One of Them
The
morphing of a character into an entity that fulfills society’s expectations is
both a problem found in real life, as well as a literary tool in literature and
film. The handling of foreigners and people that don’t fit the accepted norm of
society is featured prominently in both Tod Browning’s Freaks (1932) and Jacques Tourner’s Cat People (1942). In Freaks,
the majority of characters are people with debilitating, physical deformities.
Though they eventually, somewhat, become the heroes of the story, much of the
attention is placed on their deformities and how they are less than normal
people, and, even further, violent beings. In Cat People, the foreign character of Irena is pursued by a
stereotypical American male, Oliver, which eventually results in her
psychological destruction and tragic death. Where these two films collide is
through their handling of “the other” and the manner in which that outsider is
treated, both in their individual conclusions and societal representations.
In
Tod Browning’s Freaks, past the
introductory speech to the crowd about the content of the film, the primary
content of the film opens on a dwarf, Hans, marveling at the talents of the
trapeze artist, Cleopatra. This initial scene represents one of the overall
themes of the film, being the difference between people with deformities and
people of standard stature. Hans’s marveling at her stands in great contrast to
the intentions she reveals later on while in cahoots with Hercules, the
strongman of the traveling circus. Her/their plan to have Cleopatra marry Hans
and kill him to acquire the wealth that Frieda, Hans’s fiancé, mentions almost
mirrors the draw of the film itself, being the exploitation of people of
difference to make money. This notion is represented through many close-ups in
the film that focus purely on the “freaks” and how they perform normal
activities in different ways. At the celebration for Cleopatra and Hans’s
engagement, the “freaks” of the circus crew begin chanting “we accept you, we
accept you, one of us, one of us” just before Cleopatra realizes that she
doesn’t want to be associated in any way with these people of physical
difference. In the process, her and Hercules begin taunting the entire group
and Hans in particular, mirroring societal ridicule of anyone that doesn’t fit
the accepted norm. When the criminal pair are found out, Cleopatra and Hercules
do what they can to retain their place in the circus, as well as their lives,
but ultimately fall victim to the villainously portrayed “freaks” that crawl
out from beneath carriages through wet dirt with knives to end their
exploitation. Though Cleopatra and Hercules become vilified to both the
audience and the “freaks” of the film, the villainous portrayal of the “freaks”
leaves much to be desired in terms of societal acceptance.
Cat People approaches this societal
aspect in a different way, largely concerning anyone of foreign heritage and
culture. In the opening scene, Irena is sketching images of a panther at the
zoo, but is interrupted by an American-born Oliver, who throws away the
sketches she attempts to trash. Very quickly, the two decide to marry, but
Irena’s sexual hesitations sourced from tales of women turning into lethal cats
in the face of passion prevent the two from consummating, leading to
frustration on both sides. Oliver consistently sidelines her worries,
disregarding them as nothing more than nightmare fantasies, belittling her
worries and uplifting his American ideologies simultaneously. After struggles
with fidelity in the face of a culture that can’t accept difference, Oliver’s
shift in emotions from Irena to his work friend, Alice, leads Irena to her
death, expressing a sense of cultural intolerability. In Rick Worland’s The Horror Film: An Introduction,
Worland describes Irena’s death, “Though struck and killed by a taxi, the cat
becomes an expression of Irena’s tragic yet defiant efforts to free herself
from psychological and social structures,” (Worland 190). Irena’s attempts to
fit into the expectations of American society and retain her heritage at the
same time are met with brutal lethality that turns her into both the villain of
the story and, concurrently, the primary tragic character.
The
thematic and structural disregard and disrespect of anyone with physical and/or
cultural differences in these two films is emblematic of societal disregard of
people that don’t fit the cultural standard of America, and the demise of these
characters hints at a society attempting, and failing, to unify “normal” people
and “freaks”.
Worland, Rick. The Horror Film: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008.
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