The cinema is full of very strange pictures that, for one reason or another, have faced bans. One of them was the film Freaks, released in 1932 and gathering dust on the shelf for 28 years. Why did it happen, and why did he scare the world audience so much?
The picture “Freaks” managed not only not to please the audience, but frankly shocked them, falling under a censorship ban even in the seemingly more loyal USA and Great Britain. True, in the 1960s, this old horror still managed to become a cult. Many today probably stumbled upon strange cuts from it.
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The film is dedicated to the hard everyday life of American circus performers, where the only outwardly pretty character was the aerial gymnast Cleopatra, played by the Soviet actress of the Moscow Art Theater Olga Baklanova, who at one moment simply decided not to return from her tour in the USSR.
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The rest of the “outlandish” characters were drawn from real circuses and simply played themselves. In essence, “Freaks” is a reality show woven into the storyline, where all these people with disabilities made huge fees, subjected to wild ridicule from the audience.
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It was in Moscow that circus performers were respected, attracting them to participate in the parade on the day of the athlete. And in the provincial-wild USA … they took dwarfs, and bearded women, and other people with disabilities, who entertained the crazy audience without any special effects, into the big top.
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But they just didn’t have that much fun. At least, this can be judged from Nabokov’s story “The Potato Elf”, because the author was well acquainted with such circuses. But there is only about one, and here is a whole company of “Uglies”.
What is the plot of this film? This same Cleopatra decides to marry the dwarf Hans to herself in order to get his money and then poison him.
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The latter, for her sake, abandons his midget, however, quickly after that he learns about the meanness being planned. As a result, the whole circus decides to severely punish the gymnast, because in the next frame they show her disfigured.
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Someone could feel sorry for her, someone not, like the dwarf himself. However, the plot “from one extreme to another” lives on today. Even 100 years ago, the flaws of nature frightened some and caused evil laughter from others, like bearded women, who became the “sacred cows” of tolerance.
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However, there is a similar show “Freaks” today, however, they now call it Eurovision. That’s just a clear line between laughing and being scared is erased, but can the pendulum swing back again?
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