Exploitation in "Freaks" (1932)

We started talking about the exploitation of the bodies in the film (or in the real life carnival acts) versus the exploitation of the audience near the end of class. The question that seemed to linger was if we should pity the performers if they are able to make money off of their disabilities (or at least that’s how I felt it was left). I see why at first glance some people might question the fact that the performers are profiting off of the public’s fascination with their bodies, but that money is nothing compared to what their lives as performers represent. 

Last semester I took a class called “Race and Sport” and one of the overall themes of the class was the fact that for every ethnicity or race that was not pure white (basically everyone that wasn’t English) sports have been an avenue for social mobility. This is to say that for a while sports were the only careers in which certain ethnic or racial minorities could succeed or achieve a higher social standing. Just look at how many light-skinned black men had to lie about being latino to play baseball and how many German players were stuck with some form of “Dutch man” attached to their names. Sporting events were where you went to see the “others”, but only in small numbers. From there most ethnic and racial groups were able to branch out and find success in other areas. 

For the performers in the film Freaks (1932), their only means of making money was to perform and put their bodies on display for an audience to gawk at. If they have to exploit the public’s interest in their disabilities to make a living, they should do it, especially if that same public is not willing to give them any other way to make the money. The only problem with performing to make a living is that it contributes to the stereotypes and helps to perpetuate them. If a certain character in the act or show is supposed to act a certain way, the audience pays to see them act in that way. 

This ties in with the conclusion Rachel Adams’ essay, Sideshow Cinema, and how we perceive the ending with Cleopatra the chicken lady.

Adams talks about how some film critics have seen Cleopatra as a a “trick that plays on the spectators’ willingness to associate freaks with deviant behavior” (84). This allows the filmmakers to profit off of the audience’s expectations, but it also just keeps feeding the audience the same caricatures of the performers to the detriment of the performers. I’m not sure there would be too many viewers that saw that ending and would think that it is a reflection of how they view the performers and not how they actually are, because they don’t have much else to go on. They don’t have other narratives for these performers. Well scratch that, I would argue that the only other narratives they would have are due to the amputees from the war, which would make the only slightly relatable characters the ones with missing limbs. For Hans, Frieda, Josephine-Joseph, Daisy and Violet, Schlitze, et al, their carnival and circus acts are the only story that people know. This kind of reading of the film makes more sense now, but I think for the 1930s that might be giving the audience a little too much credit.

The other reading Adams talks about entails the audience finding a way to identify with the performers despite turning Cleopatra into a chicken lady. This reading doesn’t work for me either, but I think it makes a little more sense because Cleopatra did try to kill Hans and they were just getting her back. I think that desire for revenge or at least the knowledge of where that desire comes from can be found in some way and to varying degrees in everyone.