Line #61 Film/Freaks


1	[[quoteright:320:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/freaks_1932_poster.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:320:''We accept her! One of us!''\
3	''Gooble gobble, gooble gobble!'']]
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5	->''With your silicone hump\
6	And your ten-inch stump\
7	Dressed like a priest, you was\
8	Tod Browning's freak, you was''
9	-->--'''Music/DavidBowie''', "Music/DiamondDogs"
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11	''[=Freaks=]'' is a 1932 Creator/{{MGM}} horror film about sideshow performers, directed and produced by Tod Browning (coming off of his success with the previous year's ''Film/{{Dracula\|1931}}'') and featuring a cast mostly composed of actual carnival performers. The film is very loosely based on Tod Robbins' 1923 short story "Spurs".
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13	Browning had earlier performed as a contortionist in a traveling circus, and much of the film was drawn from his personal experiences. He also took the unusual step of casting real people with deformities as the titular sideshow "freaks", rather than using costumes and makeup on conventional actors. In the film, the "freaks" are generally depicted as sensitive, kind, and well-meaning people. This contrasts with two of the "normal" circus performers, Cleopatra the acrobat and Hercules the weightlifter, who conspire to murder one of the "freaks" (a dwarf named Hans) and steal his large inheritance.
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15	Upon release, the film was met with nothing short of extreme backlash from patrons, who reportedly ran out of the theater in fear; one woman attempted to sue MGM under the claim that the film caused her to suffer a miscarriage. As a result, the movie had several of its most disturbing scenes excised and permanently destroyed, cutting its 90-minute runtime down to just over an hour; this didn't do anything to quell the outcry, and it died an undignified death in the box office as a result. Seemingly relegated to Hollywood's dustbin, the film was rediscovered over 30 years later by the midnight theater crowd, leading it to gain a following as a CultClassic and lost gem of [[MediaNotes/ThePreCodeEra pre-Code]] film history.
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17	One bit of influence the film has had: The "Gooble gobble, we accept her, one of us" chant with which the freaks welcome Cleo (not that she appreciates it) was worked into the songs "Pinhead" by Music/TheRamones, "Donkeytown" by Music/DoctorSteel, and "Separated Out" by Music/{{Marillion}}, and has long since eclipsed the film itself in pop-culture prominence. Music/DavidBowie also namedropped the movie and its director in the title song on his album ''Music/DiamondDogs''.
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19	Not to be confused with the 2018 film ''[[Film/{{Freaks 2018}} Freaks]]'', the 2020 film ''Freaks: You’re One of Us'', or the series ''Series/FreaksAndGeeks''.
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21	----
22	!! "We wouldn't lie to you folks, we told you we had living breathing tropes!":
23	* AdaptationalHeroism: In the original "Spurs" story, the freaks are all depicted as vainglorious, self-centered, and in competition with one another. This is in contrast with the film, where they form a nurturing and mutually supportive quasi-family.
24	* AdaptationTitleChange: ''Freaks'' is very loosely based on the short story "Spurs".
25	* AffectionateNickname: Hans, in one scene, calls his fiancée Frieda "Friedchen," the German pet form of her name.
26	* AmbiguousGender: Josephine Joseph. It's still unknown whether the performer was a man, woman, or genuinely intersex, as advertised.
27	* AnAesop: Just because someone is ugly or has a physical deformity doesn't mean you should treat them as sub-human, and anyone who does has a ''spiritual'' deformity and is the ''true'' "freak" in the room.
28	* AndIMustScream: Cleo in the final scene, unable to speak after... whatever has been done to her.
29	* AnimalMotifs: Cleo is referred to as "the peacock of the air". In the final scene, however, she's more of a chicken.
30	* AssholeVictim: Hercules and Cleopatra. Cleopatra only married Hans for his money and attempted to kill him to obtain said money. She also vehemently rejected the freaks welcoming her into their family and mocked Hans for his dwarfism. Hercules was equally cruel to the freaks and attempted to kill Venus because she knew what he and Cleopatra were trying to do to Hans. They both get their comeuppance in the end.
31	* ArtisticLicenseBiology: The deleted scene with Hercules as a soprano – castration of an adult male doesn't create the potential of a soprano voice; that would be a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castrato castrato]], who were castrated ''before'' puberty. Once a man's voice deepens, it never reverses, testicles or not.[[note]]On the other hand, given the modifications the "freaks" were able to do on Cleo, they might have found a way to "adjust" Hercules' voice.[[/note]]
32	* BattleInTheRain: The final confrontation between Cleo, Hercules, and the freaks, in a driving rain.
33	* BeautyEqualsGoodness: {{Inverted}} with the titular "freaks" who are actually very friendly and gentle people, despite not portraying the classic "standard" of beauty; the ones who do meanwhile are the antagonists. Played straight though with Venus.
34	* BeautyIsBad: Played straight with Cleo, who is as selfish as she is shallow. Although there are plenty of other good-looking characters who are treated a lot more sympathetically.
35	* BetaCouple: Phroso and Venus, whose relationship is given a reasonable amount of screen time but not much narrative weight.
36	* BettyAndVeronica: Hans has to choose between the sweet, attainable ingenue Frieda and the exciting, sexy vamp Cleo. He chooses wrong.
37	* BewareTheNiceOnes: The freaks here generally are gentle and friendly people, but when someone plans the death of one of them, they will not let you get away with that... you better believe it.
38	* BigDamnHeroes: Phroso saving Venus from Hercules at the end, followed by the Freaks saving ''Phroso'' from Hercules.
39	* BigEater: Hercules, who considers six eggs a light snack.
40	* BitchInSheepsClothing: Cleopatra. She pretends to love Hans so she could marry him and then take all his money.
41	* BodyHorror: It's basically Body Horror: The Movie; armless, legless, limbless, conjoined twins, dwarfism, intersex, everything that can go wrong with the human body and still live is on display here. Downplayed, since the whole point of the movie is that the "freaks" are still human beings, and shouldn't be treated any different because of a medical issue.
42	** What the freaks do to Hercules and Cleo counts as well. Being forcibly castrated and disfigured beyond recognition is far from a pleasant fate, after all.
43	* CircusOfFear: Zigzagged. The freaks are fairly mellow people unless angered.
44	* ColorMeBlack: Cleo, whose hatred for the disabled people around her drives the plot, ends up becoming a sort of human chicken.
45	** Hercules acts like a misogynistic bully throughout the movie, but one of his most pointlessly cruel acts is the way he torments Josephine Joseph, revolted by their androgyny. In the lost scene that concluded his character arc, Hercules [[GroinAttack is made]] [[InstantSoprano androgynous]] too.
46	* ComicBookAdaptation: A four-issue miniseries came out in 1992, written by ''Comicbook/{{Frank}}'''s Jim Woodring and illustrated by Francisco Solano Lopez. Per MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks, it's DarkerAndEdgier-- and much more graphic about what gets done to Cleo.
47	* ConjoinedTwins: Daisy and Violet, played by real-life conjoined twins.
48	* CripplingCastration: A deleted scene shows us that Hercules has been castrated by the Freaks and is now singing soprano. This is merciful compared to what happened to ''Cleo'', or whatever she’s become.
49	* CutlassBetweenTheTeeth: In the climax, the limbless Randian is seen wriggling towards the antagonist with a knife clenched between his teeth.
50	* DarkIsNotEvil: The "freaks" have deformities, but once you get past 'em, they're very pleasant. Rather, it's the "normal"-looking people who are the villains of the film, with their virulent ableism and overwhelming greed driving them to attempted murder and plenty of general skullduggery.
51	* DeathByAdaptation: In the comic adaptation, Hans blinds Hercules with a razor then runs him over with a carriage.
52	* {{Determinator}}: The "freaks." Their lack of limbs and/or other essential parts does not stop them from trying to have as good a life as possible.
53	* DiscreetDrinkDisposal: Hans spits out the poisoned medicine that Cleopatra gives him, by way of a handkerchief he hid under the covers of his bed.
54	* DramaticDrop: Cleo loudly drops the spoon used to give Hans his medicine when she realizes he is on to her.
55	* EarnYourHappyEnding: The freaks take brutal revenge on Cleo and Hercules. Hans, feeling guilty over the whole thing (even though he only wanted Cleo exposed for her crime and the poison handed over), has lived as a recluse for years. But then we see Phroso and Venus together, and Frieda gets back together with Hans, comforting him, telling him it wasn't his fault and that she loves him.
56	* ElephantInTheLivingRoom: Nobody directly mentions that Daisy and Violet are conjoined twins, not even when the fiancé of one meets the fiancé of the other. The two men even mention visiting the other couple even though logistically, they'd all have to live in one house.
57	* EvenEvilHasStandards: While not evil, Roscoe is definitely a bit of a jerk, and hung out with Hercules and mocked Josephine Joseph at the start. But toward the end, after it comes out that Hercules probably had (and of course, did have) a hand in poisoning Hans, we see Roscoe pointedly avoiding Hercules' company, refusing to talk to him.
58	* {{Expy}}: Not in the movie itself, but in "Spurs", Jacques Coubré (renamed Hans for the movie) is basically this for Tweedledee, the BigBad of Tod Robbins' earlier work, ''Literature/TheUnholyThree''. [[spoiler:Essentially, he's what Tweedledee would have been like had he actually gotten away with his crimes]]. The movie version of Hans is nothing like Tweedledee, however (despite his actor playing the character in the ''Unholy Three'' movie adaptations).
59	* FateWorseThanDeath: Cleopatra and Hercules. They don't kill them. Oh, no. That would be far too kind.
60	* FemmeFatale: Cleopatra, whose beauty betrays her venomous scheming against Hans.
61	* {{Foreshadowing}}: At the wedding banquet, the freaks propose to accept Cleopatra as "one of us". By the end of the film, she had indeed become one of them in a way they (and she) had not intended.
62	* TheFreakshow: The film is set in one for the vast majority of its plot.
63	* GoldDigger: The only reason Cleopatra was interested in Hans at all was because of his fortune.
64	* HostileWeather: Used memorably in the climax.
65	* HowWeGotHere: The film opens with a carnival barker telling circus-goers about a beautiful woman who was turned into a terrible freak. Then the camera cuts to Cleopatra in her trapeze, and the story starts.
66	* IJustWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: Frieda tells Hans she only wants him to be happy but knows Cleopatra will make him anything but.
67	* IJustWantToBeNormal: Hans is implied to have some feelings of self-hatred over being a little person. This, presumably, is why he finds the idea of a relationship with the "normal" Cleo so exciting, considering her inherently more desirable than Frieda.
68	* InsistentTerminology: "Children!? These are monsters!"
69	* InstantSoprano: The long-lost original ending supposedly had a scene of the misogynistic Hercules singing falsetto. Or, technically, castrato. [[GroinAttack Yes. That means exactly what you think it means.]]
70	%%* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Phroso, Roscoe
71	* JoinUsDrone: The famous "one of us" chant comes from a titular freaks accepting Cleo as someone who ''has'' joined them, whether she likes it or not. The difference is the context. The first time, they meant it in a friendly way since she was marrying Hans, a friend of theirs, that they considered family. [[spoiler: But when she reveals she was stringing him along. They show her they meant it ''literally'' as well and makes sure her appearance reflects likewise at the end of the movie.]]
72	* KarmicTransformation: Cleo, Cleo, Cleo... do NOT piss off the circus freaks...
73	* {{Mutants}}: Of a sort; the titular freaks' deformities are all ones that are now known to be the result of genetic mutations.
74	* LaserGuidedKarma: Cleopatra, who looked down on the freaks, ends up becoming a side-show freak herself. [[note]] In one of the cut scenes, the freaks castrate Hercules, turning him into a falsetto opera singer.[[/note]] Cleopatra is turned into a squawking "Chicken Woman", with her legs amputated, her face scarred, and her vocal chords ruined, along with being stuffed into a humiliatingly silly, sexless chicken costume that removes even the possibility of allowing her to present herself as appealing like some of the female freaks in the rest of the film. [[note]]Her transformation is even more gruesome in the comics adaptation, where the freaks begin by cutting most of her hair off in her trailer then mutilating her hands, feet and muscles of jaw, preventing definitively Cleo to closing her mouth. When she still manages to flee in the storm, they finish the job by shaving her head except for a few wisps left to stand out like clown hair, cutting off her nose and upper lip, burning her skin and ''removing her lower face flesh and most of her tongue, leaving his lower jaw hanging down and unusable ''. Only her beautiful bustline has been left perfectly intact to constantly remind Cleo of her lost beauty. When she's revealed in this state, her new caretaker has been instructed to feed her baby food and merely give her straw to sleep, defecate and urinate in, as though she's been reduced to the mental level of an animal, which the blank stare of her half closed right eye might also bear out- except [[AndIMustScream she's hardly in a position to protest to the contrary]], is she?[[/note]]
75	* LeaveTheTwoLovebirdsAlone: In the end, as Hans and Frieda reconcile, Venus and Phroso quietly leave the mansion so the two could have the moment together.
76	* LightFeminineDarkFeminine: Frieda and Cleopatra, respectively.
77	* MamaBear: Circus owner Madame Tetrallini where the more vulnerable freaks are concerned. She even calls them her "children."
78	* NiceToTheWaiter: Phroso being kind to Schlitzie and the Snow sisters, who are all mentally handicapped.
79	* OlderThanTheyLook: Hans and Frieda, by oh-so-very-''much''. They may look like children, but they're both adults and quite eligible for marriage.
80	* PlayedForLaughs: The scenes involving the conjoined twins and their romantic laugh were intended to be CringeComedy to some degree.
81	* PolarOppositeTwins: Violet is a fiery party girl; Daisy is a demure homebody.
82	* PorkyPigPronunciation: Roscoe has a really bad stammer.
83	* ProudPapaPassesOutTheCigars: When the Human Skeleton's child was born, he was later seen passing out cigars in celebration.
84	* PunctuatedForEmphasis:
85	-->'''Cleopatra:''' "FILTHY! SLIMY! FREAKS!"
86	* SexByProxy: Daisy and Violet, necessarily. They can each feel the other's emotions. The scene where one twin kisses her fiancé and the other twin lights up with pleasure is a surprisingly explicit allusion to this.
87	* SoundtrackDissonance: SCARY SCARY TITLE CARD! Perfectly normal hanging-out scene involving circus performers. Who are freaks.
88	* StalkerWithACrush: There's a scene where one of the circus workers is telling a story about a guy who keeps showing up in the audience and proposing to marry her, but the viewer is probably too busy watching the armless Frances O'Connor use a knife and fork with her feet to listen.
89	* StockShoutOuts: The "One of Us" chant.
90	* TheStrongman: Hercules works as the circus's strongman.
91	* TinyGuyHugeGirl: Cleopatra is the huge girl to Hans' tiny guy while she pretends to love him.
92	* TrueCompanions: The freaks are a family, and if you mess with one member, you mess with all of them. Cleopatra and Hercules find this out too late.
93	* UglyHeroGoodLookingVillain: The titular "freaks" (especially Hans and his lover Frieda) each have nearly every possible body dysfunction one could have, but they're good-hearted and look out for each other, meanwhile, in contrast, there's the beautiful trapeze singer Cleopatra and her handsome lover Hercules who view the "freaks" as abominations and tools to take advantage of, including Hans, who nearly got conned into marrying Cleopatra, who would plan to kill him for his wealth.
94	* TheUnintelligible: Schlitzie, on account of her microcephaly (a common complication of which is neurocognitive impairment).
95	* VomitIndescretionShot: [[spoiler:The final issue has Cleo's new caretaker upchucking on panel when he sees what the Freaks did to her.]]
96	* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: An inversion (in which a villainous character directs this towards the sympathetic characters) during the famous "gobble gobble, one of us" scene. Even though Cleo [[BitchInSheepsClothing (successfully) ingratiates herself with the freaks]] in order to scam Hans out of his fortune, she simply cannot hide her revulsion when they demonstrate their genuine acceptance of her.
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Context Film / Freaks