"The release of Freakery is as much a comment on modern academia as
it is an intriguing exploration of the enduring fascination with
the construction and presentation of those "who have been coarsely
categorized as 'freaks, ' 'curiosities', prodigies' and
'monstrosities.'"--"Ethnologies"
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 categories: 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.
Freakeryis a fresh, insightful exploration of a heretofore
neglected aspect of American mass culture.
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