Freaks

I have to say, when watching the film Freaks, I really enjoyed it, and thought it was a really great film and a great representation of equality, and the deeper message of inner beauty vs outer beauty. After reading the articles about it though and watching the introduction, it was a bit of a bummer to find out how many critics found it to be more demonizing and creating of difference. I do understand the thought behind that all, but I feel like Browning did an excellent job in portraying these people in a good and true light. From Browning's point, he really made you like and care for these people, and flipped our views of human beauty on our head, by showing us how much more powerful inner beauty is, and how deceiving outer beauty can be. I felt like it made this point strongly, and therefore was a good representation of "freaks". Even from a cultural and simply an employee standpoint from the time, these people were all consenting adults. Now granted, our culture may have forced them in a way to not be able to find many jobs aside from this, or "freak shows". And that's another sad issue in and of itself. But this was a venue for them, and it was something willingly entered into, and it seems wrong for people to be so prejudiced against something like that simply because they believe these people were slighted. Just because they may have physical deformities does not mean they're not just as smart of an adult as we all are, but I think too often people overlook that because they look so different, and maybe so "wrong". It's sad really, that they had to be treated this way. I love that Browning put in the character of Phroso, a man who tries to emphasize that these people aren't really any different than us other than the way they look. I think that was the point of his movie. And doubly too, that maybe sometimes they are even better than people who look "normal", because their hearts are in a better place.