Join us as we delve into the lineage and legacy of Tod Browning’s pre-code horror classic. From the morality police to representation of disability to community building through murder, we discuss why Freaks remains a unique and unrepeatable entry in the horror canon.
REQUIRED READING
Freaks. Dir. Tod Browning, 1932.
EXTRA CREDIT
Spurs. Tod Robbins short story on which Freaks is based.
What’s so Scary about Disability? Laura Elliott’s piece on the legacy of fearing some bodies.
Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space. Amanda Leduc’s exploration of how society has stigmatized disabilities for centuries.
Code of the Freaks. A 2020 documentary covering portrayals of disability in film.
LISTEN
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Wow! What an energetic and engaging dive into a much misconstrued film. Really enjoyed this one. I saw this in first year uni back in the eighties on tv and a lot of us ended up seeing it that way and it was all we could talk about the next day. I’d expected a dark exploitation movie, given the vintage but was blown away by the inclusion and the suggestion that it was the ableist characters that were the problem. That one ended with the reveal of Cleopatra’s fate and felt like a sensationalist shock. I didn’t see the epilogue scene until the 2000s on a DVD release. Oh, if you wanted a true-life horror from the culture at the time, 1981 when I saw this was the International Year of the Disabled and there on Channel 7 Brisbane, Queensland, they were not only playing Freaks (to their credit, really) but billed it as The Monster Movie. Queensland is kind of like a drunk uncle at a wedding as an entire state. Glad I’m no longer there or then.