Return of the Freakshow: Carnival (De)Formations

Transcription

Popular Culture Association in the South
Return of the Freakshow: Carnival (De)Formations in Contemporary Culture
Author(s): Mikita Brottman and David Brottman
Source: Studies in Popular Culture, Vol. 18, No. 2 (April 1996), pp. 89-107
Published by: Popular Culture Association in the South
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Mikita
and
David
Brottman
Return
of the Freakshow:
Carnival
(De)Formations
Culture
Contemporary
The
swarmed
people
And
And
pointed
I was
on the public
laughingly
filled
with
shame
square
at me,
and
fear.
Boris
Pushkin,
Circus
The circus freakshow
centuries
was sustained
in
Godunov
Freaks1
of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth
for profit of individuals
with
hormonal
malformations,
dysfunc
by the exhibition
what we now refer to as congenital
tions and chronic disorders. Other circus freaks displayed
major, minor
and sometimes
fabricated
mental
and behavioural
differ
physical,
ences.
Yet others
found they merely required cultural or phylogenetic
the fact that much of modern science is dedicated
Despite
to eliminating
such "blunders
of nature"
from the world, western
differences.
more bodies that meet with one or another of
society today contains
these requirements
than ever before. However,
the exhibition
and
of deformed, mentally handicapped
or non-western
presentation
people
for curiosity and profit seems wholly incongruous
to our current social
and political
our
sense
of
and the
privacy, propriety,
perspective,
And so the freakshow—in
its original circus
dignity of the individual.
"The concept
of freak no longer
form, at least—no
longer exists.
careers" [Bogdan,
Most people understand
sustains
that the
1988:267].
founded
on
and
discrimination
original circus freakshow was
prejudice
and deformed, and the contemporary
the bodily abnormal
of "handicapism":
"a set of assumptions
and practices
that
of
the
differential
treatment
because
of
or
people
apparent
promote
assumed
mental
or behavioural
differences"
and
physical,
[Bogdan
towards
notion
Biklen,
1988:14]
understanding
culture, taken
is as
useful
prejudice
for granted.
a term
as
to be something
"racism"
that
and
"sexism"
is ideological
for
in our
90
Studies
in Popular
Culture
In the nineteenth
and twentieth
dwarves,
century freakshows,
Siamese
twins and
giants, amputees,
hermaphrodites,
and primary microcephaly
people suffering from obesity, hirsuteness
were all put on display and "sold" in much the same way that today's
hunchbacks,
star "pack
sell film actors, personality
vehicles,
promotion
agencies
ages," and so on. Often, the appeal of this promotion relied on generally
to fake a generic merchandising
of the indi
unsuccessful
attempts
and his or her role as freak, as in the common "franchising"
of
Fat Ladies
as Dolly Dimples,
Bunny,
Jolly or Baby., just as, for
are
more
than
one
set
of
tall black basket
there
example,
excessively
vidual
under the name The Harlem
Globetrotters.
travelling
negro more commonly known as Zip or
Henry Johnson, a microcephalic
colluded with his manager
as co-conspirator
in
What Is It? apparently
ball
players
his billing as Wild Man or Man
surrounding
in
his
much-advertised
"last words" spoken to his
Monkey,
1978:130].
"well, we fooled 'em for a long time" [Fiedler,
manager,
General
consensus
freakshow
and their cus
entrepreneurs
amongst
a number
of exotic frauds
as testified
about unique
seemed
to be that public curiosity
(or rubes)
common
human
about the
abnormalities
related
to
anxieties
physical
to be
body. "When I look at freaks it makes me content by comparison
tomers
less
than
perfect," claimed
Clyde Ingalls,
Brothers
1973:10],
[Drimmer,
Ringling
The original circus sideshows
exhibited
of modes
boss
of the
sideshow
for
their human
oddities
in a
from that
of the horrifying and
person with the constructed
variety
apart
Attempts to confuse the "real"
led to the individual
being exhibited
endowed
in the aggrandized
the freak with status-enhancing
characteristics.
monstrous.
freak often
mode, which
The aggran
for giants and fat ladies, as in
mode was particularly
appropriate
the case of Celestia
Geyer, also known as Jolly Dolly or Dolly Dimples,
and "The World's Most Beautiful
billed as "The 'It Girl' of Fat Ladies"
dized
It was, however, also used for midgets
Fat Lady" [Fiedler,
1979:180],
like General Tom Thumb and his wife Lavinia Warren, and for Siamese
and Eng, or Violet and Daisy Hilton. Presented
as
the aggrandized
or "prodigies,"
exhibit's elevated
status was, theoretically
at least, based on his or her ability to overcome
which was considered
to be a sign of moral worth: "the
disadvantages,
twins such as Chang
"wonders," "marvels"
'wonder'
was not merely
and perseverance"
In time, some
physical,
it was the work of steadfast
courage
1988:217],
[Bogdan,
of the freakshow's
managers
who used the straight
mode of presentation
for their exhibits occasionally
aggrandized
began
humorous
twists
into
their
and
For
inserting
pamphlets
performances.
a
be
between
a
dwarf
and
a
example,
parodic wedding might
arranged
giant,
or a Fat Lady
and a Skeleton
Man,
such as the widely-reported
Brottman
1924
91
between
The Living Skeleton,
and Fat
Robinson,
function of
publicity stunt with the apparent
the tension
some of the rubes might have felt in the
marriage
Peter
Smith—a
Lady Bunny
either easing
of the freaks, or else comically
or
presence
amplifying the suppressed
tacit
mismatched
and
of
"normal"
merely
qualities
dispositions
couples.
At its most base, this comic mode of presentation
descended
into
the last decade
of the nineteenth
straightforward
mockery. Towards
and into the twentieth
of fat people (usually
century, the exhibition
in skimpy
dressed
and ridicule,
with a touch
contained
elements
of farce
costumes)
increasingly
when
a
freak's long career needed perking up
especially
of novelty.
in medicine
and anthropological
knowl
time, developments
undermined
some
of
the
wild
stories
the
edge
proclaiming
origin and
of
with
mental
the
of
retardation.
exhibition
capture
people
Gradually,
Over
moved from straight
microcephalics
("pinheads")
the attraction's
scientific merit to mockery
emphasizing
In such cases, the exhibit might be dressed as a
displays.
child with his or her head shaved, perhaps
with a beribboned
topknot
(for example)
primary
presentations
and farcical
CAN A FULL GROWN WOMAN
TRULY LOVE A MIDGET ?
TOD
the oddly slant
as in the pre
emphasizing
ing features,
sentation
of the
Schlitzie
pinhead
in Tod
Browning's
1932
Freaks
production
1988:415]
TBogdan,
(figures
1 and 2).
BROWNINGS
In
the
early
a common
century,
about
other
with a belief
twentieth
ignorance
races
coupled
in inherent ra
cial
inferiority and the un
disputed superiority of west
ern culture made the exotic
U/attnee
FORD
Ceila
mode
OlfA
of presentation
highly
until well into the
popular
Rosco
tec
HYAMS
BACLANOVA
1930s
(as with The Wild Az
or The Wild
Children,
Men of Borneo, or The Miss
ATES
ing Link) until developments
in science, medicine and geo
Figure
ing 's
(1)
1932
Original
advertisement
production
Entertainment
Co. All
Freaks.
Rights
for Tod Brown
©1932
Reserved
Turner
ren
graphical
knowledge
dered this style of exhibition
no longer feasible.
The best
recorded
examples
include
Studies
92
Tod
(2)
Figure
Entertainment
Co.
Browning
All Rights
with
Schlitzie
and
assorted
in Popular
Culture
©1932
Turner
freaks.
Reserved
and Barney Davies,
a pair of midgets from Long Island billed as
and the celebrated
twins Maximo
and
Men of Borneo,
exhibited
from
a
of
half-Indian
Bartola,
half-mulatto,
pair
midgets
1851 until well into the present century and billed as The Wild Aztec
Hiram
The
Wild
a hoax
Children,
diminutive
bodies
1988:177],
Further
physical
offensive
the
circus
that
was
abetted
and mongoloid
head,
by their strangely
shaped
features [Fielder,
1979:45;
Bogdan,
of people with
century, the exhibition
differences
came to be seen as increasingly
into the twentieth
and
mental
and degrading.
This growing tide of popular
sideshow
into the form of counterculture
opinion swayed
we currently
fill
recognize, where tattooed people, fire-eaters and sword-swallowers
of self-made freaks has not
out the list of exhibits. But the presentation
than the
been
considered
more
or
less degrading
always
acceptable
Bogdan draws attention to the "geek" or
would
"gloaming
geek," a wild man who, as part of his presentation,
bite the heads
off rats, chickens
and snakes.
Often, the geek was a
in exchange
down-and-out
alcoholic
who performed
for booze and a
exhibition
place
of "natural"
freaks.
to stay. "It was this type of coarse
exhibitionism,"
writes
Bogdan,
Brottman
93
"that helped
earn
carnivals
for being sleazy and morally
1978: 130],
1988:262;
Fiedler,
[Bogdan,
reprehensible"
Historical
has occasionally
writing about carnivals
glorified the
with a marvelously
role of the freak as a saintly creature
stoical
considerate
disposition,
in spirit. Others have
position
himself
in the carnival
in order
reputations
to those
in trouble, and miraculous
or angelic
that the freak claimed
an elevated
suggested
status system,
having nothing to do but exhibit
a sometimes
quite substantial
living. In
"natural"
and "self-made"
freaks, for example,
to make
between
distinguishing
it has been claimed
that
carnival
than self-made
research
into the carnival
"natural"
freaks
have
higher
status
in the
freaks [Mannix, 1990]. However, ethnographic
social system has proved otherwise, suggest
whilst
freaks are appreciated
and often well-liked
in the
a
are
seldom
status
similar
to
that
of
envied, occupying
carnival, they
illusion performers,
showgirls who perform in dance shows, magicians,
and so on [Easto and Truzzi, 1972:551].
In the age of the mass media, most people would agree that it is
ing that
to display
deformed human
wrong and morally degrading
ethically
bodies for curiosity and profit, and numerous
cities, states and even
have passed laws prohibiting
countries (the Soviet Union, for example)
The social acceptance
of an increasing
it [Drimmer,
number
1973:15].
of minority groups has widely extended popular notions of "nature" and
"the natural," whilst at the same time structuralist
readings of the body
between
consciousness
and the
reinforce the dichotomy
commonly
corporeal, between
western
logic has
and its representatum,
representation
since the Greeks.
been based
More
upon which
significantly,
has no need to refer the
anthropology
post-Saussurean
of culture to any natural (extra-cultural)
demands
[Saez,
development
believed
that how the West views human
It is generally
1992:135],
perhaps,
otherness
has less to do with the physiological
characteristics
of certain
than with our own cultural identity, and our tendency to
the role a person plays with that person's "true self'.
individuals
confuse
or mental
physical
- in western culture,
Today,
considered
abnormalities
are more likely to be
at least - in terms that are scientific,
or psychoanalytic,
rather than
ethnographic
of misfortune
for sin) or spiritual (as harbinger
of contemporary
a pertinent recent example
Perhaps
is
the
of
"cannibal
tours"
phenomenon
showcasing
pseudo-anthropological,
moral (as punishment
or adversity).
ethnographic
package holidays, where western
and South America
to encounter
who
have
been
tourists
are taken
into areas
of Africa
peoples
"primitive" (or ex-primitive)
role to the
to act out their "uncivilized"
encouraged
in a mutually
encounter
1990:14].
[MacCannell,
exploitative
defines itself in
much of ethnography
and anthropology
Although
tourists
94
Studies
to the sensationalism
opposition
and although the construction
in Popular
Culture
and pseudo-science
of the freakshow,
of ethnography
as a science and as work
it from other forms of cultural
encounter
such as
helped distinguish
leisured
travel and tourism,
in the
showcases
still, ethnographic
can
still
be
observed
where
sense
tribal
are
isolated
in
original
peoples
the "zoos"
of research
Medicine
papers.
modes of "presentation,"
highly theoretical
works that emphasize
of others and
expense
are still
psychoanalysis
carefully constructed frame
of the individual
at the
aspects
is the anthropological
research
a particular
in a particular
audi
impression
particular
directed—as
fostering
paper—towards
ence [Bogdan,
and
same kind of showcasing
is to be found
such as Shocking Asia, with their "realistic"
of bizarre human behaviour
and strange cultural practices
depictions
from around the globe [Staples,
1994:661].
As the disciplines
of anthropology
and ethnography
have turned
1988:276],
"documentaries"
in mondo
The
towards self-critique, it has become a recognized
common
increasingly
that
between
and
differences
exhibitor, between
place
ethnographer
and
between
fieldworker
and tourist have
anthropologist
missionary,
not been
so absolute
as was once supposed.
Moreover,
ethnographic
and anthropological
narratives
that include the researcher
in the story
have opened the way for other, more personal narratives
that acknowl
unconscious
and emotive elements
of
edge more closely the personal,
encounter [Mascia-Lees
the ethnographic
or anthropological
and Sharpe.
The main difference in our contemporary
versions of ethno
1994:660],
and public freakfests is that these displays are now
graphic showcases
considered,
lives,
however
and
feelings
obsessively,
layer
implicitly, to reveal to us not so much about the
traditions
of other people,
but more and more
upon hidden layer of ourselves.
Mass
Media
Freakshows
freakshow
has not vanished
from late twentieth
century
it
has
found
cultural
culture,
other, possibly more subversive
merely
forms. Late-night
talk shows in the U.S. such as Shirley, Rolonda,
and
some of the more mainstream
daytime talk shows (especially
Sally,
The
Montel
ances
people
Williams
and Geraldo
Rivera)
have
all featured
special
appear
of freaks.
suffering from obesity, congenital
dwarves,
people whose plastic surgery has gone horri
thalidomide
transsexuals,
hermaphrodites,
victims, deaf
People
dying from AIDS,
bly wrong,
mutes and
on (mainly
people with cerebral
palsy have all appeared
talk shows in the U.S., and appear
more and more fre
late-night)
Most
quently in the U.K. on shows like Esther and Central Weekend.
of these
freaks
are exhibited
in the mode
of "sensitive
appreciation"
95
Brottman
to the "exotic," "comic" or "aggrandized"
(simply another alternative
with host and audience
modes of presentation),
asking sympathetic,
in an apparent
and
"understanding"
questions
attempt to acknowledge
difficulties
society puts in the way of the physically
treated as respect
body. The "guests" are generally
TV
human
and
the
able, intelligent
beings
impresarios
usually choose
and thoughtful"
to adopt the currently fashionable
style of "serious
the
recognize
deformed
human
presentation.
No amount
awareness,"
however, can disguise the fact
on display in the contemporary
mass-media
freakshow
exhibited (and occasionally
sums of money)
paid substantial
of "sensitive
that the exhibits
are being
to display
their abnormal
hence their prime-time
physical conditions,
the
audience
of
and nineteenth
eighteenth
curiosity
at least partly, by
century freakshows
might have been motivated,
and a naive curiosity about Wild Men from
inexperience
provincial
of Aztec Civilizations,
the contemporary
interna
Borneo or Children
value.
tional
audience
to different
of Geraldo
mode
And whilst
visited
and
Rivera
can have
no such motivation.
Access
by way of either cheap travel, media
has
meant that the exotic is no longer
integration
of representation,
on the talkshow
circuit at least.
cultures
or racial
depictions
a plausible
been
Whilst
races,
or nineteenth
the eighteenth
may have
century freakshow
rubes a day, one single
by (at the very most) a thousand
of Geraldo
is sent out
episode
and satellite
to an
by cable
international
network of view
ers.
Whereas
freakshows
dered
the
would
to the naive
original
have pan
curiosity of
a small, impressionable
ity, the contemporary
sion freakshow appeals,
minor
televi
seem
ingly, to a far more disturbing
nexus
of emotions:
perverse
in the guise
of
voyeurism
thoughtful
and understanding
sensitivity.
Freaks
Go Prime-Time
Today's
into
moved
freakshow
the
mass
A glance
of any chain
and on to the streets.
Figure
(3)
Freaks
on the Street
over the display
has
media
96
store
Studies
in Popular
Culture
card
and poster outlet will reveal
a garish collection
of freak
and
cards
of
freaks
a go-go:
postcards
greetings
featuring photographs
"comic" fat ladies in tutus and ballet slippers or bikinis (figure 3), or a
selection
of self-made
men and
freaks, from tattooed
light-hearted
to punks and other fashion victims
face-twisters)
(bizarre
"gurners"
in the exotic or aggrandized
(figures 4 and 5). Others are presented
mode
as catwalk
emaciated
Unnaturally
mannequins
like Jodie Kidd and Kate Moss would
"supermodels".
have
rivalled
the Skeleton
Man
for
top billing in the original freakshow.
Those other fashion models who are
valued
for their Slavonic
or African
features
(such as Waris Dilae, Naomi
and Nadja
Auermann)
Campbell
have been turned into aggrandized
curiosities
to exactly the
appealing
same
crowds
as that
impulse
of impressionable
search
of the Wild Aztec
which
sent
rubes
in
Children
or
the Missing Link. And the "gloaming
geek" of the fairground who repulsed
so many people by biting the heads
off rats, chickens
Figure
Street
(4)
Self-made
tions are founded
geous
broken
glass,
on
contemporary
metal
the
dustbin"
who
heavy
is another
have
eat metal
taught
and vomit
modern
form of geek. Outra
the ability to swallow
up live fish have for the last six or
themselves
seven years in Britain
been a staple entertain
ment of university balls,
and late
pub parties
night magic shows, both
in performance
and on
television.
One
recent
event at the student
bar
at the University of East
for example,
London,
featured
has his
in stars of
counterpart
like Alice Cooper
and
whose cultic reputa
Ozzy Osbourne,
on not dissimilar
abilities. The self-made freak in the
Freaks
form of the "human
showmen
and snakes
Steve
Brown,
"human
grotesque
dustbin" who could not
a
Figure
(5)
Self-made
Freaks
on the Street
97
Brottman
live goldfish in a variety of different colours, but also
only swallow
them, still living, in the colour sequence
regurgitate
by a
requested
random member of the audience.
Freaks
always
been
are also to be found in the pornography
industry. There has
a large market for pornography
featuring obese women,
if their obesity
especially
buttocks.
in the areas
is concentrated
of the breasts
and
(and a number of soft-core porn videos) are
of obese women,
and there is an equally
for photographs
of women with colossal breasts, both
Many magazines
to photographs
devoted
thriving market
natural and artificial, in traditional
as well as
high street newsagents
"under the counter" in porno bookshops.
Hard-core pornography
widely
available
in most parts of the U.S. and continental
is
well
Europe
known
for its male studs with their abnormally
(such as
large genitalia
John C. Holmes
or "Johnny Wadd,"
a recent AIDS
legendary
but may also feature occasional
casualty),
"guest" freaks of different
such
as
monorchides
with
(men
varieties,
only one testicle), triorchides
or dwarves of
(men with three testicles), transsexuals,
hermaphrodites
the
various
kinds.
This
genuine
underground
zines for connoisseurs
Publications
the tastes
kind
of material
is a none-too-distant
such
pornography
of "water sports,"
such as the Fetish
of those erotically
Times
cousin
of
as illegal
"specialist"
maga
and paedophilia.
scatology,
and the Amputee Times cater to
fascinated
of amputation
by the aesthetics
of
this
kind
1977:94-5],
surgery [Parfrey,
though
pornography
tends to publish more sketches and pen-and-ink
drawings than actual
and
photographs.
The freakshow
like the Weekly
has also gone tabloid. Newspapers
whilst claiming,
(in the U.S.) and the Sport (in Britain),
however ironically,
the status of "family newspapers,"
fea
regularly
malforma
ture as curiosity pieces people suffering from congenital
World News
and other kinds of chronic disorders, both
tions, hormonal dysfunctions
and self-made.
Garish
are accompanied
natural
photographs
by
sometimes
"true-life"
the
stories,
employing
aggrandized
voyeuristic
and at other times the comic mode of presentation.
in the U.K., included
when it was first published
The Sunday
Sport,
a feature entitled
of human
oddities
and
exhibiting
photographs
stories
One
of
with
attached.
these
was
the
curiosities,
comic-parodic
tale of a child suffering from progeria, a rapid aging syndrome, who was
"Freak
of the Week"
with the designation
"Jimmy Wrinkle".
by the newspaper
this time of an enormously
obese
set of freak photographs,
a
known only as "Gert Bucket," was accompanied
by
mocking,
christened
Another
woman
Swiftean
Berlin
tale
about
how
she was
Wall, single-handedly
This kind of tongue-in-cheek,
responsible
for the collapse
of the
peace to a divided Germany.
voyeuristic, schlock-horror
reporting can
bringing
98
Studies
also
in Popular
Culture
be found, though
a rather
more
sober
in
form,
in the more downmarket
women's
contemporary
such
as (in
Britain) For Women and
Women's
whose
Own,
is often a di
popularity
magazines
rect result
of story head
lines like "My Twin Sons
were Joined at the Hip,"
"I Counted
my Ten Toes
for the
©Women's
(6)
Figure
Own
Less
(U.K.).
Last
or
Time,"
"I've got Two Wombs and
12, 1994
Sept.
Two Vaginas!"
(figures 6
and 7).
of freaks in the media
also
displays
sensational
candidly
"human interest documentary"
television
programs such as (in
and
World
World which deal
Britain)
Interface, Disabling
Disability
with some of the social issues surrounding
such as experi
disability,
include
ments
witn
centers
ror
independent
living,
cam
charity advertising
social
paigns, marriage,
and
sexual
prejudice,
and so on. Although sel
dom overtly voyeuristic
and
sensational
ONE FROM THE HEART
'I counted mytune.
J^°fL
forthe last
I>«bbi«'s
left% w« amputated
at 13.Nowtheworld
divabicd
water-ski
shesaysthank
vouto
champion,
hermumSylviafor
h«rrebuild
herlife.,,
helping
in the
style of the Weekly World
News
or the Sunday
such
Sport,
often involve
programs
extensive
of people
with
kinds of bodily
the most
deformities,
footage
various
frequently
exhibited
be
tha
ing hydrocephalics,
lidomide victims, ampu
deaf mutes
and
tees,
people
cerebral
suffering
from
Pro
palsy2.
such as these are
grams
made by and for the able
Figure
(7)
© Women's
Own
(U.K.).
Sept.
12,
1994
Brottman
99
bodied
of disability
community, ostensibly to promote social awareness
Yet it is often the case that the more disabled
the interviewee,
the more such programs
become a "spectacle"
rather than a source of
issues.
social
information.
Whilst quite clearly there will be a certain minority
for the same reasons
that they buy the
programs
for
the
rest
of
the
audience
Times,
and, indeed, for the shows'
A?nputee
and
it
is
to separate
altru
directors,
producers
ultimately
impossible
istic social concern from voyeuristic
self-satisfaction.
No able-bodied
who
watch
such
without a sense of appalled
relief,
person can watch such programs
however unconscious
and vestigial,
not to have been born a freak.
In fact, the contemporary
mass media
forms and manifestations
of the malformed
exhibit
human
so many different
body that it is not
the case to claim that the freakshow has gone prime-time,
overstating
both reflecting
and impelling
current obsessions
with exotic body
and
dreadlocks
and so
tattoos, mohawks,
lip
markings:
eyebrow rings,
on.
and Sharpe
with the deformation
Mascia-Lees
obsession
hysteria
forms,
piercing,
hysteria
of media
relate
western
culture's
[1994:662]
of the human body to "expressions
of
at the loss of the primitive," which take on a whole variety of
from a fascination
self-mutilation
seem
with
and
set to continue
narrative
exotic
tourism
in body
to dabblings
Such expressions
of
auto-trepanation.
into the future in the lasting attraction
aliens and extraterrestrials
as freakish
involving
to be conquered
or adopted. A recent example is the debate about
the so-called
"Roswell
footage," the filmed autopsy of what is suppos
of an extraterrestrial
edly an alien body recovered from the wreckage
bodies
spacecraft which crashed at Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947. Accord
ing to UFO lore, military personnel
kept the unknown bodies alive (for
to some sources)
as long as two years, according
for purposes
of
anatomical
research.
Those involved
in the incident
the
(including
autopsy
cameraman
possible
existence
simply
as "freaks."
who sold the footage) refused to contemplate
the
life forms, referring to the captured
bodies
of alien
Emotional
and
Psychological
Freaks
makes
it very easy to find the circus
climate
Today's
political
its mode of presentation
offensive because
centered wholly
freakshow
in the nineteenth
and twentieth
Exhibits
on the physical.
century
were presented
for one very clear and simple reason: there
freakshows
or unique
about
their physical
abnormal
was something
bizarre,
and comic modes of presentation
bodies. Although
the aggrandized
between the
might have attempted to promote some kind of association
such consider
and the individual's
character,
physical
abnormality
main attraction was always the physi
ations were always "extras"-the
100
Studies
in Popular
Culture
cal deformity of the freak's body. It was generally
that the
accepted
attraction
of the exhibit was a visual, physical
and occasionally
even
that
had
little
to
do
with
tangible anomaly
character,
very
personality
or "true"
self, as many case-histories
testify. The most famous of the
exhibits in Tod Browning's
1923 film Freaks, for example,
were well
known partly for the contrast between
their monstrous
physical
ap
and
their
characters.
the
pearance
morally
superior
Harry Earles,
was
midget,
Siamese
well-known
twins
Violet
for his intelligence
and his acting abilities;
Hilton
were famously
clever and
Daisy
and
graceful, attracting a number of suitors in their younger days. Schlitzie
the pinhead,
on set for her
although
severely retarded, was renowned
affection and playfulness,
and Johnny Eck, the "half-boy," was bright,
funny
and
between
dichotomy
Figure
Daisy
ment
(8)
talented
Madame
Hilton,
Co. All
8 and 9). The film endorses
(figures
consciousness
and the physical body.
Tetralini,
Rossito
Angelino
Rights
Daisy
Earles,
(on table).
Eck, Peter Robinson,
Johnny
Schiltize
Turner
©1932
(front).
a clear
Violet
and
Entertain
Reserved
It is difficult
to appreciate
how the contemporary
mass media
is very similar
to its circus counterpart,
and therefore
difficult to find it as offensive, mainly because
of its almost randomly
exhibition between freaks of the body and, for want of
interchangeable
freakshow
a better expression,
"divorced
freaks of consciousness,
transvestites,
overweight
or, as one journalist
claustrophobics,
schizophrenic
put it,
step
101
Brottman
(9) The
Figure
Entertainment
of the bearded
birth
Co.
All
Rights
lady's
Reserved
baby,
from Browning's
Freaks.
©1932
Turner
children
of hearing-impaired
Satan
[Grossberger:1986].
worshippers
for
of the late-night
talk shows Shirley and Rolonda,
episodes
who
are
all
have
featured
members
of
a
homosexual,
family
example,
Single
and mothers
their children
to have
plastic surgery against
of the daytime Oprah have included
Single episodes
an Organ to Save
on ethical dilemmas
You Donate
("Would
the child's
debates
who want
wishes.
who
moral oddities (a professor of anthropology
your Child?") alongside
and
believes
that arranged
should
become
universalized),
marriages
with "Magic"
Johnson
afflictions (an interview
people with medical
that led to his
in front of his wife, the sexual promiscuity
discussing,
contraction
of the AIDS
virus).
than a number of its daytime
more
Rivera,
carnivalesque
on
moral
and
rather than
tends to focus
counterparts,
psychological
physical freaks and the aftermath of their actions. One recent show, for
Geraldo
featured
the widow of David
Linsford, a 47-year-old
police
example,
murder
was
men
on
a
vehicle
check.
The
officer murdered
three
by
on
camera
and
the
shown
recorded
footage
by an in-car television
her
could witness
with the widow's
face inset so viewers
Geraldo,
for the
reaction as she witnessed
the murder of her husband
distraught
and Slater, 1993:279],
In a similar though slightly
first time [Kerekes
of January 5th, 1993, featured Mary Jo
less voyeuristic
vein, Donahue
the wife shot in the Amy Fisher case, just after Fisher's
Buttafuoco,
Studies
102
trial and sentencing,
those of the famous
Oprah
emotional
channel
Culture
of the audience
along with
inviting the reactions
defense lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
in the exhibition
of
on the other hand, specializes
Winfrey,
freaks. Debbie
which
in Popular
DiMaio,
for AM Chicago,
the
spokeswoman
admits that "Oprah does better with
syndicates
Oprah,
that have some kind of passion,
and emotion, and
a story to tell, something
that happened
to a person and they've made
"I'm best at
it through" [Waldron,
1991:121],
Oprah herself agrees.
controversial
guests
combinations,"
Marie Osmond
"A sexual
one day, Donny and
she claims.
surrogate
the next day, and then the Klan" [Waldron,
1991:109],
on
have
included
stars
of
child
guests
Oprah
pornogra
Other
recent
phy, a group of nudists, men with abnormally
large sexual organs and
cult for ten years, who
a 15-year-old boy who had been part of a Satanic
a number of human sacrifices and knew that
claimed to have witnessed
one day he would have to sacrifice
shows because
we do transsexuals
himself. "People
make fun of talk
and their parents,"
Oprah claims.
is going on in the world and it's happening
"But if I feel something
to
in it. I really think you can
somebody, maybe someone else is interested
do anything with good taste" [Waldron,
1991:190].
more questionable,
This taste becomes
when the bound
perhaps,
aries between exhibited and exhibitor are broken, and the freakshow's
to Oprah when the
impresario
joins the freaks on stage. This happened
of
her
incest.
After
a
show
was
to
woman
topic
listening
middle-aged
recount
to
her
audience
the
behind
circumstances
her
autis
painfully
tic son's birth (that he was also her father's child), Oprah, exclaiming
that she had also been the victim of sexual abuse, embraced the woman,
like this substantiate
and wept. Scenes
the claim of
host
of
AM
that
there
is
bizarre
Edwards,
Chicago,
something
and freakish about the talkshow
themselves.
"We are all
impresarios
and broke
down
Steve
strange people. We are all highly neurotic people," claims Edwards.
"All of us have interviewed
Siamese
twins. All of us have had animals
1991:105],
[Waldron,
poop on us. This is a strange category of people..."
the way in which Oprah_s alternately
Consider,
by means of example,
and reduced body shape is essentialized
in the figure of her
distended
a
Rikki
former
250
Lake,
competitor,
up-and-coming
pound schlock
movie
actress
turned comforting nursemaid
of freaks.
is something
about the contempo
particularly
compulsive
freakshow's
of
whether
these are the bound
rary
boundaries,
breaking
aries between exhibits, keepers and rubes, or the boundaries
between
There
emotional
and psychological
freaks. This seemingly
random
oddities may have some pressing
merging of physical and psychological
connection
with what Philip Rieff has termed "the triumph
of the
in
the U.S., of
secularization,
therapeutic"—the
popular
especially
physical,
Brottman
103
to such an extent that a therapeutic
quasi-analytical
psychotherapy,
has
almost
a moral one: a symptom of the
entirely replaced
vocabulary
current political and ideological
climate. The convicted rapist or child
killer once condemned
as "evil" and "villainous"
will now be referred to
as "psychotic,"
or "repressed,"
their crimes the manifesta
"paranoid"
tion of "unconscious
libidinal
the result of
urges," their characters
This
freakish
two-headed
homiletics
then
"inadequate
parenting."
as "lack of self-esteem",
"lack of
up such confused diagnoses
"emotional
abuse" or "incomplete
socialization."
self-respect",
It is this popularization
of various
and
styles of counselling
conjures
which Freud would barely recog
of therapy, processes
the
that
the
to
exhibition
of psychic freaks. Unlike
nize,
opens
gateway
mass media freakshow exhibits
its circus progenitor, the contemporary
both freaks of the body and freaks of the consciousness
in the same
different kinds
Both are considered
to be victims of crippling circum
public arena.
stances beyond their own control: the first a sufferer from congenital
malformation
of hormonal
dysfunction, the second a helpless victim of
acculturation
or an emotionally
inappropriate
deprived
upbringing.
The contemporary
freakshow's
chosen mode of presentation,
in line
with the current ideological
does not always
focus on the
climate,
physical, the visible or the tangible, although such physical manifesta
tions of distress
as copious
behaviour
or neurotic
tears, aggressive
be
for.
are
to
For
various
this
reasons,
twitching,
always
hoped
the modern freakshow
makes
boundary-crossing
phenomenological
difficult to locate, and even more difficult to condemn.
very
"And
now
All attempts
must
freakshow
being,
and end?
nature
children, neither
freaks fall outside
man
just
step
this
the socio-cultural
with
phenomenological
freakishness?
Where
in the traditional
the interstitial
if you'll
to understand
begin
constitutes
human
Exhibits
folks,
way..."
dimensions
enquiry.
and when
of the
What, in a
does it begin
freakshow
were pathologized
of
because
bodies.
Neither
adults
nor
physical
nor women, neither humans
nor beasts, these
of their
all long-established
cultural categories.
What should
be kept inside the body hangs out for all to see, and what should be part
is either obtrusive,
mutilated
or
of the bodily outsides
truncated,
the freak is considered
he dwells
absent. Ontologically,
abject because
of pollution and taboo3. Clearly, however, what might at
and frightening
is often central to our
to be marginal
of
human
and
those
characters
and condi
understanding
experience,
tions we tend to shun (and at other times, ironically, pay to see) are in
fact reflections of our own experiences,
and much, much more [Bogdan,
in the realms
first appear
104
Studies
in Popular
Culture
Fiedler's mythological,
to the freak
1988:xii].
psychoanalytic
approach
posits that human beings have a deep, psychic fear of "pollutant"
people
with specific abnormalities.
for example,
confront us with
Dwarves,
our own psychic fear that we will never grow up [Bogdan,
1988:7],
with a horror of our own ambiguous
and
hermaphrodites
sexuality,
Siamese
twins with our own erotic fantasies
about bodily merging and
fusion.
More
mediaeval
sions
Bakhtin's
of the
profoundly,
reading
carnival
can help us to come to terms
with
nineteenth
the
deformed
and
twentieth
in
bodily grotesque
with our own obses
human
of
body, both in the freakshows
as well as contemporary
century circuses
Bakhtin points out that circus and carni
mass media representations.
val forms, as special phenomena,
have survived up to our time, when
other manifestations
of popular-festive
life, related to it in style and
character
well
as
have
either
died out long ago, or else
(as
origin)
so
far
as
to
become
1968:217].
degenerated
[Bakhtin,
indistinguishable
of bodily deformity and grotesque,
Displays
according to Bakhtin, were
a central motif of mediaeval
and have retained
their
carnivalesque,
in contemporary
versions
of the carnival.
Mediaeval
significance
was
parts.
fuelled by freakish
of bodily members,
images
of
the
dismembered
or mutilated
parts
body, especially
motifs
have
included
distended
Typical
might
bodily members,
areas
of
bellies
and monstrous
carnivalesque
organs and
the
body
exaggerated
to
gigantic
dimensions:
ears, breasts
monstrous
and testes
noses, gigantic
together
an array of carnival
and
figures including
giants, hunchbacks
dwarves
[Bakhtin
1968:328].
Most of these carnivalesque
motifs can be found in the works of
whose sources include mediaeval
"wonder" texts like Great
Rabelais,
Wonders
Indian
Chronicles,
of the World and especially
Wonders,
with
brochures
and
all kinds of esoteric
marvels
describing
with
a
charac
including
beings
distinctly grotesque
ter. Freaks
described
in Indian
Wonders include—in
addition to your
dime-a-dozen
half-animal
dwarves, giants and pygmies—half-human,
with hooves
instead
of feet, sirens
with fish-tails,
hippopods
who bark like dogs, "scipedes"
with only one leg,
"sinucephalics"
"leumans"
with their faces on their chests, monsters with eyes on their
pamphlets
human
marginal
shoulders
or on their backs, and others
1968:344],
[Bakhtin,
According to Bakhtin, the mediaeval
accustomed
to images
of freakish
who feed through
would
imagination
anatomical
topographies:
their noses
have been
in literature
and pictorial
art, the body of mixed parts and
anatomical
the free play with the human
strangest
fantasies,
limbs
and interior
were unfolded....
The transgression
of
organs
limits
the body from the world
also became
dividing
customary...
...[b]oth
the
[Bakhtin,
1968:347],
Brottman
105
Certain
have
moreover,
about Rabelais'
deformities,
bodily
particular
of
importance.
Writing
descriptions
the exaggeration
of the size of his nose, Bakhtin
cites
claim that the grotesque begins where exaggeration
reaches
carnivalesque
and
Napoleon
Schegans'
fantastic
formed
a
dimensions—the
into
a snout
human
or beak.
The
for example,
being trans
nose
the
grotesque
(symbolizing
nose,
and the grotesque
mouth (a wide-open
bodily abyss) recur in
as well as in abusive
and
nearly every form of the carnivalesque,
Of all features of the human face, the nose
degrading
gesticulations.
and mouth play the most important part in carnivalized
versions of the
phallus)
when
body, especially
become inanimate.
The peculiar
and
tions of the ex-liminal
an
they
adopt
animal-like
forms,
or when
they
laughter
provoked
by comic presenta
in
the
whether
carnival
or
tabloid press, is
body,
to the anxiety
all of us feel about the freakish
physical
Carnival
attached
to the state of human
consciousness.
index
conditions
strained
a rictus of repressed
and allows
releases
otherness
it to
laughter
or
return. Our anxious,
reaction
to
Wrinkle
hysteric
Jimmy
Dolly
the grotesque
of human
carnival devil, is a direct expression
Dimples,
ambivalence
about the material
bodily stratum, helping us to under
if not come to terms with, precisely what it means to be human.
we
the extreme emphasis
believe, is the key to comprehending
This,
carnival
places upon the freakishly inverted human body.
stand,
the exhibition of the freakish human body in carnival,
Additionally,
or at the circus, or on the talk show, might well be linked to fantasies
about merging and fusion. Emphasis
upon such bodily functions as
and
create a dense atmosphere
defecation,
consumption,
reproduction
of material
outside,
fusion
in which
all
between
the consuming
erased. At carnival
intentionally
body is its open, unfinished
links between
inside
and
dividing
are
body and the body consumed,
character
of the
time, the distinctive
nature,
its intersection
with the world. All
are very nearly eradicated,
fused
known cultural and bodily categories
into an abject and abjecting
image of one dense, self-devouring
body
is
one
of
the
at
of
sense
1968:122],
This,
[Bakhtin,
any rate,
way
making
all
at
once
like
of
image
multiple barking heads, yapping
grotesque
that Rikki Lake and Montel Williams
Cerebus,
to produce in their on-stage antagonists.
"One
seem
to strive so hard
of Us"
It has often been
asserted
that the integral and harmonized
body
well
the
basis
for
the
But
the
be
an
ego
might
provides
experiential
ego.
towards the freak. As a vivid index of all
basis for our ambivalence
manner
of ontological
transgressions,
of deformations
and distentions
106
Studies
in Popular
Culture
and appalls
demarcations
blurred, the freak that fascinates
suggesting
well
the
fearful
desire
to
dissolves
the
contours
of the self.
may
objectify
and early twentieth
Be that as it may, the decline of the nineteenth
freakshow
century
does not mean
with the freak no
that our obsession
remains
with us, merely that it has either been (unhealthily)
longer
or
else
into popular cultural outlets, such as late
channeled
repressed,
night talk shows, which are more in tune with our current social
and pseudo-therapeutic
tion with freaks finds its release
For others, the fascina
vocabulary.
in the clandestine
outlets of subcul
climate
ture, such
Either
as hard-core
way, freaks
fascination
pornography.
are still with
us, and will remain
objects of
and
for
as
as
we
have
a human
compulsive
curiosity
long
and
a
human
Our
drive
to
seek
out and
consciousness,
body.
voyeuristic
sometimes
to laugh at the freak is compelled
of
by the nervous disease
the human condition, whose symptoms include a neurotic fear of the
autonomous
functions.
body, and its terrifyingly incomprehensible
Our unending
and laugh at the deformed
need to seek out, display
human body is essentially
a compulsive
repetition of an ancient story:
a story which tells us, over and over again, that as far as the condition
we're all freaks together.
of being human is concerned,
of Education
Department
University
of East
Dagenham,
Essex
and
Community
Studies
London
RM8
2AS
Notes
1 The
attention
term
"freak"
is employed
in this article as a rhetorical
device in order to draw
in which the deformed
human
and displayed
body is presented
of the traditional
mass-media
versions
circus freakshow.
The term
to the manner
in contemporary
has been selected
as an alternative
for its vivid
challenged"
and
1995],
2
April
see, for example,
Interface
1992),
(ABC,
Community
3 This
such as "differently
abled"
confrontational
implications
Poor
Dear (BBC,
9th January
1994),
24th March
and The
1992)
(BBC,
10th June 1992).
defiling,
of pathogenic
nicity, and
as polluted
or
has often
Anthropology
is recent, the idea of
organisms
is therefore
more likely
to have
in ordering
the social
as dangerous
with
notion
to phrases
discomforting
dirt and
of the abject
hygiene.
pointed
pollution
universal
Disabling
or "physically
[see
Russo,
World
Handicapped
(ABC, 23rd
Person
in the
has nothing
to do
incidentally,
out that although
the discovery
the idea of pathoge
antedates
The fear of the
application.
is the fear of anything
or contradict
cherished
cultural
pollutant
likely to confuse
classifications.
In all cultures,
rites of transition
treat all marginal
or ill-defined
social
states as dangerous.
In fact, all margins
and the edges of all boundaries
which are used
experience
are
treated
and
polluting.
Brottman
ΙΟΊ
Works
Mikhail
Bakhtin,
MIT
bridge,
Profit,
trans.
World,
Helene
Cam
Iswolsky,
Oddities
for Amusement
and
University
Robert
and
Biklen
Douglas
(1977),
Social
"Handicapism,"
March/
Policy,
14.
April:
Frederick
Drimmer,
Patrick
Social
Fiedler,
his
Human
Freakshow-Presenting
of Chicago
Press.
(1988),
Chicago:
Bogdan,
and
Rabelais
(1968),
Press.
Robert
Bogdan,
Easto,
Μ.
Cited
and
& David
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Return of the Freakshow: Carnival (De)Formations

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