’s Dance Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Against the original novel by Victor Hugo, Esmeralda’s looks are very different. Esmeralda is never described in graphic detail but she’s described as very beautiful frequently by many characters. Disney Esmeralda is meant to be beautiful certainly but she is never called beautiful in the movie. The closest mention to her looks is Clopin saying she’s “The Finest Girl is France.”
19th century Illustration of Esmeralda
Esmeralda’s Dance Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Esmeralda in the book is not genetically a full traveler*. Her mother is a French women and while her Father could have been a traveler, it is never actually mentioned who was her father.
Esmeralda has a golden skin tone, black hair and black eyes. Part of Esmeralda’s charm in the book is her innocence and her total unawareness of her own beauty. Disney’s Esmeralda is the complete and utter opposite; she knows her appeal, exploits it and given that quote by the director Kirk Wise that I mention earlier, I’m not sure how innocent is in the movie. So it safe to say that Disney did not use Hugo for even a basis of Esmeralda’s design.
Concept Art for Esmeralda Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Concept Art for Esmeralda Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Concept Art for Esmeralda Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Looking at the concept art, Esmeralda started off looking more youthful and somehow along the way she lost the youthful look. My guess the vocal inspiration turned the tables on the character design. Alas Demi’s Moore doesn’t sound youthful, at least not when the film was recording the voices. For More Concept Art of Hunchback
Esmeralda giving Frollo a peck on the nose Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
It’s actually not Disney’s fault that Esmeralda’s looks/acts sexy whereas Hugo’s Esmeralda did not. The fault lies in the film history of Hunchback movies.
Esmeralda has long been depicted as sexy or at least no stranger to feminine charms. Esmeralda has also been depicted by actresses who are more known for their sex appeal. Such actresses have been Stacia Napierkowska, Theda Bara, Gina Lollobrigida and Salma Hayak. Also Disney models their characters after the voice actor playing them, so with the choice of Demi Moore it was inevitable that Disney Esmeralda was going to be sexy and follow the line of sexy Esmeraldas.
In a featurette of the movie, Moore said she could see herself in Esmeralda’s animation. While Disney took their cues from the 1939 version, I think Esmeralda’s look was based somewhat on Gina Lollobrigida’s Esmeralda as well as Demi Moore (maybe, I can’t really tell, I haven’t seen a ton of Moore’s films discern her mannerism and/or acting style in Esmeralda’s animation.)
Demi Moore
Esmeralda Disney Hunchback of Notre Dame
Gina Lollobrigida as Esmeralda Hunchback of Notre Dame 1956
*Since 2021 the blog has been using the words Travelers or Nomads to convey the group of people that Esmeralda is associated with while trying to be respectful. You can read that post here. I do tend to favor the travelers usage.
So we’ve looked deeper into the characters of Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame now let’s look at them on a shallower level. Of course I mean looks.
Looks are always important with a Hunchback adaptation as you have the extreme beauty and the extreme ugly in the characters. I mention looks briefly in the character analysis but I’m going to a step further is reviewing looks now. So Let’s Get Superficial!!!
