Born Charles Stratton, Tom had become Barnum’s latest victim. He was trained and given a whole new identity to appeal to a wider audience. At six months old, he had developed a physical deformity that stopped him from growing. Charles Stratton would later become “General Tom Thumb” he measured at 25 inches tall and weighed 15 pounds. It’s unclear whether Tom Thumb felt exploited by the exposure he was getting or if he thought of his appearance as leverage, a way he could benefit from and earn profit. P.T. Barnum and professor Sardie in The Museum of Extraordinary Things are a lot in alike. They’re both business and conmen, they mastered the art of deception and manipulation to attract an audience. P.T. Barnum and Professor Sardie, trained and …show more content…
For decades freak shows showcasing live performances has been dead. Public curiosity about physical differences still remains. It takes a new form in viral videos and reality television programs that are broadcasted today. Circuses and freak shows of the twentieth century still remain and favorite form of entertainment. The colorful, celebratory and peculiar esthetic of traveling and live performances were meant to draw in customers, a tactic that is still successful. Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk premiered the fourth season of American Horror Story around freakshows. American Horror Story: Freak Shows recollects and softens the history of the freak show by giving humanity and empathy to performers denied them in reality, while still being an exhibition. The show gives viewers the side of the story (while in a fictional world). It provides the perspective from the inside out, rather than looking from the outside. The viewers witness the discrimination and judgement the performers are faced in situations as simple as dining at a restaurant. The appearance of the characters are used for shock value to boost the “freak factor,” but as the season progresses, the characters cast as freaks are viewed differently from the first impression, filling out roles of friends, lovers, family members and dreamers. Rather than having the freaks be spectacles, the goar, thriller and mystery of the show, and every aspect of the performance was to make the show a spectacle rather the live
People usually expect to see paintings and sculptures in Art Galleries. Imagine the surprise one finds when they are presented with a man stitching his face into a bizarre caricature, or connected to a machine which controls the artist’s body. These shocking pieces of performance art come under the broad umbrella that is Postmodernism. Emphasis on meaning and shock value has replaced traditional skills and aesthetic values evident in the earlier Modernist movements.
When asked "What is the trashiest show on television?" I wouldn't doubt that the majority of the population would agree that it was The Jerry Springer Show. The show deals with people and there issues in the way like many other self-help shows do, for example Oprah or Dr. Phil, but the issues that are dealt with are quite different. Although one may argue that the people on The Jerry Springer Show are simply freaks, a sociologist would say that the issues on the show are dysfunctions of society and this show is an outlet for them to show off their abnormality. We must first understand the life of Jerry Springer to analyze his role on the show. Without a doubt, the show affects the morals and norms of society along with our perception of class, gender, and sexuality. Another important aspect is the role of the audience on the show and how that effects the roles of the guests.
In her 1997 article “Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring physical disability in American culture and literature” Rosemarie Garland Thomson explores the spectacle that was the 19th and 20th-century freak show. According to Thomson, the American freak show served as a “figure of otherness upon which spectators could displace anxieties and uncertainties about their own identities” (Thomson). The stars of the show were seen as freaks of culture, often crippled by medical deformities that left them on the periphery of society (Thomson). It was these spectacles that gave the American people one collective identity, helping distance themselves from the “anarchic body” that was being paraded. (Thomson). Although the traditional model of the freak show met its death in the 1950s, the Jim Rose Circus managed to successfully reinvent the spectacle for a 21st-century audience.
Freak has Morquio Syndrome which made him very small, and Max has Learning Disabilities and “was the size of a giant” which made people never open themselves up to Freak and Max. Those two didn’t really achieve anything until they became friends. In the realistic fiction novel, Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick he told a compelling story about Friendship, determination, and imagination. I believe the theme of this novel of the book is if you put your mind into it, you can
A circus is a magical place where it seems like nothing negative exists. Though accidents in the circus are rare, they happen. For example, in June of 2013, “ Aerialist Sara Gyyard Guillot, 31, fell 94 feet in Las Vegas and died before she got to the hospital” (providence.journal.com). Even more stories of death-defying acts ending in certain death have appeared over the years. Circuses can fill people with joy, but tragedy can strike at any moment. Just like Sara Guillot, the narrator’s mother in the story “The Leap” by Louise Erdrich, she thrived in the life of a circus performer. In the story, the reader walks through the misfortune of wind striking a circus performance, the narrator defines the astonishing achievement of her mother and how her mother handled her life even after the lightning struck. The narrator likewise demonstrates to the reader why she traveled back home to her mother using the literary element personification. In the story, “ The Leap” by Louise Erdrich, personification assists to
Is High School football a sport, or is it more than that to some people? Recent newspaper headlines include such items as coaches abusing student athletes; fathers of athletes murdering coaches, and mother’s disabilitating cheerleading candidates to assure their daughters make the cheerleading team. In Odessa, Texas high school football is a major contributor to the society of a small town in Texas society. Every Friday night, 50,000 people fill the stadium to see high school students put their lives on the line to win a football game. H. G. Bissinger writes a novel called Friday Night Lights, about a year in 1988 where High School players prepare and play on the High School team, and what an impact they have on a small city in Texas.
It was a cool, crisp November evening, while five teenagers were hustling and bustling around my house excitedly getting ready for their very first showing of the live version of their all time favorite movie. They knew it would be the best night of their lives. The night of my 15th birthday party, my friends and I all piled into my parents car around 11:00 PM and headed off down the road to the Heights Theater. The movie we are about to see is an all time classic. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the best cult film of all time. The movie has all the three basic elements it should have. It has funny audience participation, wonderful acting, and a great story line.
86). I like his definition of the word freak show, which is “an elaborate and calculated social construction that utilized performance and fabrication as well as deeply held cultural beliefs” (p. 86). The freak show was a place in which white people could come and recognize their difference and privilege and reaffirm their superiority over individuals who were different from them, who fall into the realm of the ‘other.’ It causes me to wonder that if some individuals saw this as a morally unjust thing, why was it such a popular phenomenon that had a great turn out? And it takes me back to what a friend said, that the only way things sell, is because there is a high demand for it. These freak shows were able to thrive in society, because some individuals needed to know and confirm that they were indeed higher than some other saps out there, whatever they had, they had it better than others. Yes these spectators were being duped into pay high prices to see people with highly exaggerated features, but they did not mind, because why they were there, was to have an opportunity to look at themselves and say Thank God, we are not like them and to reassert their dominance over the
Richard O’Brien’s Rocky Horror Show, as performed by Curtain Call Community Theater, had the crowd shivering with antici¬—SAY IT!—pation. After popping a tire in the middle of nowhere, the newly engaged Brad Majors and Janet Weiss decide to walk through the pouring rain to a nearby castle, or, as they describe it, the Frankenstein Place. All they want is to use the phone, but they end up getting more than they bargained for when they stumble upon the Transylvanian Convention. At the castle Brad and Janet meet Riff Raff and Magenta, the servants of the castle; Columbia, a groupie; Eddie, a delivery boy who botched his delivery; Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a transvestite mad scientist; and Rocky, Frank’s creation. A few musical numbers, sexual encounters,
Tate Langdon was a main character in the first season of American Horror Story. Tate was a ghost residing in the murder house. He first appeared in the first episode as a patient of Dr. Ben Harmon's. Tate had other brother and sisters but he is the only one of which not burdened by some sort of mental or physical defect, although he was shown to be psychologically disturbed. This is due largely to his father's absence and his mother's neglect as a child. Tate reached his breaking point in 1994 when he set his mother's boyfriend, Larry Harvey, on fire for murdering his brother with a pillow and then afterwards committed a mass shooting at Westfield High, taking the lives of 15 students (Wikia). Following the shooting, Tate returned home where he was killed by a SWAT team and since then has resided in the murder house. Tate has a very grunge-like appearance. His personality is described as empty and depressed, shown by bags under his eyes, and a dark demeanor. There is tension between him and his mother, Constance. He has even admitted to her that he hates her. His hatred for his mothe...
The meaning of reality TV in American culture can differ from person to person. Overall, the purpose of reality TV is to provide entertainment, to keep viewers on the edge of their seats. At the end of every episode, the producers show a sneak preview of things that will take place in the next episode, which leaves the audience with a cliffhanger. In the sneak preview, the producers show a conflict that may arise, in hopes that the audience will continue to watch the show. After watching the sneak preview, the viewers develop a sense of anticipation and want to know what’s going to happen next. Reality TV is broken down into certain categories such as competition, entertainment, ect. In this essay, I’m going to be discussing The Amazing Race by using both a narrative and visual analysis.
Water guns, playing cards, toast, rice, newspapers and the never ending “Time Warp” are always going to be part of the Rocky Horror Picture Show that has been accepting freaks, weirdoes and misfits since 1973. The people, the virgins, and the experiences may change through the years and the places in which you attend will too, but one thing will always remain the same. Every Friday and Saturday night in theaters across the nation and Great Britain, these people gather with their friends and family to watch one of the best movies and plays of the modern, psychedelic generation. When you go experience the show, you will never forget that being yourself is the absolute best thing you can ever do for you.
The “Couple in the Cage” was an exhibition called “ A Savage Performance” curated by Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena. The exhibition was displayed across several European countries and some states in the United States. In the video, we see both Coco and Guillermo in a cage. They carry them around in the cage. The audience feeds them through the cage and takes pictures with them. In the trailer, we also see interviews with the audience. The video also juxtaposes old footages of exhibitions alongside this exhibition. Both characters are dressed in stereotypical attire. There are both characters because they decided to put on a show. The exhibition is not real and the tribe they told the audience they came from is not real. This trailer is part of a longer documentary, which goes into more details about the cities they visited, and commentary from the audience watching. The theories I will be employing in this analysis are ethnography, displaying the other in reference Sara Baartman and the politics of exhibiting.
However, while “freak shows” no longer have the same level of popularity, they have been able to attract a small audience and make a nice living for themselves. For example, Rachel Adams, author of Sideshow U.S.A: Freaks and the American Cultural Imagination, describes modern “freak shows” by stating, “Aware that scarcity or impending extinction are certain crowd pleasers, freak shows advertise not only the rarity of individual attractions, but the more general enterprise of human exhibition itself as a threatened practice” (Adams 211). Showmen have become aware that they need to change the way they advertise “freak shows” because people are more aware of their exploitative past. So, they advertise the shows in more of a family-friendly or
Stoddart, H., 2000. Rings of Desire: Circus history and representation. Manchester: Manchester University press .