Thoughts on the film "Freaks"

I was instantly more interested in the film, "Freaks", when Jeff said that Browning had cast actual freaks in it.I feel like that if he hadn't it wouldn't have resonated with me as much as it did, and I would guess with everyone else who has seen it. The use of actual freaks makes the message come across more clearly. All that the characters went through in the film, I am guessing they had actually gone through in their real lives. Their emotions were authentic and probably drawn from personal experiences, which I think really sells the message of the movie. 

The fact that the beginning of the movie shows their everyday lives shows to the audience that they are just like the "normal" people. If Browning hadn't cast someone like the "Human Torso", I think it would have been much harder to show that the "them" is just like the "us". I think think that people who have a disability or are different from them usually do the same things they do, just in a different way. While the film showed that the freaks were just like everyone else in their everyday lives, it also showed how they viewed themselves as a separate community within the circus. They party together, try to warn Hans about Cleopatra, and then band together to help Hans with the Cleopatra situation. 

I also agree with what Ashley said at the end of her post. When someone is continually treated a certain way of told they are something or not something, they begin to believe it. Or it they don't truly believe it to their core, they sort of give up and decide "Why not? That's how everyone sees me, so why not just do that". Someone brought up the end of the movie where all the freaks band together to go after Hercules and Cleopatra as an example of that. They have continually called us animals and filthy, so why not show them what they seem to think we are.