Response 1: Some comments on the psychosexual in The Unknown

In Todd Browning’s The Unknown, Browning’s use of setting and the presence of bodily abnormality serve to further the psychosexual overtones throughout the plot, as identified in Rick Worland’s text. In particular, the spaces of the sideshow and the operating room are of interest, as well as the dynamic between Alonzo and Cojo.

            The sideshow is notable as a space, as it encapsulates that which is deemed abject by society, that is, the spectacle of bodily abnormality, and creates a place in which its existence is acceptable. Alonzo, then, is an aberration; he merely appears disfigured, while actually maintaining bodily integrity, and thus inhabits his own sort of liminality within the sideshow. Perhaps, then, his apparent lack of bodily integrity is symbolic of his castration anxiety, or else represents a secret desire to be castrated. On this subject, Worlant cites Freud in saying that “the dream-work frequently transposes the upper and lower portions of the body” (Worlant, 149). This may account for the presence of Cojo throughout most of the film, as this character functions not merely as a “chorus, conscience, and alter ego,” but to “mirror and express dark sexual themes that cast doubt on comfortable definitions of the ‘normal’” (Worlant 150). This character serves as a vehicle not only for Alonzo’s castration anxiety (and perhaps secret desire to be so), but also serves to justify Alonzo’s presence in the sideshow, if only to Alonzo himself. This point will become clearer, as the next paragraph elaborates upon it.

            The setting of the operating room is important, because as Worlant notes, the “operating theater’s strongly vertical space…parallels the high, enclosed space of the big top in the opening and the tower Nanon stands on during Malabar’s stage act at the end” (Worlant, 151). This lofty, vaulted space illustrate not only, as Worlant argues, the humiliation of Alonzo, but also convey a sense of continuity. Although the two spaces contrast greatly in color and texture, the similarities I have noted show that this contrast may not be so enormous. If the sideshow is a space wherein bodily disfigurement is the norm, even celebrated to an extent, then the medical space serves as the exact opposite. It is no accident that Cojo “disappears from the movie soon after the operation” (Worlant, 150); once the symbolic castration of Alonzo is complete, he no longer requires a vehicle for his anxieties, nor a “freak” alter ego. He comes to embody the castration, separated from his Cojones, and is himself now truly a “freak” in his own right. The ultimate symbol of his emasculation comes at the end of the film, his rival Malabar gripping the reins of two horses on treadmills, Nanon above whipping them to greater speed. This incredibly phallic image, represented by the object of Alonzo’s desire and by his rival, may represent the final rending of his own body and, symbolically, his masculinity.

            The psychosexual overtones throughout Todd Browning’s The Unknown are evident in the film’s settings and spaces, the interaction between Alonzo and Cojo, and Alonzo’s own bodily disfigurements. Ultimately, the film ends with Alonzo’s brutal and complete emasculation, as he is trampled to death under a raging, muscular horse.