Freaks

The love of beauty is a deep seated urge which dates back to the beginning of civilization. The revulsion with which we view the abnormal, the malformed and the mutilated is the result of long conditioning by our forefathers. The majority of freaks, themselves, are endowed with normal thoughts and emotions. Their lot is truly a heart-breaking one. They are forced into the most unnatural of lives. Therefore, they have built up among themselves a code of ethics to protect them from the barbs of normal people. Their rules are rigidly adhered to and the hurt of one is the hurt of all; the joy of one is the joy of all. The story about to be revealed is a story based on the effect of this code upon their lives (prologue to Freaks).

While waiting for a midnight showing of Eraserhead to begin, an acquaintance of mine told me he had seen Lynch’s avant-garde debut in the late 70’s on a double-bill with another cult-classic: Freaks. Most of the audience were hippie types and were talking and laughing as Freaks began, not knowing what was in store. However, once some of the freaks are first seen, playfully romping in an idyllic clearing, everyone fell silent. For the rest of the movie, he said, you could hear a pin drop.

That Freaks was actually released by a major Hollywood studio in 1932 is astonishing. The reaction to the film was intense and so negative that it was banned in the United Kingdom for thirty years and ruined the career of its’ director Tod Browning.

Hans, a sideshow midget, is seduced by the beautiful trapeze artist Cleopatra once she learns he has come into a large inheritance. Though she marries Hans, she continues her affair with another circus performer, Hercules the Strongman, and the two of them attempt to poison Hans in order to have his fortune. When the "freaks" learn about this they set out to exact a brutal revenge that leaves her the greatest freak of all.

The film used real-life "freaks" which were mostly performers from sideshows and circuses that showcase an array of abnormality and deformity. Pinheads, armless women, legless men, Siamese twins, the human torso, a hermaphrodite, a bearded lady, and midgets are among the societal outcasts that populate the film. They are mostly shown in mundane activities, thus reinforcing their interior "normality" and "humanity".

A common interpretation treats the film as a moral parable: the physically deformed are imbued with real humanity while the beautiful ones are revealed to be the true "freaks". The critique of appearances is a theme that can be found in works ranging from King Lear and Beauty & the Beast to King Kong, but a closer look at this film reveals greater complexity than is sometimes supposed.

Though Hans is seduced by Cleopatra, he has been attracted to her all along, and in order to have her he must reject the love of his diminutive (and genuinely good) fiance Frieda. Also, although nearly all of the "freaks" are portrayed in a sympathetic light, some of them exhibit a capacity for violence and brutality that is frightening. It is in the outcasts that the full range of humanity is most honestly depicted, where compassion and depravity struggle to coexist.

The film is not perfect. Most of the "normal" characters come off as caricatures and the ones that don't seem superfluous. Also, the ending (perhaps tacked on to make the film more palatable) is unsatisfying. Still, most of the film's brief sixty-four minutes are unforgettable. The documentary style approach to its subject matter, and the thinly veiled sexual undercurrent present in the film are worthy of further study and were years ahead of their time. Whether taken as a satire of the studio system or a commentary on society's treatment of its outcasts, Browning's film remains remarkably fresh and vital, one of the most unique viewing experiences one is likely to have.