Freakery

As mentioned in the introduction, I have had quite a few problems making artwork about freaks and side shows exhibits. It is a huge fascination for me but at the same time hugely disturbing. I guess I haven’t been able to work out a new way of thinking about these people so I can turn them into characters that will fit in with my existing characters. I think the main issue I have is a moral and ethical one. I have been reading about specific people with specific conditions, and it is fascinating, but is it wrong to revive a dubious form of entertainment via visual prompts? I don’t know; it could be acceptable for someone else. It isn’t very nice to stare at people with a disability, and I thought that if I read enough anecdotes about side show exhibits I would be able to become desensitised to the material and just make work. This however had the opposite effect, now I find it a sad task to look at the photographs of sideshow folk. When I first became interested in human oddities of the past, I thought that it was good that they could gain employment in side shows and have the support of other unusual people like themselves and that they weren’t alone. Obviously it must have been difficult to gain employment doing other jobs. Of course, when I worked with people with disabilities I didn’t think that they should be in the circus or side show, on the contrary, I thought that most of them, with a little assistance would be able to achieve quite a lot for themselves in their lives. So, the contrasting ideas about the past and today really do collide when discussing this topic. I have been lucky in finding a resource called Freakery, Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body edited by Rosemarie Garland Thomson, New York University Press 1996. I have derived most of my information regarding human oddities from this book. This text I have found to be exceedingly insightful, as it is a collection of essays about many different aspects of sideshow, circus, museums, collecting, racism, prejudice and Micheal Jackson.
“ It wasn’t until the 1840s that the word freak became connected with human abnormalities”.(35) Monster, Oddity and Curiosity were all used at different times to describe the generations of people who were displayed for entertainment, ‘scientific’ investigation and for profit.
“ In Victorian America the exhibition of freaks exploded into a public ritual that bonded a sundering polity together in the collective act of looking”.(36)
We now call the same people ‘physically disabled’ and hopefully would show them the curtesy of not staring and pointing. To use the word ‘freak’ to describe such a person now is seen in the poorest possible taste. We are more inclined to whisper the word in context of some one who has altered their own body on purpose to draw attention. For example, tattoos of the body and face, piercings, shaving and colouring hair and dressing outrageously. The other way the word ‘freak’ is used, is to describe a state of mind. “I freaked out”, that means, I couldn’t cope, I went berserk. And, “Something freaky happened”; it was surprising, unexpected and strange. So from this point on when the word freak is used, I am not using it in relation to these contemporary definitions, but rather in relation to a historical reference.
“ The modern freak show was a response to the growing mass market for amusements generated by urbanisation and economic growth. The New York City entrepreneur P.T. Barnum (1810-91) pioneered the modern exhibition of physically anomalous individuals at his American Museum, a popular, inexpensive pleasure palace. For the next century, in its various guises, the freak show remained a widely proliferated, popular, and highly conventionalised form of amusement in both Europe and North America. By 1950 because of a combination of the new, medicalized understandings of physical anomalies, the growth of concern for minority rights, and the rise of alternative forms of amusement such as television and the movies, the freak show had begun to decline.”(37) The preoccupation with those who are different from ourselves has been with us for most of human existence, either through ethnic difference, birth defects or any number of other more subtle reasons. It is thought that perhaps this is so because we fear being different to those around us that we do not want to stand out, (this is also a fear of those with the disability, “that the only way he would be able to make a living would be displaying himself in a sideshow.”(38)) Also, those who display difference can act as a reflection of what we fear we may become. The fragility of the human body also is apparent and becomes interesting and scary.
This chapter has turned out completely differently from how I would have imagined eighteen months ago. Originally I would have written about specific “freaks” and I imagine I may not have been so sensitive to the subject matter as I am now. It may have made more ‘entertaining’ reading, but this is where I’m at now with this subject. I expect this transformation in thinking is what research is about.
The Careers of People Exhibited in Freak Shows: The Problem of Volition and Valorization by David A. Gerber is an essay taken from the above-mentioned book. In this article Gerber discusses the concept of the right of consent and choice in relation to a book written by Robert Bogdan called Freak show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit (1988). I have not read Bogdan’s book myself, only extracts presented by Gerber for use in this discussion.
On the face of it, Bogdan’s approach seems reasonable. When his five-point definition is investigated, I think he gives a lot of credit to the intellect of the common man circa 1840-1940.
‘Freak’ it seems was a broad way of grouping a lot of different physical types together under one literal banner. According to Bogdan, ““Freak” is an invention or construct, not a person, so the display of such people is not an offense to humanity but, more or less, show business.”(39) This is a logical and reasonable explanation. It separates ‘freak’ from the individual and is used in a way like ‘vaudeville’ is used as a description of a performance. The problem for me is, if a person works for a vaudeville show, that makes them a vaudevillian. If a person works for a freak show, it would make them a freak. So in reality one cannot separate the ‘humanity’ from the construct. Point two is, “historically the freak show has constituted a legitimate performance, because it was consciously staged for commercial and artistic success”.(40) I have no argument with this statement, however, point three, “the freak show ultimately was founded upon the willing participation of those displayed, the majority of whom were “active participants” in creating their presentations and found value and status in their roles as human exhibits”.(41) There are troubling combinations of words in this sentence. Willing participation, active participants, value and status and human exhibits. Firstly, this doesn’t match the first point where Bogdan says ‘freak’ is a construct, not a person, and here he says there is willing and active participation and value and status to be a human exhibit. Willing and active participation does not sit well with me.
“ Choice and consent continue to be problematic precisely because of the role of circumstances, such as the accident of the social situation into which we are born, in our lives, and because we are not equal in power to influence the course of our lives or even to understand them”.(42) Even the most educated, healthy individuals make bad decisions sometimes. So is the choice ‘actively’ positive when a person suffering a disability worthy of the freak show decides, “that’s the life for me?” The decision is not a fair one. Does the individual have more than one source for an income? Has the individual got all the correct information and understand it? Do they have enough time to decide? Is the individual being pressured or bullied into their decision? Is the individual in a situation where s/he can decide not to choose? These are very important factors in choice, ones that contemporary society may take for granted.
The ‘value and status’ perspective that Bogdan takes is obviously one of taking freak show participants stories at face value. If one is making choices about ones life without all the information or support as the above paragraph illustrates, then of course the individual will know nothing else, and hopefully would make the best of things, as is human nature. It seems a common thread among freak show performers that they saw themselves not as victims, but rather held their audience in contempt. The audience were the victims as they were the ones parting with their money. Sex workers defending their profession and their choice to persevere in this line of employment also use this argument. The value and status alluded to by Bogdan is rather tenuous. There may have been value and status from within the freak show, among co-workers. But I really do not think that value or status existed out side that arena.
As far as Bogdans statement “we need to question our assumption that we have a legitimate claim to argue with and condemn the choices, such as participating in a freak show, of those who lived in other historical epochs, especially when they saw no moral issue in their activities”(43). If social history is not looked back on with out a sense of moral judgement, the way we move into the future can have a precarious aim and outcome. Just because Bogdan doesn’t think we have a legitimate claim to pass judgement over those who lived during a different time, certainly doesn’t mean that we can’t and shouldn’t. Above all, I find it difficult to believe that those involved in the participation of freak shows found no moral dilemma in that participation.
And finally, “the freak show is a long gone phenomenon, so it is useless to condemn it.”(44) Even though it may seem like an extreme comparison, the Second World War and the atrocities delivered to people with disabilities, gypsies, the elderly and of course the Jews, also happened a long time ago, does that mean that it is also useless to condemn that?
I may be taking a hard line with Bogdans point of view, but I believe that it is this kind of insidious sentiment that keeps tabloids and voyeuristic television flourishing. I am not passing moral judgement on the fact that all this still exists in a different form, because I am just as guilty as the next person of looking. I am suggesting that one should take into account what is this kind of ‘entertainment’ actually providing society with? It’s easy to imagine in the future, a similar passage to Bogdan’s being written about the tragedy of Michael Jackson or Pamela Anderson. Most of the points listed by Bogdan could directly relate to them. So it seems the freak show is rolling on, so is it useless to condemn it?