Movie Review – Freaks

Freaks (1932)
Written by Willis Goldbeck & Leon Gordon
Directed by Tod Browning

Tod Browning had a solid career as a director in Hollywood during the Silent Era and into the first decade or so of Talkies. He is responsible for a significant first in movies: the first Talkie horror film with Dracula. Based on a popular stage play (which was, in turn, based on Bram Stoker’s novel), Browning kickstarted the age of the Universal Horror Monster with this picture. It also gained him considerable clout and a blank check to make whatever he wanted next. MGM was interested in getting in on the horror game and offered Browning a shot at directing one for them. The filmmaker decided to go with the short story “Spurs” written by Tod Robbins. This film would be considered Browning’s magnum opus & disgusted the studio so thoroughly they cut it down from 90 minutes to 64, and the lost footage was destroyed.

A traveling circus is the setting for many interpersonal conflicts and horror. Cleopatra is a charming & beautiful trapeze artist who learns that Hans, a little person in the sideshow, inherited a tremendous amount of money when a close relative died. Hans’ fiance, Frieda, is pushed aside as he becomes enamored with Cleo. Meanwhile, the trapeze artist conspires with Hercules, the circus strongman, to kill Hans after she marries him so they can enjoy his money. The other members of the sideshow, called “freaks” by people like Cleo, eagerly accept her as one of their own when she weds Hans, but the woman is disgusted by these disabled people. It also becomes clear to them why she has married their friend. One rainy night, as the caravan of wagons makes their way to the next site, a conflict occurs, which shows Cleo the dedication these people have to each other.

Browning had a warm place in his heart for the disabled from running away to work in the circus at age 16. He would become a barker on the sideshow, allowing him to have friendships with people that most of society saw as monsters or unworthy of dignity. He would even participate in the sideshow with an act billed as “The Living Hypnotic Corpse,” where Browning would be buried alive. Browning lived at a time when marginalized people were literally criminalized for going outside. From the late 1860s, all the way until the 1970s, many American municipalities passed laws banning “unsightly or disfigured” people from appearing in public. Hence, it is hard to find images of the disabled in archival photos or footage unless it comes from a sanitarium. These people existed, but the supremacist ideology of America wouldn’t allow them to exist in the same spaces as everyone else. This was yet another insidious instance of eugenics attempting to erase human beings. It’s also why passing the Americans with Disabilities Act in the 1990s was such a monumental moment.

In Freaks, Browning makes a concerted effort to never dehumanize his disabled actors. He portrays them in the grotesque context of their roles in the sideshow but never performing. The entire film takes place behind the scenes, where we glimpse the warm domesticity of the community these people have formed. We are there when the Bearded Woman and the Human Skeleton introduce their newborn baby to their friends. Madame Tetrallini is the caretaker of the cognitively disabled people and treats them as her family. They have Microcephaly, so adults still have the cognitive functions of children. Browning constantly emphasizes how much these people love & care for each other.

Most other circus performers never treat the disabled as anything but equal. Only Hercules & Cleopatra, the clear outliers, seek to manipulate and abuse them. One of the clowns, who has a stutter, is in a relationship with one of a pair of Siamese twins. The other back talks to him as she doesn’t see herself in any relationship with the clown, and she ends up dating the circus owner. The film never goes too deep into it, but the hint of subversive & alternate sexual lifestyles is clearly indicated. Those laws I mentioned before also attempted to restrict the sex lives of the disabled, infantilizing them and forbidding sex between consenting adults who were disabled or between the disabled and the non-disabled. 

One of those offended by Browning’s show of humanity to the disabled was MGM producer & co-founder Louis B. Mayer. He was reportedly disgusted by the sight of these people and was one of the voices calling for the film to be trashed or at least majorly edited without Browning’s consent. It should be noted that stories abound of Mayer sexually abusing young actresses under contract with MGM. Judy Garland was one of his frequent targets, according to a biography of hers, Mayer having taken his clothes in front of her when she was 12. He’s also said to have had her sit in his lap in his office while he fondled her. 

I bring this up because there is a clear correlation between sexual abusers & those disgusted by the bodies of the disabled. If you view all women as objects for you to use, then the presence of bodies that don’t conform to society’s beauty standards creates dissonance in your head. “How dare there be people with bodies I can’t objectify for my pleasure,” you think. The only thing the disabled people in this movie were good for to people like Mayer was to gawk at & mock. 

Freaks is also a film entrenched in the ideas of solidarity. The disabled performers are tightly bonded but also welcoming to anyone who cares about one of their own. The famous wedding dinner scene is the best example, with the performers chanting “one of us” as they seek to bring Cleo into their ranks. Her disgust at them makes the scene ugly, the vile way she spits rancor at them and mocks Hans. That leads to their discovery that she is attempting to poison their friend and then the notorious night scene as these people crawl in the mud toward Cleo and Hercules, ready to punish them for this betrayal.

It’s a shame we will never see the full version of Freaks, reduced to a mere 64 minutes by studio heads driven by hate & prejudice. I’m glad Browning got to make this film, and there are some great set photos of him spending time with his disabled actors. It is evident that he genuinely loved these people and working with them. In popular culture, America still struggles with portraying disabled people as monsters. I think it’s better now than before, but old tropes don’t die quickly. In our world, the monsters are never the vulnerable, but rather those who exploit & harm them; people in nice suits with full bank accounts & lines of credit are the scariest monsters around.