A ‘Hunchback’ by Any Other Name: It’s a PC Quasimodo

The story may sound familiar: A deformed man named Quasimodo works at the Notre Dame cathedral and pines for the love of a beautiful gypsy woman.

But the title may come as a surprise: “The Bellringer of Notre Dame.�

Yes, it’s an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s famous novel. But producers at Oddsocks Production, a British theater company, have retitled it for its current staging to avoid offending those who suffer from Quasimodo’s “hunchback� disability (curvature of the spine).

Producer Elli Mackenzie told BBC Radio 4’s “Today� program that the company did not want to “reinforce any prejudice that might be there.�

Russel King, a lecturer on Hugo at Nottingham University, told the London Daily Mail that the decision “smacked of the most silly political correctness.�

“Everybody in the world knows the work by the ‘Hunchback’ name, so why on earth change it?�

Mackenzie argued that “hunchback� was not part of Hugo’s original title, “Notre Dame de Paris,� but was added later in an English translation.

“We are a family organization, and our aim is to introduce the classics,� Mackenzie said. “There are a lot of children in the audience and they would receive the message that it is OK to use that label.�