Desired,yet unwanted: Hugo’s gypsy bodies in popular media

Critical and feminist studies have continued to demand for accounts of the representational challenges confronting marginalized people, as various social and cultural platforms continue to other and discriminate. The Roma, or the Gypsies, in particular have been one of the most reviled and marginalized ethnic groups. This study examines textual representations of gypsies in contemporary popular culture, evident in a musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s celebrated novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame and its accompanying worldwide press coverage. It finds that artistic and press representations of the gypsy woman Esmeralda embody characteristics consistent with historic stereotypes of the bohemian. It also shows that the novel’s band of Parisian criminals have been reconfigured for present-day global audiences to include critique of current political and popular discourses about immigration. International critics, however, miss this latter point and confine their reporting to dominant ideology and (continued) rhetorical colonization of the other.