Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body

by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson (Editor)

A groundbreaking anthology that probes the disposition towards the visually different

Giants. Midgets. Tribal non-Westerners. The very fat. The very thin. Hermaphrodites. Conjoined twins. The disabled. The very hirsute. In American history, all have shared the platform equally, as freaks, human oddities, their only commonality their assigned role of anomalous other to the gathered throngs. For the price of a ticket, freak shows offered spectators an icon of bodily otherness whose difference from them secured their own membership in a common American identity--by comparison ordinary, tractable, normal.

Rosemarie Thomson's groundbreaking anthology probes America's disposition toward the visually different. The book's essays fall into four main historical explorations of American freak shows in the era of P.T. Barnum; the articulation of the freak in literary and textual discourses; contemporary relocations of freak shows; and theoretical analyses of freak culture. Essays address such diverse topics as American colonialism and public presentations of natives; laughing gas demonstrations in the 1840's; Shirley Temple and Tom Thumb; Todd Browning's landmark movie Freaks; bodybuilders as postmodern freaks; freaks in Star Trek; Michael Jackson's identification with the Elephant Man; and the modern talk show as a reconfiguration of the freak show. In her introduction, Thomson traces the freak show from antiquity to the modern period and explores the constitutive, political, and textual properties of such exhibits.

Freakery is a fresh, insightful exploration of a heretofore neglected aspect of American mass culture.

Genres: Disability, History, Nonfiction, Disability Studies, Theory, Cultural Studies, Science

418 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1996

Reviews

[Sonanova · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the topics, though many contributors talked about the same thing. The book appeared to be suffering from a lack of contributors as most of the authors were grad students/PhD. candidates. I guess many were afraid to step up to the plate and hit on original historical sources. Furthermore, no attention was paid to the modern, self-made "freak". I agree that many people do not consider the man who drives a spike through his penis to be a freak, though I think it would have been useful to examine those who desire to identify with the word.

Only the article on Typee was of use to my thesis.

[Pilouetta · Rating 5 out of 5]

i recommend this book, cause I see how popular GEEK LOVE is. k. dunn is not a freak, but a fiction writer, however, thompson is an actual ass-tailed freak. she looks at the concept of the extraordinary body across a pantheon of disciplines, and her book is an anthology of some of the best writing on this subject. freak is an identity as powerful as race, class, or religion, but popularly absorbed by outsider characters wanting “other” status. it is not about how you look, but what your genetics are like when you are born. of course, with enough hard work, anyone could be a gaff. this is one to re-read and keep reading. gooble gobble gooble gobble, one of us, one of us.

[Johan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read a couple of the texts in this anthology and found them to be very good, especially showing how ethnicity/race, gender and sexuality intersects in the world of freak shows. Of special interest for me was the text about laughing gas demonstrations between 1800-1850.

[Elizabeth Bradley · Rating 1 out of 5]

A mixed bag. Heavy on the theory-speak, but worth dipping into if this fascinates you as it does me...

[Niue · Rating 2 out of 5]

You might want to pick up the book if the topic peaks curiosity in you. However it is (somewhat) repetitive and a little too academic for a simpleton like me.

[Victoria Edwards · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm working on a thesis project related to disabilities in nineteenth-century Britain. While this book focuses on America in the 1800s and early 1900s (particularly P.T. Barnum) it does give me a good foundation for my understanding of freak shows.
Bogdan's "The Social Construction of Freaks" was particularly enlightening about the methodology behind the freak show, but I also enjoyed Paul Semonin's "Monsters in the Marketplace: The Exhibition of Human Oddities in Early Modern England," which touched on my field a little more; Allison Pingree's “The ‘Exceptions That Prove the Rule’: Daisy and Violet Hilton, the ‘New Woman,’ and the Bonds of Marriage," which relates disability and feminist theory in early 1900s America; and Lori Merish's “Cuteness and Commodity Aesthetics: Tom Thumb and Shirley Temple," which discusses cuteness aesthetics as it relates to midgets.
I would also recommend that those interested in teaching a course about freakery read Brian Rosenberg's “Teaching Freaks," where he discusses his approach to such a class.
Of course, Jeffrey A. Weinstock's “Freaks in Space: ‘Extraterrestrialism’ and ‘Deep-Space Multiculturalism'" may have been the most entertaining, as he argues that our interest in freak shows has traveled to space in films like "Star Wars" (Doctor Who and Guardians of the Galaxy also come to mind).

[R.G. Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times a little too clinically dry and scholarly (Did you know there are four classifications of hermaphrodide? Well, now I do), Freakery is an exhaustive survey of the tradition of exhibiting human oddities from medieval times (Bartholomew Fair) to the present (TV talk shows).

[Alysia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this anthology and essays were a great introduction to looking at the history behind marginalized people and how they became that way, or why they chose to be that way. A great way to do some introspection on my own beliefs and expectations.

[Farren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A++ would teach again