Today my parents dropped a box of my old Barbies, and associated dolls and paraphernalia, off at my house! I was DELIGHTED, because I never expected to see any of them again!
They, their Barbie Travelin’ House Playset, and all their various accessories are in, ur… relatively good condition? Let me introduce you to them!
Esmeralda was always my favourite of the Disney women. She wasn’t a princess but I didn’t care. (This was before Disney really started pushing the ‘princess’ thing anyway.) She doesn’t appear in the Disneyland parks anymore ever from what I can tell. Disney just kinda quietly ignores their version of Hunchback of Notre Dame, probably because… well… if you’ve seen it you’ll know.
But then I found this old Disney autograph book in a drawer and in it was-
This was kinda interesting to me even though I could not remember meeting either of them AT ALL. (I was still a pretty young kid after all.) And also there was no date on the autograph book because children don’t think to date things! So those autographs could’ve been either from 1996 (when HOND actually came out) or 1999. But I have SO FEW MEMORIES of going to Disneyworld in 1996! That’s what the photos are for, to remind me, but honestly I kinda look at them and a lot of the time there isn’t any memory attached.
But a week or two ago I found this tiny little keyring photo album thingy, all the way from the late 90s. You could print out tiny little versions of photos (or get your parents to do so) and store them in a photo album so small you could carry it around with you on your bag or keys. Yeah… that’s what we all did before phones.
So I flipped through the teeny keyring album a couple of times. It was all pictures from our trip in 1999, which I do remember a bit better. And after looking more closely suddenly I realised there was one photo hidden behind another. I pulled it out and…
There was an Esmeralda in Disneyworld in 1999! I don’t know if she was the one who gave me the autograph or if that was a different ’96 Esmeralda, but hey she hung on for a few years in the park after Hunchback of Notre Dame came out and before Disney got cold feet about the contents of the film!
Thank you past me for hiding that photo away where I’d probably have never found it, ya dick.
To celebrate the occasion, here’s some of my favourite ladies from fiction!
Row 1: Amy Pond (Doctor Who), Sephy Hadley (Noughts and Crosses), Gamora (Guardians of the Galaxy/MCU), Rose Tico (Star Wars), Elsa (Frozen/Disney), Melissa Chartres (The Last Man on Earth)
Row 2: Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings/Middle Earth), Quinn Ergon (Final Space), The Thirteenth Doctor (Doctor Who), Princess Bubblegum (Adventure Time), Jane Foster (Thor/MCU), Amy Santiago (Brooklyn 99)
Row 3: Brook Soso (Orange is the New Black), Nebula (Guardians of the Galaxy/MCU), Erica Dundee (The Last Man on Earth), Kitty Winter (Sherlock Holmes), Rose Tyler (Doctor Who), Briony Tallis (Atonement)
Row 4: Meredith Quill (Guardians of the Galaxy/MCU), Missandei (Game of Thrones), Rey (Star Wars), Donna Noble (Doctor Who), Carol Pilbasian (The Last Man on Earth), Esmeralda (The Hunchback of Notre Dame/Disney)
Row 5: Sansa Stark (Game of Thrones), Ash Graven (Final Space), Tiana (The Princess and the Frog/Disney), Sophia Burset (Orange is the New Black), Misty (Pokemon), Clara Oswald (Doctor Who)
Row 6: Bill Potts (Doctor Who), Mary Brown (Paddington), Mako Mori (Pacific Rim), Gwen Stacy (Spider-Man), Jackie Tyler (Doctor Who), Ursula Ditkovich (Spider-Man)
Row 7: Yaz Khan (Doctor Who), Mary Jane Watson (Spider-Man), Marceline (Adventure Time), Michelle (10 Cloverfield Lane,), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow/MCU), Mantis (Guardians of the Galaxy (MCU)
A very happy day to Amy&Rory, Quinn&Gary, Enjolras&Grantaire, Peter&Harry, Bubblegum&Marceline, Star-Lord&Gamora, Gail&Erica, Faramir&Eowyn, Finn&Poe, and Disneyverse Esmeralda&Phoebus.
Most of whom never celebrated or had any concept of a Valentine’s Day.
“I ask for nothing, I can get by, but I know so many less lucky than I; please help my people, the poor and down-trod; I thought we all were children of God…”
I love writing meta for hond, but this one makes me nervous because it explains my preference for the movie version over the musical version in one aspect, and that is the development of Phoebus’s and Esmeralda’s romance. As a qualifier, I stress that I ADORE the musical, and can go on for days talking about my love for it, but this is not the post for that.
I’m going to do a comparison of the progression of their romance in both movie and musical.
In the movie, Phoebus and Esmeralda first meet in the street. He is immediately taken to her, while she is ever the consummate performer who doesn’t miss a beat even with this dashing man standing in front of her. She even smirks a little at him, probably accustomed to men being besotted by her.
It is when soldiers interfere that things begin to heat up. Phoebus witnesses the bias the soldiers show when they assume she stole the money she actually earned. Esmeralda breaks free from the soldiers’ hold and runs off, while Phoebus blocks the soldiers by using Achilles and then reveals himself to be a captain.
As a child, Esmeralda has arrived in France as a refugee, but she has come a long way since then. She is the coryphée at a prestigious ballet company in Paris and has worked hard to get there despite the prejudice she faced along the way.
She has never forgotten her roots, which is why she’s always in the front lines for every pro-migrant protest and rally, volunteering at refuge camps or being an active member of the social justice community.
Esmeralda loves Paris, but her favourite place in the whole city is definitely the beautiful Notre Dame.
