For those who missed my talk at TCASU
Nov. 6th, 2003 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lprovenI didn't actually use it in this form, but what the hell. This the start of my planned talk on "Freaks" for the convention in Ireland a couple of weeks ago.
This talk is based on Daniel P. Mannix' 1976 book Freaks: We who are not as others, published by RE:search and Juno Books. All credit goes to Mr Mannix for this remarkable work.
From Frank L Baum's The Scarecrow of Oz:
In today's politically-correct world, it's considered wrong to call people "freaks". You're not meant to call attention to people who are different. Instead, they're given euphemisms: "disabled", "handicapped", "physically challenged". In every way, we are urged to treat them just like anyone else.
But they're not. Reproduction is imperfect: all organisms which breed occasionally produce "sports". These may sometimes be mutants; the genetic material of the gametes or the zygote were changed by something, maybe an errant cosmic ray, maybe a stray chemical, maybe a faulty copy, and the offspring is different from its parents. Not always, though: such embryos seldom live. This is necessary and good: it's the driving force of evolution.
More commonly, something distorts the phenotype -- the way the body develops -- even though genetically it's perfectly normal. Such creatures aren't mutants: they may look weird, possibly be misshapen or sickly, but if they are able to breed, they'll have normal offspring. Sometimes, they have a tendency of be vulnerable to something that doesn't normally affect their kind, so that if they're exposed to it, they become ill or grow strangely, but if they're not, they remain perfectly normal. This tendency may be recessive -- it won't breed true unless both parents have it, so in any other case, parents and offspring might be perfectly normal.
And that's where many freaks come from.
In many cases, human freaks are disabled. They may be perfectly healthy, but look weird, like those with hypertrichosis -- excessive hair growth all over the body. Some such people have two rows of teeth, as well, and most are reported to have exceptionally beautiful, mellow voices. Such people are lucky in today's world: they can shave and pass for normal, if briefly.
Others may have more obvious distortions, harder to hide. Ichthyosis sufferers have a super-thick epidermis which tends to crack and form scales resembling those of a fish or reptile, which continuously flake off and fall. Some people may have it only on the body, so when fully clothed, are inconspicuous -- if uncomfortable. Others, though, have it on the face or hands and will always stick out.
Some changes are merely ones of scale. If the pituitary gland fails in early childhood, the person stops growing -- but will still mature with age, resulting in a midget, a perfectly-proportioned human, but tiny -- typically 3 to 4 foot tall. Developmental problems in the long bones of the skeleton can stop just these growing in childhood, while everything else grows normally, resulting in a distorted body with large torso and head but very short limbs: a dwarf. Both midgets and dwarves can become sexually mature in the normal way and become parents, usually of normal-sized children, although there are problems for a midget woman carrying a full-sized fœtus.
Grosser malformations or disfiguring diseases are even harder to hide and may result in a body who looks monstrous, although inside is a normal person.
People have always been fascinated with such individuals. For some, it's the fascination of horror, such as Joseph Merrick, Victorian England's Elephant Man. Others may be amusing, such Triboulet, King Francis 1st of France's court jester, the inspiration for Victor Hugo's play Le Roi S'amuse, later the basis for Verdi's great opera Rigoletto. Triboulet's head rose to such a point that he wore half an orange-skin for a cap. A contemporary described him: "His bowed back, short and twisted legs, and long, dangling arms amused the ladies, who regarded him as though he were a monkey." A native of Blois, he joined the court when Francis was le Comte d'Angoulême, but he remained with Francis when he was crowned in 1515. The courtiers, jealous of Triboulet's alleged influence over the weak and dissipated monarch, tormented the dwarf.
Once, at the end of a award ceremony honouring the notables, the king asked "Is there anything else I can do to show how France feels towards these great men?"
Triboulet responded, "Yes, hang the bastards!"
One of the nobles shouted "I'll cut your throat for that, you scoundrel!"
The king responded "I'll have your head cut off ten minutes after you kill Triboulet!"
Triboulet interrupted: "Cousin, can you please make it ten minutes before?"
In some cases, though, the individual is revolting. One such monster, slave to the nobleman Iadmon of Samos, live in Greece in 600BC. This unfortunate was a hunchback described as having "an enormous beard head with slit eyes, a long, misshapen countenance, a large mouth and bowed legs." A horrified servant girl once asked him "are you a baboon?" Cut off from society by his revolting appearance, he befriended animals, and distracted people with tales of animals displaying human weaknesses and failings. His stories so disturbed people that eventually he was lynched by an angry mob. His name was Æsop.
More recently, an infant blinded, deafened and rendered mute by scarlet fever developed such terribly outbreaks of fury that her parents found her impossible to control. Instead of taking the sensible course of putting in her in a specialist home, they hired a full-time nurse and worked for more than a decade to tame her, developing an entire language based on touching and stroking her hand. Eventually, the girl learned to read and write Braille. When she grew up, Helen Keller revolutionized perceptions and care of the severely handicapped.
Today, there are electric wheelchairs, prostheses, special schools and languages and techniques to enable such people to lead semi-normal lives. But until a generation or two ago, there were not. If you couldn't look after yourself, you'd have to pay someone else to -- and if you couldn't do a job, you couldn't pay.
But there was one job any such person could do.
They could exhibit themselves.
"Normal" people are intensely interested in others different from them, and they'll happily pay to satisfy that curiosity. They have done for centuries. Many became jesters for royals, or entertainers with travelling fairs: by the early 20th century, they had become America's carnival sideshows. A good freak show was a star attraction, outdoing mundane sword-swallowers, fire-eaters and magicians, even outdoing the nude posing girls -- and it's damned hard to outsell sex. It was a good living, especially to someone who cannot do any normal job.
Some people would ask "how can these people exhibit themselves in this way? It's shameful." To understand, think of the childhood faced by a freak. It starts at the earliest stage: picture the nervous father pacing outside the delivery room when a nurse emerges with the news: the baby is deformed. Dad will never play football with his son, because his son has no legs. Parents almost invariably react in one of two ways: either they develop a violent hatred for the child or they refuse to exist that the deformity exists. Both reactions are extremely tough on the kid.
Mannix, who worked in carnivals, asked a colleague, a hunch-backed dwarf with a facial deformity causing his skull to come forward to a point like an animal's snout. He was billed as "the Pig-Faced Boy". This very sweet-natured lad recounted his earliest memory: a girl at school saying she'd rather run away from school than sit next to him. Other kids tortured him: when the end-of-school bell rang, rather than rushing out, he'd cry, because he knew the gang would be waiting outside. It was always led by his brother -- who wanted to show that he hated the weirdo more than anyone else.
It's mob behaviour. If the kids had met the freak individually, they'd have been curious and interested, but probably not threatening; but in a group, they attack, just like a tame dog becomes a savage animal when in a pack.
As soon as he was able, Pig-face ran away and joined a carnival. He made good money and loved the life. For him, it was paradise: for the first time in his life, his strangeness had become an asset. He knew that the success of the ten-in-one -- the carny term for a sideshow -- depended largely upon him. He was surrounded by people who respected him, admired him; in some cases, depended on him. One time, he heard that some ordinary dwarves in a competing carnival were using makeup to try to look like pigs. "They still look like ordinary people," he said proudly. "Not me -- I really look like a pig!"
His brother, however, was a failure, and constantly came to Pig-face to borrow money. Eventually, he asked Pig-face to hire him as his agent and "manager", which his brother good-naturedly did. The brother and his wife thereafter travelled everywhere with the carnival, although they always spoke contemptuously of the dwarf. Mannix eventually asked him why he put up with this abuse and indeed his useless hangers-on. "Oh, well, he's my brother," answered the dwarf gently. "Naturally, you want to do anything you can to help your own brother."
Freaks were the stars of the sideshow. Often, they'd be in a separate section of the tent, curtained off from the rest, and the marks -- the crowd -- must pay extra to see them, sometimes more than the main entry fee. This was termed a "blow-off" and often carried the whole sideshow - or even was a vital support of the entire carnival.
Even the rare mentally-deficient freaks enjoyed this star treatment. One rare type were pinheads -- sufferers from the congenital condition of microcephaly, in which the frontal lobes and cortex of the brain do not fully develop in the womb. The result is an individual with a tiny cranium, often rising to a point, and generally, severe retardation -- at best, the intelligence of a two-year-old. They can learn a few words and simple tricks but require constant care throughout their life -- which is normal.
Mannix'carnival had a group of three, billed as members of "the Savage Nairobi Tribe from Darkest Africa". They played together as happily as children. The star was Sally; when the time came for the talked to "turn the tip" -- bring the crowd into the tend -- he'd always call Sally onto the bally platform (a small elevated stage) for her come-on dance. It was uproariously amusing and Sally enjoyed it as much as the crowd. After a minute or two, the talker would shout "What you've seen out here ain't even a shinney. Come in and watch Sally do the African shimmey!" She then rushed inside, followed by the delighted tip.
Some years later, Mannix met the talker again. He told him that some concerned people had complained to the police about this "exploitation". The little group had been broken up and sent to different institutions. "I finally managed to locate Sally. She missed her friends and was miserably unhappy. She was sleeping on the floor, the food was terrible and no-one paid any attention to her. I asked if I could get her out by signing papers making myself legally responsible for her. The director told me, 'We don't want her here. She's restless and unhappy and keeps trying to run away. Besides, we're so overcrowded we've got patients sleeping in the lobby and three to a bed -- mentally disturbed patients who have to be institutionalised."
This talk is based on Daniel P. Mannix' 1976 book Freaks: We who are not as others, published by RE:search and Juno Books. All credit goes to Mr Mannix for this remarkable work.
From Frank L Baum's The Scarecrow of Oz:
I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones, for the common folk are like the leaves on a tree, and live and die unnoticed.
In today's politically-correct world, it's considered wrong to call people "freaks". You're not meant to call attention to people who are different. Instead, they're given euphemisms: "disabled", "handicapped", "physically challenged". In every way, we are urged to treat them just like anyone else.
But they're not. Reproduction is imperfect: all organisms which breed occasionally produce "sports". These may sometimes be mutants; the genetic material of the gametes or the zygote were changed by something, maybe an errant cosmic ray, maybe a stray chemical, maybe a faulty copy, and the offspring is different from its parents. Not always, though: such embryos seldom live. This is necessary and good: it's the driving force of evolution.
More commonly, something distorts the phenotype -- the way the body develops -- even though genetically it's perfectly normal. Such creatures aren't mutants: they may look weird, possibly be misshapen or sickly, but if they are able to breed, they'll have normal offspring. Sometimes, they have a tendency of be vulnerable to something that doesn't normally affect their kind, so that if they're exposed to it, they become ill or grow strangely, but if they're not, they remain perfectly normal. This tendency may be recessive -- it won't breed true unless both parents have it, so in any other case, parents and offspring might be perfectly normal.
And that's where many freaks come from.
In many cases, human freaks are disabled. They may be perfectly healthy, but look weird, like those with hypertrichosis -- excessive hair growth all over the body. Some such people have two rows of teeth, as well, and most are reported to have exceptionally beautiful, mellow voices. Such people are lucky in today's world: they can shave and pass for normal, if briefly.
Others may have more obvious distortions, harder to hide. Ichthyosis sufferers have a super-thick epidermis which tends to crack and form scales resembling those of a fish or reptile, which continuously flake off and fall. Some people may have it only on the body, so when fully clothed, are inconspicuous -- if uncomfortable. Others, though, have it on the face or hands and will always stick out.
Some changes are merely ones of scale. If the pituitary gland fails in early childhood, the person stops growing -- but will still mature with age, resulting in a midget, a perfectly-proportioned human, but tiny -- typically 3 to 4 foot tall. Developmental problems in the long bones of the skeleton can stop just these growing in childhood, while everything else grows normally, resulting in a distorted body with large torso and head but very short limbs: a dwarf. Both midgets and dwarves can become sexually mature in the normal way and become parents, usually of normal-sized children, although there are problems for a midget woman carrying a full-sized fœtus.
Grosser malformations or disfiguring diseases are even harder to hide and may result in a body who looks monstrous, although inside is a normal person.
People have always been fascinated with such individuals. For some, it's the fascination of horror, such as Joseph Merrick, Victorian England's Elephant Man. Others may be amusing, such Triboulet, King Francis 1st of France's court jester, the inspiration for Victor Hugo's play Le Roi S'amuse, later the basis for Verdi's great opera Rigoletto. Triboulet's head rose to such a point that he wore half an orange-skin for a cap. A contemporary described him: "His bowed back, short and twisted legs, and long, dangling arms amused the ladies, who regarded him as though he were a monkey." A native of Blois, he joined the court when Francis was le Comte d'Angoulême, but he remained with Francis when he was crowned in 1515. The courtiers, jealous of Triboulet's alleged influence over the weak and dissipated monarch, tormented the dwarf.
Once, at the end of a award ceremony honouring the notables, the king asked "Is there anything else I can do to show how France feels towards these great men?"
Triboulet responded, "Yes, hang the bastards!"
One of the nobles shouted "I'll cut your throat for that, you scoundrel!"
The king responded "I'll have your head cut off ten minutes after you kill Triboulet!"
Triboulet interrupted: "Cousin, can you please make it ten minutes before?"
In some cases, though, the individual is revolting. One such monster, slave to the nobleman Iadmon of Samos, live in Greece in 600BC. This unfortunate was a hunchback described as having "an enormous beard head with slit eyes, a long, misshapen countenance, a large mouth and bowed legs." A horrified servant girl once asked him "are you a baboon?" Cut off from society by his revolting appearance, he befriended animals, and distracted people with tales of animals displaying human weaknesses and failings. His stories so disturbed people that eventually he was lynched by an angry mob. His name was Æsop.
More recently, an infant blinded, deafened and rendered mute by scarlet fever developed such terribly outbreaks of fury that her parents found her impossible to control. Instead of taking the sensible course of putting in her in a specialist home, they hired a full-time nurse and worked for more than a decade to tame her, developing an entire language based on touching and stroking her hand. Eventually, the girl learned to read and write Braille. When she grew up, Helen Keller revolutionized perceptions and care of the severely handicapped.
Today, there are electric wheelchairs, prostheses, special schools and languages and techniques to enable such people to lead semi-normal lives. But until a generation or two ago, there were not. If you couldn't look after yourself, you'd have to pay someone else to -- and if you couldn't do a job, you couldn't pay.
But there was one job any such person could do.
They could exhibit themselves.
"Normal" people are intensely interested in others different from them, and they'll happily pay to satisfy that curiosity. They have done for centuries. Many became jesters for royals, or entertainers with travelling fairs: by the early 20th century, they had become America's carnival sideshows. A good freak show was a star attraction, outdoing mundane sword-swallowers, fire-eaters and magicians, even outdoing the nude posing girls -- and it's damned hard to outsell sex. It was a good living, especially to someone who cannot do any normal job.
Some people would ask "how can these people exhibit themselves in this way? It's shameful." To understand, think of the childhood faced by a freak. It starts at the earliest stage: picture the nervous father pacing outside the delivery room when a nurse emerges with the news: the baby is deformed. Dad will never play football with his son, because his son has no legs. Parents almost invariably react in one of two ways: either they develop a violent hatred for the child or they refuse to exist that the deformity exists. Both reactions are extremely tough on the kid.
Mannix, who worked in carnivals, asked a colleague, a hunch-backed dwarf with a facial deformity causing his skull to come forward to a point like an animal's snout. He was billed as "the Pig-Faced Boy". This very sweet-natured lad recounted his earliest memory: a girl at school saying she'd rather run away from school than sit next to him. Other kids tortured him: when the end-of-school bell rang, rather than rushing out, he'd cry, because he knew the gang would be waiting outside. It was always led by his brother -- who wanted to show that he hated the weirdo more than anyone else.
It's mob behaviour. If the kids had met the freak individually, they'd have been curious and interested, but probably not threatening; but in a group, they attack, just like a tame dog becomes a savage animal when in a pack.
As soon as he was able, Pig-face ran away and joined a carnival. He made good money and loved the life. For him, it was paradise: for the first time in his life, his strangeness had become an asset. He knew that the success of the ten-in-one -- the carny term for a sideshow -- depended largely upon him. He was surrounded by people who respected him, admired him; in some cases, depended on him. One time, he heard that some ordinary dwarves in a competing carnival were using makeup to try to look like pigs. "They still look like ordinary people," he said proudly. "Not me -- I really look like a pig!"
His brother, however, was a failure, and constantly came to Pig-face to borrow money. Eventually, he asked Pig-face to hire him as his agent and "manager", which his brother good-naturedly did. The brother and his wife thereafter travelled everywhere with the carnival, although they always spoke contemptuously of the dwarf. Mannix eventually asked him why he put up with this abuse and indeed his useless hangers-on. "Oh, well, he's my brother," answered the dwarf gently. "Naturally, you want to do anything you can to help your own brother."
Freaks were the stars of the sideshow. Often, they'd be in a separate section of the tent, curtained off from the rest, and the marks -- the crowd -- must pay extra to see them, sometimes more than the main entry fee. This was termed a "blow-off" and often carried the whole sideshow - or even was a vital support of the entire carnival.
Even the rare mentally-deficient freaks enjoyed this star treatment. One rare type were pinheads -- sufferers from the congenital condition of microcephaly, in which the frontal lobes and cortex of the brain do not fully develop in the womb. The result is an individual with a tiny cranium, often rising to a point, and generally, severe retardation -- at best, the intelligence of a two-year-old. They can learn a few words and simple tricks but require constant care throughout their life -- which is normal.
Mannix'carnival had a group of three, billed as members of "the Savage Nairobi Tribe from Darkest Africa". They played together as happily as children. The star was Sally; when the time came for the talked to "turn the tip" -- bring the crowd into the tend -- he'd always call Sally onto the bally platform (a small elevated stage) for her come-on dance. It was uproariously amusing and Sally enjoyed it as much as the crowd. After a minute or two, the talker would shout "What you've seen out here ain't even a shinney. Come in and watch Sally do the African shimmey!" She then rushed inside, followed by the delighted tip.
Some years later, Mannix met the talker again. He told him that some concerned people had complained to the police about this "exploitation". The little group had been broken up and sent to different institutions. "I finally managed to locate Sally. She missed her friends and was miserably unhappy. She was sleeping on the floor, the food was terrible and no-one paid any attention to her. I asked if I could get her out by signing papers making myself legally responsible for her. The director told me, 'We don't want her here. She's restless and unhappy and keeps trying to run away. Besides, we're so overcrowded we've got patients sleeping in the lobby and three to a bed -- mentally disturbed patients who have to be institutionalised."
