Dangerous Bodies: Freak Shows, Expression, and Exploitation

Abstract

I. Introduction Their names tell exotic and terrifying stories: the Living Skeleton, the Bearded Lady, General Tom Thumb, the Cannibal, the Legless Wonder, the Lobster Boy. During the late 1800s these and other so-called "freaks" were presented in shows that traveled across America. 1 People from all walks of life would bustle to see the "freak shows," 2 which were extolled as educational and uplifting, starring "live" human exhibits. 3 Capitalizing on a new fascination with science and the inhabitants of foreign lands, freak show promoters would beckon to passersby, claiming the performers came from distant lands, manufacturing strange life stories for each of them, and asking only a nickel to see the rare scientific spectacles. 4 Freak shows became a less popular form of entertainment after the first quarter of the twentieth century, as physical anomalies were increasingly viewed from a medical standpoint and, later, as the beginnings of "political correctness" took hold. 5 In the past fifteen years, however, there has been what some have called a new "renaissance" of the freak show. 6 Today, the traditions, images, and fictions of earlier freak shows are increasingly reborn in traveling shows, displayed on internet web sites, and morphed into television shows and performance art. 7 Over the past twenty years, a number of non-legal scholars have investigated the history and meaning of freak shows in American culture. 8 Little or no attention, however, has been given to the laws and ordinances that regulate freak shows ...