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CURIOSITIES???
The display of human oddities was once
considered an acceptable form of show
business. There was a time, when the
exhibition of human curiosities "Freaks",
was the major attraction of circus and
carnival sideshows.
Performers involved in
these acts were
celebrities elevated to the status of stardom.
Appearing in tableaus or along midways, the
Freaks were billed as entertaining ,
instructional and educational.
These showmen pose deep and disturbing
questions about the human condition.
What of these
curiosities? Who were these
people? The problematic experience of the
exhibition of human beings for amusement
offers potential for abuse, exploitation and
enlightenment. We can learn much from
these performers and their lives.
* * *
" What monsters
men have needed to
believe in.... they have created for them-
selves in words and pictures when they
could not discover them in nature. And
it is with that psychic need, then, that
we should begin; seeking prototypes
neither in history or anthropology, nor
in embryology or teratology, but in
depth psychology, which deals with our
basic uncertainty about the limits of our
bodies and our egos ......But the myth
of monsters is twice born in the psyche."
Leslie Fiedler
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" Well, we fooled
'em a long time."
Zip Johnson
back 2 art n invent