Insidious Showing Department

Mental Floss has a (dated, sorry, but the following points still stand) story about "Coney Island Freaks Past and Present."

To be totally honest, I think the author is in some ways doing a disservice to the Coney Island Circus Sideshow in directly comparing "freaks" to performers. They aren't the same thing* despite their admittedly intertwined heritage. The beauty of the sideshow, to me, is in the performance art and athletic aspects of such an event whereas freak shows (which, again admittedly, a lot of this blog can be defined as being an homage to) gain their beauty from mutations, alterations, and the generally physically unusual.

Anyway, the point is that we ought to always be careful to separate what are acts of skill and what is the appreciation of (or in some of our cases, let's face it, repulsion from) appearances. Both can be weird and beautiful but I think that we ought to give a little more reverence to what is a practiced art form than simply equating it with our reaction to other visual effects.

More information about the wonderful Coney Island Circus Sideshow can be found here.

* (n.b. I am reminded that in recent years in particular the Sideshow has brought on acts like The Black Scorpion, The Lizardman and Chuy the Wolfman which of course all cross over into the more classical "freak" category. Though I've never seen The Lizardman live I have seen the other two and still have to further note that they do have acts and are thus more of a melding of the two traditions instead of simply sights to see. Just another example of the intertwining of traditions in the public perception I suppose...)