Written by Doublethink ( 26/4/08 )
I had the great pleasure of seeing Todd Browning's "Freaks" ( 1932 ), soon after it was unbanned, some 50 years after being made. The movie was controversial because it used real "freaks" as actors, most memorably the pin-heads & the half-man. The movie was released at a time when "freaks" were hidden away and not discussed in polite society.
What's this got to do with Big Brother?..bear with me and I'll tell you. Big Brother 2008 is going to be a freak show. Some say it always was, but this year with the likes of the repulsive Travis and a Homunculus, BB has upped the ante.
Big Brother's previous series is similar to Freaks (1932), where the most repulsive people are also the most superficially beautiful. Check out the video clip below, pity about the dubbed music.
Society has moved on from shunning, humiliating and ridiculing the lesser fortunate souls amongst us to a position of understand and sympathy.
In the late sixties and early seventies John Waters made a series of movies where the "freaks" were not the deformed, but the fringe dwellers of society. Below is a clip from his "Multiple Maniacs", where Devine get's raped by a giant Lobster.
..and the notoriously subversive "Pink Flamingos"
Later in the 1980's, when Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's movie "The Elephant Man", is pursued into the public lavatories by an angry crowd he stands his ground and announces with dignity "I am not an animal, I am a human being" The way Big Brother is depicting the likes of the hideously annoying Travis is the complete opposite.
Big Brother Freak Show 08, lead by the bulbous and grotesque ringmaster Kyle Sandilands is a return to the past where freaks are presented for our amusement and ridiclule. Some say it's just Kyle deflecting attention away from his own depravity & physical anomalies? But I think the influence of the poorly educated moron Kyle is at fault. His exploitation of freaks for laughs is deplorable.
Travis is a freak, Travis is a proud moron, one who praises his worst assest as his best. No crime there, but Big Brother highlighting it in the promos is asking us to hate this fucker, to throw rotten fruit at him, to ridicule him, to laugh at him, to shout obscenities at the TV, to eventually punish him by rejection & eviction. A simple case of exploitation of the dumb who are not self aware.
Big Brother puts the spotlight on Travis, knowing this sub-human will proudly perform his deviant qualities for our amusement. Cringe TV has never been so devoid of ethics.
To end, I'll show you a work of art that uses a "freak" in it. It is by Joel-Peter Witkin a world renowned artist who is in the collection on many art musuems, such as the Museum of Modern Art. A sublime work that mixes beauty & repulsion. It is unlike Big brother which will have no beauty in it, just repulsion.
In "Freaks" (1932) the most repulsive person in it is the normal beautiful woman.
In John Water's movies the "freaks" made the movies about themselves as fringe dwellers of society.
In the Elephant Man, Joseph Merrick is depicted with dignity.
In Big Brother Freak Show 08, the freaks are presented for our amusement, revulsion. ridicule and hatred.
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