HACK #1 Abmornal as Enteritainment

The new movie, The Greatest Showman, exemplifies circus culture.  P. T. Barnum advertises for diversity.  He is looking for the strange, the deformed, the peculiar.  It became a place to experience the outcasts of society, defining American Culture by othering those who do not fit into it.

At this point in time Americans were determined to build their own culture, as stated in Encountering the Other “they found it impossible to think and write about American identity without also thinking and writing about its negative image, everything it is not” (66), but as the piece continues, these people were “seem not only terrible or inferior but also alluring . . . offering alternative, unrealized, and suppressed possibilities” (67).

They did not fit into society, but people were in awe of the performs, they became a form of entertainment.  Instead of being viewed as a possibility for what America could be, the circus become a representation of what the everyday citizen was glad they were not.  Inside the big top, performers were seen with wonder and awe, but life on streets had not changed.  They were seen as entertainment, not necessarily people.   It allowed performs to capitalize on their differences, but it further isolated them from society.

 

Sources:

Encountering the Other

Image Link:

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHZL_enUS751US751&biw=1163&bih=492&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=VoluWpuuPMTwjwPB1bCICw&q=the+greatest+showman&oq=the+greate&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0l3j0i67k1j0j0i67k1j0l4.9064.12068.0.13579.16.12.0.2.2.0.193.981.3j5.9.0….0…1c.1.64.psy-ab..5.10.1005.0…134.xK8yGnGsfWc#imgrc=14kr0TfaM0H5wM:

Hack 1: American Circus

The performers involved in the “freak shows” of American circuses were othered by their employers and the circus attendees.  These “freaks” were given a steady income and a niche in a travelling group, but it was based off exploiting their physical limitations.  The performers used “their own physical limitations as an opportunity to make a living in a society that might otherwise shun them,” but that does not mean they performed without emotional trauma (Davis, 26).  They were put on display in front of crowds of people who laughed at them and marveled in their flaws.  Another common theme of American circuses was cultural appropriation and orientalism.  Circuses would commonly include acts that seemed to come from the “mysterious east” (Asia and the Middle East) and would often include Whites dressing up as other races for the pleasure of the crowd.  The exciting nature of oriental culture drew in crowds even as the circuses presented an altered image of Eastern countries as seen in the above image.

 

 

The Circus as a Pathway to Empowerment

According to Janet M. Davis in her book Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top, circus performers were often “social outsiders” who, “found a refuge of sorts in this nomadic community of oddballs.” Often referred to as ‘freaks,’ people who possessed some sort of visually unusual or shocking trait (such as a woman possessing a beard) were used as human exhibits in the traveling circus. One’s immediate instinct when studying this trend in the beginning of the American entertainment industry is disgust at the insensitivity and barbarism of our society at that time. However, I would argue that these so called ‘freaks’ were able to use their appeal in the circus industry as a form of empowerment.

Due to the previously stated insensitivity of American society at the time of the circus, it is unlikely that these human exhibits would have been able to find work elsewhere, as their physical appearance would result in them being outcast and probably homeless. This is very similar to the situation of Native Americans, who, at the time were also involved in traveling shows such as Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Both of these groups were shunned by society because they were deemed unable to fit in. Human exhibits such as the bearded woman conflicted harshly with western ideas about gender, sexuality, and femininity. Native Americans were labeled as savages who lacked the capacity to practice Christianity or adopt the technology that was a cornerstone of Western society.

What these and other people who have been Othered by Western society, such as Jewish people, African Americans, and members of the LGBTQ+ community have found is that it is possible to capitalize on the mainstream society’s misunderstanding of them through entertainment. It is extremely interesting because these people use their situation as hopeless outcasts as a pathway to integration into Western society through one of the West’s favorite concepts; Capitalism. Evidence of this is in a statement by the ‘Fat Lady’ Lottie Barber, “My fat is my kingdom, my riches… I’ve never been broke since I struck the show business.” This is first hand evidence of how a person who has been Othered for conflicting with societal standards was able to take a trait she had been oppressed for possessing and turn it into a point of leverage towards success and empowerment through the traveling circus.

-Gavin Zanella

OTHERING