Freaks

For this blog I feel more up to having a discussion with myself than actually doing a mock essay intro style. So let’s do that.

The black and white movie Freaks is as disturbing a probe into the mind of man as it is twisted and terrifying.

Why the fear? The effects are poor, although black and white storms seem the most dramatic no matter what medium. The ringmaster said it best at the opening (paraphrased): Shudder in fear because you could have been them.

So this fear, this revulsion from seeing Freaks is because of an altered form of Xenophobia, right?

Well, yes and no. The movie takes great pains to give the Freaks sympathetic characteristics, posing them in ways that highlight their humanity, only to use the last ten minutes to show us what Arty meant when he said that they were the nightmares for the norms.

They were scary, covered in mud and appearing from the shadows in the dark of the night. Yeah, I wouldn’t want to have to run into them either, when they’re like that.

But – and this is worth noting – they were so normal, that yes, I could have been one of them with just an extra chromosome.

We’re afraid of the diseased because our reptile brain tells us that they’re contagious.

We’re scared of dark places because something might be hiding there.

We’re afraid of spiders because they’re disgusting and creepy. Oh, and yeah, they were probably poisonous.

The dilemma is we aren’t scared of what we don’t understand. What terrifies us, what shakes us and forces us to seek comfort in light is this: we understand our fears all too well.

That could be me – and yes, in Freaks, the norm, the scheming woman, becomes one of them.

Perhaps, if the end had been different. If she had wilfully become one of them, the film wouldn’t have been so scary. IF she had been given the choice, or at least had transmogrified in a non-aggressive manner, the horror of the situation would have been dulled. We could have seen her going about her business, hanging laundry with her feathered hands, clucking cheerfully as she waddled on – but instead she’s unaware of her situation. She’s been so altered and warped by what has been done to her that she seems utterly dead inside.

And worse yet, what if she did become one of them, but the kind of ‘them’ from the end - the predatory creatures that slink through dark spaces and rend limbs?

The fear of Freaks isn’t just a fear of becoming – it’s a fear of becoming a monster. To have lost everything that identifies you as human, going so far as to commit unspeakable acts upon others for satisfaction.

There are Freaks in the movie, but really, they only showed up in the last ten minutes of the film.