American Horror Story’s (AHS) fourth season, “Freak Show,” follows the lives of sideshow performers who live on the outskirts of Jupiter, Florida. The season hosts a wide cast characters with extraordinary bodies and abilities, and functions as an homage to Tod Browning’s Freaks which, despite receiving mixed reviews at its release, has since turned into a cult classic for many American audiences. In this paper, I look at the differences in audience reception of the film Freaks (1932) and its AHS homage (2014). I also look at the advertising campaigns surrounding the release of both to see who/what was targeted in each campaign. I inspect these differences alongside a comparison of story arc and character representation in both film and television show. This paper supports my research goals of gaining a broader understanding of the evolution of depiction of characters with extraordinary bodies and/or abilities in American popular culture. In particular, I look at choices that AHS made regarding characters like American Horror Story’s “Meep” who is clearly fashioned after Browning’s character “The Stork Woman.” In addition to swapping the name and gender of the character (while keeping costuming the same), AHS brutally kills off the character early on in the season. I use perspectives of theorists including Garland-Thompson, Davis, and Siebers to inform my inspection of these elements.
About the presenterStephanie Flint
Stephanie is a PhD candidate in Florida Atlantic University’s Comparative Studies program. Her research focuses on monstrosity in literature, film and popular culture, particularly from the perspective of disability theory, reception theory and psychoanalytic theory.