Freaks, response #3

     The film Freaks strikes a resonating chord within myself when it comes to horror films. It reverberates with the sound of the freak's chant, "One of us." This, I believe, is the true aim of the film. The audience is to view the chant as an inclusion of themselves into the freaks' way of life, not just Cleopatra. Viewing each member of the troupe take their own drink of wine, we (as Cleopatra) await our own turn. Closer and closer the goblet is brought, and more and more we come to accept that we are one of them.
     This acceptance of inclusivity is contrasted between characters in the film. Cleopatra, for example, rejects the idea that she is similar to the freaks. She embodies the audience's first inclination towards the troupe. To be fair, the freaks are different; that is their very nature as "freaks." But Cleopatra is clearly not the heroine of this film, and the audience is never led to believe so. As such, when she rejects them, she does so without the audience's backing. We are led, from early on in the film, to not base our reactions on Cleopatra's own. She is clearly mean, conniving, and self-serving; all traits our society deems as bad. Instead, we are led to react more similarly to other characters.
     Perhaps the first character we are meant to connect with is Venus. She, like Cleopatra, is not a freak. However, Venus acts as an opposite to Cleopatra. She treats the freaks as if they were normal people without disabilities of any kind. When she first splits with Hercules, Venus is able to find solace in her interactions with the freaks. In this way, Venus is the first character to show us the humanity inherent in the freaks. To her, they are nothing but other people working in the same circus as she. Venus is our first step into the freaks' world. She gives us a stepping stone from which to view other characters' reactions.
     Another character we form a connection with is Josephine-Joseph, the hermaphrodite. Josephine-Joseph's role is something Rachel Adams brings up in Sideshow Cinema. As Adams says, "The hermaphrodite, ... serves throughout the early portions of the film as a figure of sexual indeterminacy who lurks at the edges of the screen, deriving pleasure from watching the sexual exploits of others." We have a nearly mute character who is persistent throughout the film acting much like the audience does, as a voyeur. In this sense, Josephine-Joseph is our first true look into the mindset of the freaks. She/he is the first freak we, as non-freaks, are able to make a connection with. If there is one freak that every member of the audience can relate to, it is she/he. We see that Josephine-Joseph is just as interested in the affairs (no pun intended) of others as we are ourselves.
     Finally, the conjoined twins Violet and Daisy form the final character(s) we are to connect with. The twins experience all of daily life together. And, although they have different reactions and thoughts about or around the events of their days, they are still very much beholden to one-another's views. The twins embody the relationship between the freaks and normal humans the most. Our existence is a duality just like their own. As the other characters have shown us, our world exists within the freaks' and their world exists in ours. Venus shows us that interactions between freaks and normal people can be as natural as those between anyone else. Josephine-Joseph shows us that our own desires and wants are mirrored in the mind of the freaks. And Violet and Daisy exist to remind us that, no matter how hard we may try (see Cleopatra and Hercules), our two worlds actually exist as distinct, intertwined subdivision of one world.