Bogden on Freaks!

 

Challenge: Support and Advocacy Groups


Mutter Museum Catalog


What is the meaning of DISABILITY in our (popular) culture?
  • Villian/Evil
  • Slasher of horror films
  • sign of moral corruption/bad behavior
  • pirate with peg leg and hook arm
  • phantom of the opera
How does the study of displaying human oddities help us understand disability in the United States? What does this say about our culture?
THESIS
"Our reaction to freaks is not a function of some deep seated fear or some energy that they give off, rather the RESULT OF OUR SOCIALIZATION, and of the way that social institutions managed these people's identities. Freak shows are not about isolated individuals, either on platforms or in the audience. They are about organizations and patterned relationships between them and us. FREAK is not a quality that belongs to a person on display. It is something that we created: a perspective , a set of practices-a SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION." (IX-X)

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF FREAKS: 
  •  Freak  is a frame of mind
    • being extremely tall is one thing, being a giant is another
    • It is a set of practices, a way of thinking about people
    • It is an enactment of a tradition, the performance of a stylized presentation
  • TERMINOLOGY: despised and degraded
  • TYPES OF FREAKS:
    • Illustrates the connection between the ongoing development of SCIENCE and FREAK SHOWS
      • Non-Westerns Peoples (nature's jokes)
      • Freaks of nature (monsters)
      • Born Freaks, made freaks, novelty freaks, humerous freaks
      • Fakes (gaffed freaks)- all are misrepresentations, but gaffs are EXTREME

 
  • RECORDING TRADITIONS:
    • portraits and photographs of VICTORIAN TRADITION (albums) and souveniers
    • "true life pamphlets"- promotions and false biographies for exhibits.







HISTORY OF FREAK SHOWS
  • Early Years
    • 18th century followed the English Model: 
      • singular freaks who traveled from town to town with a presenter looking for an audience. Displayed animal curiosities as well.
      • "Living Curiosities" to designate that the show had both human and animal exhibits
  • 19th Century -VICTORIAN (Science Oriented)
    • "Lustus nature" were evil omens, yet enamored with them
    • working of witchcraft, punishment for parental transgressions but also GOD'S GREAT ORDER OF CREATURES as scientific inquiry became more mainstream knowledge. Here they should be the SUBJECTS OF STUDY and CLASSIFICATION.
    • Science legitimized the public's interest in freaks
    • spurred great debates on MONO versus POLY-GENESIS
    • MUSEUMS: rise as a place to view human curiosities
  • Early Museums: 
    • Freaks viewed as scientific specimens on display. they contained a hodgepodge of live exhibits and photographs, paintings and panoramas. 
    • gave scientific lectures and discussions
    • humans were displayed but they were not the featured attractions; they were NATURAL rather than unnatural history
    • The public preferred these human oddities and they drew better crowds
    • puritanical beliefs frowned upon shows and concerts and dancing, but museums were legitimate RATIONAL AMUSEMENT for Christians.
"By becoming attached to museums and later circuses, show men and exhibits were incorporated into the burgeoning industry, the popular amusement industry. They thus joined a segment of society that was in the process of developing a way of life apart from the mainstream. Connections were no longer confined to a simple partnership between exhibit and manager. A FREAK SHOW was emerging as a larger collectivity" (30)
Kinds of Freaks

Exotic & Aggrandized Modes (chapter 4)

THE MODES OF PRESENTATION REVEAL THE IMPLICIT ASSUMPTIONS EMBODIED IN THE FREAK SHOW WORLD BY ALLOWING US TO FOCUS ON THE INSTITUTION OF EXHIBITING PEOPLE AND THE PERSPECTIVE OF THOSE INVOLVED.

  • Showmen created public identities for the freaks that they presented, and their success was determined by this presentation.

  • Fabricated backgrounds, natures of their conditions, circumstances of their lives, and other aspects of their lives for marketing purposes. 
  •   In other cases, deception was merely an exaggeration

Two major modes of presentation:
o   Aggrandized
§  Endowed freak with status enhancing characteristics

  • Flaunted social position, achievement, talents, family and physiology 
  • Presented with high status titles: duke, captain, major, prince, king, general, Lady… 
  • Characteristics: highly educated, spoke many languages, snobbish hobbies (poetry), linked to well-known high status people (usually in history), membership in high status and exclusive clubs and organizations
  • Like CELEBRITIES
  • Performances: 
    •  Super-gimp 
    • Talent



  • Normalcy of freaks family life and relationships and children emphasized aggrandized status 
  • Causes: maternal impressions (traumatic), medical testimonials, rational answer. Not the work of evil or devil. NOT SICK or patients
o   Exotic
§  Strange creature from a little-known part of the world
  • Appeal to the curiosity about culturally strange, primitive, bestial, and exotic
  • Exaggerated stereotypes or just contrived from myth and legend
  • Events had scripts which fit biography of presentation
  • Source stories important: scientific discoveries, historical travelogues, news stories  
  •  “races of men” and “missing links” were common themes 
  • Genetics: CROSS-BREEDING (hybridity) examples were often explanations for exotic freaks
  • “throwback theory” humans could give birth to children who were throwbacks to an earlier time in human evolution 
  • Presentation at scientific meetings and even the study of these freaks by scientists asked to authenticate them gave them authenticity (despite the actual results of these investigations)
  • RACIST: presentations emphasized physical differences and were often set in a position to prove the validity and reality of racial differences. Native Americans were presented as “exotic” and foreign even though they are “Americans” in the rue sense. ALL EXOTICS ARE “OTHERS” 
  • Printed materials with biographies, banners, barkers talking up the show were the first three lines of assault in show promotion. 
  • Entertained crowd once inside 
  • Sold souvenirs and curiosities from the freak attractions 
  • Photographic portraits 
  • True-life story booklets 
  • Trinkets (giant’s huge rings, dwarf’s miniature bibles, etc.) 
  • Blow off: Finale show for more bucks…often seedy (nudity)
What determined presentation?
  • Condition 
  • Skin color 
  •  Age of acquisition (train young) by showmen and managers
  • HUMEROUS MODE; never fully developed, but mocking mode became popular at the end of 1930’s (KooKoo the bird woman). ---Jerry Springer????

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