American Horror Story and Philosophy by Richard Greene

Author:Richard Greene
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Publisher: Open Court
Published: 2017-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

By definition, of course, we believe the person with a stigma is not quite human. On this assumption, we exercise varieties of discrimination, through which we effectively, often unthinkingly, reduce his life chances.

Goffman’s basic thesis states that the extent to which a person is stigmatized and plays that role is based on how obvious a stigma is, its negative value in society, and how well the stigma is managed. Furthermore, the obvious aspect of the stigma and its negative value can be manipulated by how well a person manages the negative attribute(s), through the process of impression.

A stigma operates as a master status, a status that has special importance for one’s social identity, often shaping a person’s entire life. As such, not only does the master status impact the individual’s perception of herself, but “normals” dehumanize those with stigmas by viewing them only in terms of their stigma (such as the person in the wheelchair, or the person with the scar). It is not surprising, then, that entrepreneurs would capitalize on the discomfort, relief, and curiosity of the “normal” people about such physical “freaks.”

Freak Shows

Bodies that are visually problematic (scars, missing limbs, deformities) have always been more conspicuous than the bodies of those who are not visually problematic or so-called “normal.” Freak shows transformed everyday encounters between “deviants” and “normal” into entertainment. The dramatization of the encounter between “freak” and “normal” American citizens provided freak performers an opportunity to be able to freely display their visible stigmas in ways that would be prohibited in everyday life.

Though the exhibition of “different” bodies has a long history, the freak show emerged as a popular form of American entertainment in the mid-nineteenth century. The freak show encompassed traveling companies in the United States and Europe, and dime museums as well as exhibitions at carnivals, fairs, and circuses.

Most credit P.T. Barnum with the beginning of the freak show in the United States. He began his show business career with the presentation of Joice Heth, an African American woman billed as being 161 years old and a nurse present at the birth of George Washington. Allegedly, when Barnum acquired Heth in 1835, among her official papers was a bill of sale dated 1727 that listed her age as fifty-four years old. Barnum promoted Heth as “a remarkable curiosity” and he credited her exhibition as the official start of his career as a showman. Though his acts were subjected to uncomfortable, often judgmental, scrutiny, Barnum treated and paid his acts well.

The rise in popularity of freak shows directly corresponded to the social and cultural changes occurring in a nineteenth-century America marked by the Industrial Revolution, while the growth of industrial technology led to the United States becoming a more economically competitive global power. On the other hand, these changes not only transformed the family and gender roles, as well as drawing millions of immigrants looking for economic opportunity, it also led to a virtual plague of disabilities from work-related injuries—thus creating people stigmatized by their “abominations of the body.

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