For many, unfortunately, the cartoon freak show is the first interaction one ever has with the concept of disability; a passing joke in a film where characters blatantly and derogatorily designated as ‘other’ chanting “one of us, one of us”. It’s not hard to see that the concept of the disabled body is one largely treated as a joke, and this is due in no small part to past depictions of disabled bodies as spectacle in ‘freak shows’, or their continued negative representation in popular contemporary media; from children’s shows like Johnny Bravo and the Fairly Oddparents to major motion pictures like the Greatest Showman, which leave controversial films like Freaks perfect pictures of positive representation in comparison.
To understand the way disability is understood and portrayed in modern media requires one to first understand the way disability has been depicted throughout the history of media. While this essay does not have the capacity to examine each and every differing cultural perspective towards disability throughout history, the three that are the most relevant will be discussed. Firstly, one of the most common ways the able bodied tried to rationalize the disabled body was religiously/morally. A child’s cleft palate could be seen as a divine punishment for the gossiping nature of a parent, a birthmark covering one’s face, a symbol that they were chosen by a higher power. This moral association with disability places the responsibility of the reactions of the able bodied onto the disabled individual; they are at fault for the way in which they are ‘othered’ by society, freeing said society from blame.
It was also common throughout history for the wealthy to collect relics of deformity as curios, one of the most well known examples being the caricature of the English explorer whose study is decorated with pygmy bones and shrunken heads; this form of the disabled body as spectacle also ties disability to savagery, which was often used to further white supremacist goals; “Learned gentlemen of the early Enlightenment collected relics of the increasingly secularized monstrous body in their eclectic cabinets of curiosities, along with an array of oddities such as sharks’ teeth, fossils, and intricately carved cherrystones,” further dehumanizing the disabled body (RGT). However, the most relevant othering of the disabled body to this essay is that of the pet freak: “For example, Egyptian kings, Roman aristocrats, and European royalty kept dwarfs and fools as amusing pets,” (RGT). This was, in a sense, the earliest from of the freak show.
My first exposure to the concept of the “freak show” was in the Fairly Oddparents episode “The Grass Is Greener”. The main character, a child named Timmy Turner, is feeling neglected and runs away from home, to go live at the carnival, populated by ‘freakish’ Carnies: an alligator man covered in scales, a man full pins that he claims he can’t feel, and even the classic bearded lady. In this cartoon, all of these characters are clearly meant to be presented as undesirable, a crowd this child does not want to partake in. Each can be linked to a historic sideshow act, the most obvious being the bearded lady. However, in a twist, it is revealed in the end that they were all actors, posing as freaks to present an environment so hostile and foreign that it would take on a sort of “scared straight” approach in getting Timmy to return home, thus linking the moral of the story to the earlier association of disability and morality. Freaks, Carnies, whatever they may be called, are a group that one finds themself in when they make bad choices; that is the lesson children are taught.
The Johnny Bravo episode “Carnival of the Darned” is perhaps an even worse example of the freak show used as a comedic/moral device in children’s media, because not only is the presence of the ‘freaks’ meant to teach a lesson to the child, of gratitude and humility, but one of the ‘freaks’ is actually the first woman in the entire run of the show that the titular Johnny does not romantically pursue, meant to be a joke at the woman’s expense. As icing on the cake, the freaks end up quoting the film of the same name, Freaks, chanting “one of us, one of us,” as they reach towards Johnny, before he flees in terror. This is not even the only children’s program to quote the 1932 film; 2009’s Astro Boy uses the same line while a gang of rusted, deformed robots reach out towards a shiny, new android in an old junk yard, furthering associations of freakhood with two things: fear and humor, in the process foregoing the controversial yet sympathetic message of the original film and denoting the concept of a society of “freaks” as something to be mocked.
And now we come to P. T. Barnum, the man who popularized the idea of the freak show in North America. It would be both inaccurate and unfair to place all of the blame of these freak shows solely onto Barnum; he was as much at fault as those who paid to gawk at disabled bodies, after all. It would be equally unfair to those he exploited, however, to make a film in 2017 that sanitizes and romanticizes the story of P. T. Barnum’s freak shows for a modern day audience, and Disney still did that, so I will, in no uncertain terms, be placing quite a lot of blame on him.
Though there is no concrete proof of this, it is widely believed that P. T. Barnum is the man who coined the adage “there is a sucker born every minute”. This is in keeping with P. T. Barnum’s nature as a proud capitalist and businessman, with little he wasn’t willing to do to “fill his own coffers” in the words of his enemies. But he is relevant to this discussion because of his treatment of and exploitation of disabled bodies, the best known example likely being Charles Stratton, better known as General Tom Thumb. At the ripe age of 4, Stratton was sold by his family to P. T. Barnum’s sideshow, where Barnum would dress him up in humorous adult attire, claiming he was a minimum of 11 years old to further the spectacle of such a small man. At age 5, Stratton was given his first cigarette, simply because P. T. Barnum thought it would be funny, and thus the man was turned onto a life of nicotine addiction and alcoholism. Quite possibly the worst thing to come from this relationship, however, is the twisted gratitude Stratton felt towards Barnum, from whom he received an admittedly generous wage. When Barnum fell into debt later in life, an adult Stratton would bail him out with a loan, considering himself a business partner to the man. Not long after, Barnum would arrange a “munchkin wedding”, available for spectatorship to the public for a modest sum, between Stratton and another little person, even going so far as to make the best man and bridesmaids little people, for the gag. Barnum didn’t even care that the best man he chose was a known enemy of Stratton’s; he just wanted it to be funny.
Though Barnum’s misdeeds were egregious, there are too many to go over here. It should just be known that Barnum was very much the kind of man to succeed in profiting off of the othering of the disabled body, utilizing “contrived mystery”, a term used by Sharon Snyder in the same piece in which she goes into the different perspectives literary figures often hold towards disability; “While Bill would reference James’s accident as a humorous example of literary myth-making, Jake soberly contemplates wounds as a constitutive feature of postwar identity.” (Snyder).
From Barnum’s legacy was spawned a film, a pop-ballad musical with a half-baked message about self acceptance, which painted P. T. Barnum as a charismatic, swashbuckling hero, with women tripping over themselves to be with him as he rescued people from burning buildings. In the film, though Barnum initially seeks out the ‘freaks’ to cash in on the value of their spectacle, he begins to respect them as friends, and even family, and helps them to take advantage of the othering of their own bodies. While it is true that many of the freaks led more luxurious lifestyles under Barnum’s employment than they would have otherwise, there is no attempt at nuance in the film, which simply paints his ‘freak shows’ as a net positive, further watering down the cultural impact had by his freak shows.
There is irony in the title of the 1932 film Freaks, because it humanizes the divergent-bodied characters that star in the film more effectively than The Greatest Showman ever could. The fact that the piece of media which handled the subject of ‘freaks’ with the most tenderness, not only for its time but compared to the majority of media even today, is also the most controversial, is very telling about the way we as a society view the disabled body. Like the life P. T. Barnum, there is more nuance in this film than I can adequately cover, and the climax of the story in which the ‘freaks’ physically assault the antagonist, resulting in her deformity and conversion into another freak is one I am not equipped to analyze, but what I can do is discuss the way the film treats its disabled characters up to that point. Now, I have gone this far without saying so, but it is difficult deciding what terms to use in describing the titular ‘freaks’. Even “disabled person”, seemingly the most sensitive term possible, is more complicated than it would seem at first glance; “As typically used, the term disability is a linchpin in a complex web of social ideals, institutional structures, and government policies.” (Linton) So, I will be using the term freaks, as they are called in the film and were referred to at the time.
This film, in 1932, was the first time disabled characters were ever depicted on screen living normal lives; the first third of the film shows the titular freaks going about their day to day lives, interacting with their coworkers, buying groceries, returning home to their apartments. This meager chunk of a movie does more to humanize the freaks of the film than anything The Greatest Showman even attempts, especially when the freaks converse with their able-bodied peers, blurring the line between the othering. Browning “begins to undercut the voyeuristic aspects of the traditional freakshow by showing the freaks engaged in the activities of everyday life, dispelling the initial shock and revulsion, and encouraging the viewer to see the freaks as individuals who have overcome their disabilities” (SHC), all of which would be absolutely necessary in familiarizing a 1932 movie-going crowd with these characters, although the idea that these characters ‘overcame’ their disabilities is rather contentious.
Another innovation of the film is the dichotomy of the freaks and the able-bodied characters; while media has historically coded disabled characters as villainous, it is the able-bodied Cleopatra and Hercules who scheme to murder one of their fellow circus performers, while the naive and trusting freaks accept the two into their society. In the iconic “one of us” scene, the initiation rites performed to allow Cleopatra into their tight-knit family set her into a rage, because she cannot possibly conceive of a world where she needs to be accepted into a group of freaks rather than the other way around; she is the ‘normal’ one, and the freaks should be grateful that she is gracing them with her presence. The film ends with the freaks receiving Hans’ inheritance money, Cleopatra’s drive for attempting to seduce and murder him, and going on to live rather lush, priveleged lives, almost as if they are being rewarded for the struggles they have had to overcome their whole lives. The way the perceptions of the freaks and able-bodied characters are flipped, Cleopatra and Hercules being vile, conniving murderers with hearts blackened by greed and the freaks being innocent, ‘normal’ people, was revolutionary for the time.
Of course, this film is not the holy grail of positive disability representation – it’s called Freaks, for crying out loud – but it deserves to be lauded for the steps it took towards un-othering the freaks, especially for its time. The fact that The Greatest Showman, a film that came out nearly a century later, is so misguided and naive in its attempts to push a moral of self acceptance, shows the damage a joke as simple as having a group of ugly characters chant “one of us” in a cartoon can have. Mocking the freaks becomes normalized when it occurs from the point that a child first turns on Nickelodeon, and now The Greatest Showman will further contribute to this normalizing of viewing the disabled body as spectacle, despite the fact that Freaks took the first step 88 years ago.
