Freaks? Or Just Different?

I do not believe that Browning meant to portray the freaks as objects of interest. Naturally, they are going to attract attention, not all of it positive, because they look so different from the typical person, and they are not usually seen an everyday person’s everyday lift. In fact, it seems that he does just the opposite of portraying them as “freaks”. If he truly wanted to show them as being “freaks,” I believe that Browning would have shown the acts that they performed for the circus. He does not do this, in order to keep the film from becoming another platform on which to prove their “freakiness”.

I think that Browning successfully allowed his viewers to see the “freaks” as people. We got to know each character and what their personalities were like, which were not freaky or different in any special way. They seemed like regular people that just had different bodies. They had their own family, and they all fit in and served a purpose to that family, just like normal people have certain roles and purposes in their own societies. I also think that Browning effectively portrayed how the circus people react when their family is threatened. They had absolutely no problem accepting Cleopatra and Hercules into their family. They wanted to include them, as equals in their “circus people” family. They showed this at the wedding feast.

It was only when Cleo and Hercules began showing threatening behavior to members of the family that the other members began to react and treat them accordingly. When they did begin threatening bodily harm to Cleo and Hercules, it was with switchblades and guns, probably two of the most common weapons for everyday people to have. If Browning had truly wanted to play into the “freakiness” of his characters, I think he would have had the circus people act in completely unexpected ways. He would have really gone to the extremes and possibly pulled stereotypical fears of physically deformed people like having them have particularly gruesome ways of killing people. Instead, he gave them two very common weapons. They did end up turning Cleo into a chicken-woman. I think that was justified, and just a play on her being terrified and prejudiced against the circus people, effectively turning her into a freak, so she could experience how she had treated them from the other side.

(Sarah Jaworowicz, Post 20)