In her article "'Gooble-Gabble, One of Us': Grotesque Rhetoric and the Victorian Freak Show" (1997), Christine Fergusson argues that "what bother[s] me [is] the ease with which we [are] able smugly to dismiss the gawking attitudes of the Victorians, who recognized only difference in the freak body, and assume a moral high ground via our own contemporary attitudes to bodily abnormality. We live in a society which has, since the turn of the last century, increasingly attempted to view the freak as 'one of us,' whoever and whatever the 'us' may be....however, the relatively recent move to domesticate or normalize extreme physical difference has consistently failed to be less voyeuristic, less gratuitous, than prior attitudes towards abnormality" (245).
Consider this claim in the intervening 14 years since this article's publication. In what way has physical abnormality been incorporated into the social mainstream or does it remain the unseen, the unspoken, monstrified by its relegation to the cultural shadows? Asses what is at stake in any such incorporation or excision.
I agree with Ferguson’s point of view for the most part. While trying to think about the “accepted” people with physical abnormalities presented through public platforms or pop culture in the modern day; I am having a difficult time identifying any such person who is not ridiculed, exploited or parodied in one way or another. Television and advertisements are almost exclusively inhabited by the more attractive people in American society. Americans love beauty and they hide abnormality. I recall the smoking adds that utilize physical abnormality as an effect of smoking in an attempt to frighten individuals into quitting cigarettes. In these cases abnormality is supposed to imply grotesque difference or disability. In the Austin Power’s films the character Mini-Me, played by Vern Troyer, is not meant to be taken seriously, and he’s never going to win an Oscar or gain overwhelming respect for his portrayal of a miniature Dr. Evil. He is exploited as a “little person” through comedy (and I must admit I found him to be a pretty funny character). Years later when I saw him on the VH1 show “The Surreal Life” (which I am embarrassed to admit I watched for at least part of the season) he was not funny at all, but instead rather sad. On this show, his inclusion was for no other reason but exploitation and ridicule for ratings. I also recall years ago attending a bachelor party in which my friends (although I begrudgingly call them that) hired “little people” to wrestle each other for our enjoyment; which is very similar to a century ago where they were made into spectacles by being paid crumbs to duke it out in boxing matches. The fact that this is still going on today in a certain manner (one could argue it is even more humiliating today) shows that we have not really come that far. The most disturbing part of the bachelor party was watching a room full of intelligent yet intoxicated college kids play the game “midget tossing” which is exactly as it sounds, but actually more disgusting and humiliating than one can perceive. We like to think we have become enlightened by replacing terms like “midget” with “little person” or “freak” with “physical abnormality,” but, to steal an old cliché, actions speak louder than words; and to a large extent, in my opinion, Americans have remained motionless over the past 100 years.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Fergusson’s claim that the general attitude towards physically abnormal people has not improved, but I do not agree that we are still as voyeuristic. I actually think that the opposite is true. Although there are still cases of exploitation, like Sean has pointed out, this is not the overall trend. Instead, people have a tendency to look away and ignore the deformities in an effort to behave in a more civilized way. Circus sideshow acts like those depicted in Freaks would never be successful in our society today. People would be outraged and demand that the circus be shut down. Although on the surface it seems like we’ve improved, we really haven’t. Instead of being too voyeuristic, we have gone too far to the other extreme by pretending that we don’t even notice. This reminds me of a psychological experiment studying the avoidance of the handicapped (Snyder, Strenta, and Mentzler, 1979). In the experiment, participants were lead into a room with two screens playing movies with a disabled person sitting at one of them. When the screens were playing the same movie, about half of the participants sat at the screen with the disabled person. However, when the screens were showing two different movies, only 16% of the participants sat with the disabled person. This suggests that people want to seem unprejudiced but the second they are given excuse to be, in this case their preference of movies, they are. I wouldn’t go so far as to argue that the Victorians’ behavior was better than ours, but at least they were honest. Their disgust was never hidden, which made those people who were genuinely accepting really stand out. Now, most people are just hypocrites that pretend not to see differences but are really equally as repulsed and appalled as any spectator in Freaks.
ReplyDeleteIf I understand Christine Fergusson’s argument, it seems to claim that we in modern day society tend to believe that we possess high morals hence we are quick to criticize the attitude of the Victorians who used the freaks as laughing stocks. Freaks, as they were called then, are physically deformed individuals. Some were used for entertainment purposes by the Victorians who would find pleasure in their weirdness while they were made to perform in front of them. We, on the other hand, want to feel that we are unlike those insensitive people who mocked others who had no control over the way they were born. As Fergusson points out, we are no better than the Victorians, for we too have failed in every attempt that we make to incorporate these individual into the social mainstream. First, as the Victorians, we never seem to be able to avoid looking at them intently. These over emphasized sheepish glances that we throw in their direction render them suspicious of our feelings towards them and make them feel more conscious of the way they look. Secondly, some people express anger, disgust, and sometimes impatience, in action if not in words, when individual with any sort of handicap hinder their movement due to their slowness in getting around. Such reactions cause the “freaks” to feel unwanted and uncomfortable around normal people.
ReplyDeleteIn the intervening fourteen years since Fergusson’s article was published, there is evidence of efforts being made to help the disabled, as they are now called, to adapt to normal life. In most cosmopolitan cities, there is a desire to draw these deformed individual out of seclusion and include them in everyday life and activities. One of the ways in which this is being done is by granting them easy access to places and things that they would not otherwise be capable of reaching or doing. Indeed, we want them to feel like they are one of us. Nevertheless, the situation of the physical deformed has not really changed. They still have reasons to believe that they are different in a negative way because when they are seen in public, people’s uncontrolled and very often surprised reactions towards them remain the same. I would surmise that people’s reaction is, in no doubt, without out any malicious intent but the constant stare causes them to be bashful and pushes them to shun the public. It seems that the only time that these deformed individual feel comfortable among normal people is when they are making fun of themselves. Have years of mockery, centuries ago, caused them to feel comfortable only when they are secluded or when they are acting ridiculously for people to laugh?
It seems that the more things change, the more they remain the same? Aren’t dwarfs and midgets still performing in circus around the world? They might be remunerated for exhibiting their talents but don’t they still make us laugh? Is there a difference between making the Victorians laugh and making us laugh whether we pay for it or not?
People with malformation are not the only ones who experience exclusion from society. In “District 9,” we saw that the prawns were excluded because they were different. They were considered undesirable and were therefore fenced off from other people. The blacks in South Africa under apartheid were given only 13% of the land and were excluded from the rest of the country. They were in the process of even losing their nationality; in fact some of them did when they were forced to live in the Bantustans. Even closer to home, in the south of the US during segregation, the blacks endured the same feeling of not belonging and felt like foreigners in their own country. Hence, much more is needed to be done for all people to feel that there is a place for them in society.
The Americans with Disabilities Act of the 1990 added physical disability to the list of characteristics that are protected from discrimination. De jure, the disabled enjoy all the privileges of modern society, but is it so de facto? At a closer look, things haven’t changed much since Victorian times, and Fergusson is right in her observation that “the relatively recent move to domesticate or normalize extreme physical difference has consistently failed to be less voyeuristic, less gratuitous, than prior attitudes towards abnormality". If to follow Ingebretsen’s reasoning, Victorian society deliberately staked the disabled as monsters to deny them the “somebody next door” role and expel them from the social realm. Today, legislation granted amnesty to the physical deformity through re-incorporating its carriers back into the society as its fully fledged members that have the right to all public accommodations. Enforced legal rights acknowledge the disabled as those who live among us, next door. Be it as it may, such internalization did not remove the disabled from the social margin. The reason for it is our excessive stress on looks as the admission ticket into the social arena. If to look at successful business people, most of them are physically fit, and that is the aesthetic template we all strive for. Besides, Hollywood has perpetuated this visual image and elevated it onto a pedestal. Plastic surgery is booming these days, and so many of us count calories and diligently exercise to conform to the institutionalized beauty standards. People magazine keeps these standards in check when it ridicules cellulite, stretch marks, and other physical traits as flaws that celebrities should eliminate if they want to keep the “beautiful” tag. Conveniently coming to rescue the readers distressed with their own looks, other magazines list a variety of ways and techniques to achieve such beauty. Clearly, merely being physically capable no longer guarantees us societal approval, and being socially competitive has many strings attached. In view of the elevated beauty standards, the disabled are at an even larger disadvantage today. We officially prohibited discrimination to only check box. Now relieved, we can hypocritically hide our prejudice behind legislation and ignore the disabled all together just like we do on the train in an attempt to conceal our ever present voyeurism.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the arguments put forth by Christine Fergusson with the caveat that voyeuristic acknowledgment of the past has been replaced by what they say in military "don’t ask,don’t tell" mentality. Alas, despite the passage of time, discrimination is still alive and breathing amongst us. Society's attitude towards physical abnormality has changed over the last century in the sense that we do not discriminate openly but have become more diplomatic, hypocritical and pretentious in our communication and behavior. For instance, even if we think someone is a midget, we won't call it out loud. We no longer discriminate openly (as might have been the case a century ago) driven mainly by our fear of lawsuits.
ReplyDeleteMoral policing and enactment of legislations against discrimination (such as Woman's Suffrage Act of 1920, Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990) have reined in the wild spirits which were still loose in the Victorian era. Society is just an agreed upon way of doing things and in response to public outcry against discrimination and backed by these legislations, it has rewritten these rules such that we can no longer openly discriminate in public (including against people with physical deformities).
We now applaud people who are able to overcome their physical limitations in order to succeed in life. For instance, Stephen Hawking has been able to extend our understanding of physics despite being almost completely paralyzed. Similarly, we cheer on athletes with mental / physical disabilities who participate in Paralympic games and Special Olympics.
However, as I said in the beginning, this is not to say that we are now a discrimination free society. Discrimination is very much present in our day to day life lurking few inches beneath the surface. We as a society worship physical perfection. We simply fail to acknowledge that it exists. It is no coincidence that average height of an NBA player is 6 feet 7 inches or that average waist size of a fashion model is ~24 inches.
The other day I got on the train behind a blind man. While others cut him off or pushed in front of him, impatient at his slow progress, I patted myself on the back for respecting his space and patiently waiting for him to find a seat before finding one near him myself. I have to say….it is AMAZING how people with disabilities or physical deformities are able to adapt and function. He carefully arranged all of his bags and then placed his jacket up in the upper rack. Twenty minutes went by, the conductor announced the next stop, the man got up, grabbed his stuff, but left his jacket in the rack. Trying to be a good citizen, I grabbed it for him and went chasing down the aisle after him. “Wait,” I said, “You forgot your jacket!” He turned around and yelled at me, “No! I didn’t!” He had just gotten up to use the restroom. By trying to “help” I had offended him horribly! I was mortified. And then I realized just how patronizing my behavior had been. Here was a blind man who presumably took the train to New York everyday by himself….and I somehow assumed that because he had a “handicap” he needed my help. I haven’t even learned to hail a cab by myself much less take the train blindfolded. How presumptuous of me. The quote from Christine Fergusson says “We live in a society which has, since the turn of the last century, increasingly attempted to view the freak as 'one of us,' whoever and whatever the 'us' may be....” How condescending of us if this is true! Why do we feel like we need to try to include “them”, to not look at them too closely, to smile bigger when we’re around them so that they will feel more happy about their lot in life, or whatever our guilt at being whole inspires us to do around people that we perceive as being less then whole. The problem isn’t with seeing them as different, I don’t think. They aren’t the same, so to pretend that they are is somewhat ludicrous. It’s treating them as less that’s the real issue. It’s assuming that they have forgotten their jacket because they’re blind. I’m a dedicated people watcher…and I notice all kinds of different. I don’t feel guilty for noticing that someone is more attractive than the average person. I don’t feel bad when I notice someone’s unique sense of style. Interesting hair, sad eyes, everyone has something about them that’s different. So why can’t I notice a “handicapped” person and be amazed by their difference? Why can’t it be a difference that is beautiful, and worthy of admiration, and notice? Why would they want to be “one of us”? That would imply that there’s something wrong with being “one of them.”
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I have to agree with Fergusson's claim that though we may like to think that we have come a long way from the days in which individuals with physical abnormalities were singled out and ridiculed, in today's cultural environment, these differences are not only continuously singled out but indeed exploited. Indeed, there are entire industries that thrive precisely on this concept. Each year, women and men alike spend billions upon billions of dollars on their personal appearance in a need to homogenize their appearance and eliminate any differentiating characteristics that may distinguish them from the overall mass, and thus cause them to be removed from the majority. However, the things that separate them are often tiny, insignificant differences; a few extra pounds, a blemish etc... Yet, our culture has conditioned each and every one of us to constantly strive towards that unattainable level of physical perfection.
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