Here Come My 600-Pound Quintuplets: A Discussion of Reality Television as a Freak Discourse

History is littered with tales of the absurd, odd, and unusual. From Gorgons and mermaids to bearded ladies and elephant men, people have, for centuries, been fascinated by those who deviate from physical and mental social norms. Such fascinations seemed to peak during the 19th century when showmen, like PT Barnum, bought and exhibited those deemed too different and macabre for “normal” society. However, as science and medicine progressed, and the protection of human rights became more important, freak shows and travelling sideshows dwindled (Nicholas & Chambers, 2016). Society’s fascination with the unusual though, did not. Despite increased political correctness and calls to end “fat shaming,” bullying and the like, reality television appears to encourage “a dehumanising process that actually lessens our regard for other people” (Sardar, 2000). While some writers have considered how reality television exploits stereotypes and links social norms to hegemonic whiteness (Cooke-Jackson & Hansen, 2008; Rennels, 2015), few have commented on the similarities between such programming and the stylings of the 19th century freak show. Utilising Thomson’s (1996) concept of freak discourse, and Bogdan’s (1996) assessment of freak narrative, this article examines how reality television programming as a genre, despite its varied plots, uses a narrative formula that can be likened to 19th century freak shows to enhance its storylines and “produce a human spectacle” (Thomson, 1996, p. 7).

“One Hell of a Metaphor”

This chapter argues that disparaging ideas of disability amplified perceptions of racial difference in blackface minstrelsy and freak shows, which shored up fragile notions of whiteness to wide audiences. This is evident in Thomas “Daddy” Rice’s 1829 creation of Jim Crow when he witnessed an enslaved, physically disabled man dancing and singing “Jump Jim Crow” and in P. T. Barnum’s 1835 promotion of the nation’s first “freak,” Joice Heth—an elderly, disabled enslaved woman who was supposedly an astonishing 161 years old and the former nursemaid of George Washington. Thomas “Japanese Tommy” Dilward—one of only two black men to perform in blackface before the Civil War—epitomized the linkages between blackface and freak shows as a dwarf who gained fame as a cross-dressing, gender-bending fiddler.

The Mark of Slavery

This book makes disability legible in the histories of both slavery and race, arguing that disability is a critical category of historical analysis. Bondage complicated and contributed to enslaved people’s experiences of complexly embodied conditions that ranged across the physical, sensory, cognitive, and psychological. Ableist histories of racial slavery have long overlooked how the social relations of disability shaped people’s everyday lives, particularly within enslaved families, communities, and culture. At the same time, antebellum Americans persistently constructed and framed racial ideology through ideas about disability, producing and naturalizing links between blackness and disability on the one hand and whiteness and ability on the other. Disability was central to the larger relations of power that structured antebellum society and figured prominently in racial projects that unfolded in the laws of slavery, medical discourses of race, pro- and antislavery political rhetoric, and popular culture like blackface minstrelsy and freak shows. The disabling images of blackness created in these various registers of American life resounded long after slavery’s end, gradually fading into less specific notions of black inferiority and damage imagery. The Mark of Slavery simultaneously examines relations of power and the materiality of the body and makes clear that just as blackness and disability were not mutually exclusive categories, enslaved people’s lived experiences of disability were not entirely separate from and unrelated to representations of disability that fueled racial ideology.

Others among Others: Latvians’ View of Members of Ethnographic Shows

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Latvians, like several other non-dominant nations that were part of large European empires, actively argued for their status as a nation and fought for the right to be equal partners in economy and politics and for the recognition of their culture. The process of constructing an ethnic identity involves not only inclusion, but also the formation of boundaries and exclusion, defining characteristics in the public space that separate the group Us from Others, that is, other members of society as well as complete strangers. Groups offering ethnographic and freak shows stopped by the Russian imperial city of Riga with guest performances, arousing interest in the local public. The performers exhibited at ethnographic shows were the different others against the background of local others, and Latvians viewed them with more compassion than sense of superiority.

Curiosity

‘Curiosity’ explores the varied world of exhibitions in the West End. The district became home to a variety of popular exhibitions that stood side-by-side with sites of ‘official’ art and culture such as the new National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. The West End visitor could enjoy spectacular panoramas, which dazzled the eye, or poses plastiques where models made classical paintings come to life. There were also freak shows and events where non-white peoples were placed on exhibition. These included the Hottentot Venus and the Aztec Lilliputians. Exhibition-mania was particularly centred on Leicester Square but could also be found on Piccadilly, site of the Egyptian Hall, that offered curiosities, art works, popular lectures, dioramas, and automata. Pleasure districts abounded with what were seen as distorted bodies. This gave them the quality of what Michel Foucault terms ‘heterotopias’ which draw upon, but disturb, the culture at large.

The Future Perfect, Autopsy, and Enfreakment on the 19th-Century Stage

The public autopsies of 19th-century enfreaked performers remains a central issue in studies of 19th-century enslavement. While previously black performance studies focused on the instability of the historical past tense, the study of freak shows and enslavement dictates a reckoning with the future perfect tense, which sheds light on the history of the future by asking “what will have been” rather than “what was” or “what could have been.”