A British theater company has dropped the term “hunchback” from its production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
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.
“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.
Except all those bellringers, of course.
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Wow. What a world.
It might be interesting to note that the original title of Hugo’s novel never included the word huchback. It was called Notre Dame de Paris. The “Hunchback of Notre Dame” was created when the novel was translated.
And they said I’d never use that English degree.
True.
On the other hand, the story is about prejudice, about folks being rejected for their apparent lack of perfection. It seems that prettying up the title to avoid “offending” people sort of flies in the face of that.
Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. It’s just so rare that one of my bits of useless info is actually relevant *heh*
Ah. Yes, I know the joy of such occurances.
I’m all for not offending people, and maybe the name did get changed in the translation, but the tale is generally known as The Hunchback of NotreDame.. surely changing something like that is a bit extreme?
Political correctness seems to know no bounds.. and definitely not any sensible ones, some times.
My daughter wore a back brace in her teens, which has not permanently corrected a problem with her back. She had(has??) Sheurmanns disease (which is really a condition, not a disease) which causes kyphosis – a hump – and she also has a slight scoliosis too.
But I never put her into the same category as The Hunchback of Notre Dame! It’s a story!