Description
Book SynopsisSociety has long been fascinated with the freakish, shocking and strange. In this book Gary Cross shows how freakish elements have been embedded in modern popular culture over the course of the 20th century despite the evident disenchantment with this once widespread cultural outlet. Exploring how the spectacle of freakishness conflicted with genteel culture, he shows how the condemnation of the freak show by middle-class America led to a transformation and merging of genteel and freak culture through the cute, the camp and the creepy. Though the carnival and circus freak was marginalised by the 1960s and had largely disappeared by the 1980s, forms of freakish culture survived and today appear in reality TV, horror movies, dark comedies and the popularity of tattoos.
Freak Show Legacies will focus less on the individual freak' as the other' in society, and more on the audience for the freakish and the transformation of wonder, sensibility and sensitivity that this phenomenon ent
Trade ReviewGary Cross makes some intriguing and troubling connections between an earlier fascination in American culture, and contemporary blind spots. An imaginative use of historical perspective. * Peter N. Stearns, Provost Emeritus and University Professor, George Mason University, USA. *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Carnival Culture and the Challenge of Gentility in the Early 20th Century 2. Marginalizing the Freak 3. Domesticated Freaks: Varieties of the Cute and the Wondrous Childhood 4. Countercultures of the Freakishly Camp 5. The Dark Side of the Freak Returns 6. Modern Pop Culture: Conventionality in Counterculture
