Students protested a white girl being cast in a musical, so the school canceled the whole thing. Anti white racism? It's a play written by a white man about white people.

Students protested a white girl being cast in a musical, so the school canceled the whole thing

Feb 6, 2018 4:53 pm

From the film, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," the gypsy called Esmeralda gives Quasimodo a hand. An Ithaca High School's production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” was derailed after students protested the casting of a white girl as a Roman gypsy. (Getty Images) 

Aaron ColenSTAFF WRITER

Ithaca High School planned to put on a production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” this semester, but the musical was derailed after students protested the casting of a white girl as a Roman gypsy, according to the Ithaca Journal.

Casting controversy?

When a white actress received the role of Esmeralda, who the original novel says is half Roma and half French, several students dropped out of the play and formed an activist group to protest.

The group wrote a letter calling the casting “cultural appropriation” and “whitewashing” because the woman who got the role is the “epitome of whiteness,” even while acknowledging that she was “a stellar actor, singer and dancer” that any stage would be “lucky to have.”

The students demanded that the school either choose a different show and hold new auditions, or do “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” but recruit black and brown female students to play the role of Esmeralda.

How did the school respond?

Instead, the school canceled the musical, saying it wanted to be “more inclusive and culturally responsive” and “eliminate institutional biases.”

After the musical was canceled, the students added a demand to remove the director of the musicals and hire the director of a local theatre company for the next musical.

An undetermined replacement production will take place this spring, according to the school’s website:

“As you may already be aware, The Hunchback of Notre Dame will not be performed this spring.  In lieu of the planned musical, another collaborative project will provide young people and our community the opportunity to engage together while fully expressing the talents of our students.  A new project is currently being discussed by students, families, and educators.  This project will also engage the talents and skills of students previously cast.  More information will follow shortly.”

The Hunchback of Notre Dame:

 Victor Hugo began writing Notre-Dame de Paris in 1829, largely to make his contemporaries more aware of the value of the Gothic architecture, which was neglected and often destroyed to be replaced by new buildings or defaced by replacement of parts of buildings in a newer style. For instance, the medieval stained glass panels of Notre-Dame de Paris had been replaced by white glass to let more light into the church.^[2] This explains the large descriptive sections of the book, which far exceed the requirements of the story. A few years earlier, Hugo had already published a paper entitled Guerre aux Démolisseurs (War to the Demolishers) specifically aimed at saving Paris' medieval architecture.^[3] The agreement with his original publisher, Gosselin, was that the book would be finished that same year, but Hugo was constantly delayed due to the demands of other projects. In the summer of 1830, Gosselin demanded that Hugo complete the book by February 1831. Beginning in September 1830, Hugo worked nonstop on the project thereafter. The book was finished six months later.

Since no subsaharan African country had a written language the all writings are culturally appropriated.