Freaks

Freaks is a film we watched a while ago. I have been thinking to do a wee series about it but haven't quite got round to it.

There are spoilers below but the gist of the film is more or less given to you in the first few minutes so I don't think it is too much of a problem.

The leader of a circus sideshow falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, much to the dismay of his fiancee. Everybody seems to know it except him - she is only interested in him for his money. When they marry, she gets drunk and tells the performers how much she despises them. Horror ensues.

The films was controversial when it first came out as it features real circus sideshow performers. For some reason it was acceptable to perform in circuses but not on the silver screen. I tried to find out more about the performers and found some very interesting and some very heartbreaking stories.

Nowadays circus freaks are the people who hammer nails into their faces and so on but up until surprisingly recent times, things were very different. I hope to give a bit of a flavour of this without judgement as I do not think things are as black and white as they may first appear.