After learning about Anna I’ve begun to look further into ‘Freaks’ by reading a chapter by Joe Nickell called ‘Human Oddities, Large and Small’. He describes a freak as someone who ‘stirs up both supernatural terror and natural sympathy... one of us, the human child of human parents, however altered by forces we do not quite understand into something mythical and mysterious’. I guess this is what has drawn me to the subject. All my past work has reflected ‘Otherness’, things that don’t quite fit the ‘norm’. (e.g. Hysterics, anorexics, giants, mythical/magical beings, monsters, ghosts)
Nickell tells us that these giants arise because of a very rare illness called Gigantism where the child’s bones over grow. Historically Gigantism suffers were used as soldiers or royal guards. When the supply of giants became low Fredrick the 1st of Prussia allegedly would kidnap women of appropriate size to reproduce with his giants and produce a second generation. It wasn’t until the 17th C that giants began to be exhibited in side shows.
The sideshows would often exaggerate the size of the Giantess by proclaiming her as ‘The Tallest Woman In The World’ and even adding a few extra inches to her height. Nickell tells us of a variety of techniques the circus used to make the Giantess even bigger.
cutting their shirts to make them appear wider
making cuffs to short
wearing headdresses or piling their hair on top of their heads
shooting them from a low angle in photographs
standing them next to midgets
This reminds me of the plus sized models I spoke about before. It’s as if Dakin is a modern day circus master, padding his girls hips and stuffing their bras.
Nickell also tells us that ‘While midgets are traditionally pugnacious, giants are usually gentle with a tendency for melancholy. In side shows a giant and a midget will often become inseparable friends, complementing each other in character traits’.
Nickell goes on to write about a different kind of ‘giant’, fat people. There were many fat ladies in the circus often weighing over 800 pounds such as Pearl Washington, Ida Maitland and the Carlon sisters. However they were often not known by these names but rather names like Jolly Irene, Happy Jenny or Jolly Dolly. Johnny Meah, who has written about the genre of fat people ‘suspects that whoever first yoked together the words jolly and fat had probably never spent much time around fat people’. Although a harsh remark, i would have to agree that in today’s society being fat certainly doesn’t seem to make people very happy. Meah, seems to be very critical of ‘fat people’ as an attraction, suggesting that they are self made freaks ‘who have literally eaten their way into the spotlight’. This reflects the way fat people in today’s society are considered lazy and told their weight is their own fault. The fat ladies would often dress in girlie, dainty outfits to make them more humorous. One lady, Sweet Marie, would pose in a bikini with a banner stating ‘Oh My! But She Is Fat’ suggesting the point of these fat ladies was amusements to make fun of. Another banner reads
‘She’s so big and so fat it takes four men to hug her and a boxcar to lug her. And when she starts to dance, she quivers like a bowl of grandmother’s jelly on a cold frosty morn. Hell, it must be jelly ‘cause jam don’t shake like that. That’s right, 532 pounds of female pulchritude. Mmmm boy! she’s a big one”
One image in the text particularly stood out to me, the picture card of Miss Peggy which portrays her as a pig. It makes me wonder what was going through the minds of these fat ladies. Were they happy or were they embarrassed and upset by the horrible insults they received. When asked if she was happy one fat lady replied ‘oh, sure... I guess you get a kick out of doing anything you do real well, I’m a real good freak and I know every night there’s hundreds of people willing to pay money to see me’. This suggests it is success that makes her happy. This might explain why body fat today creates such unhappiness, we are constantly told by the media that thinness equals success. A successful woman is not a fat woman.
Nickell also goes on to talk about a different freak, The Human Skeleton. These freaks would often weigh as little as 45 pounds! These freaks however were not anorexic, but often had a condition called ‘acute muscular atrophy’ which would cause muscle wastage. Many of these Skeletons would wear a costume of black tights, top hat and white tie.
Strangely a lot of Fat Ladies would often marry human skeletons which is reflected in this well known ryhme
Jack Sprat
Could eat no fat
His wife could eat no lean
And so betwixt them both
They lick’d the platter clean.
This has got me thinking about the dark and twisted nature of children’s ryhmes and fairytales. I want the images I create to have a strange mixture of humor and fear.
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