"Freaks" for Equality

I know that there's a lot of controversy following Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic "Freaks" over whether he was truly depicting the "freaks" as he sought to -- as equals -- or if he ended up portraying them as the monsters the audience believed them to be to begin with.  Personally, I definitely see this movie as an argument in defense of equality and not the latter.

For my class, there was another prompt that we could blog about for this film and that was the argument over whether this film is a melodrama or a horror film.  I think that the these arguments go hand in hand as I feel as though most people who will say that this movie was a melodrama will also argue that it defends equality.  Likewise, viewers who think that this movie is a horror film will likely see it as a "demonization of difference".  To me, it really all boils down to that second to last scene where the "freaks" go after Cleo and Hercules.  If you watch that scene and your sympathy switches to favor Cleo, then you probably view this movie as a horror film.  You see the "freaks" as monsters who are going after this damsel in distress and they mutilate her out of cruelty and without regret.  If you're like me however, you probably would classify this as a melodrama.

A melodrama is defined as representing a struggle against or within the patriarchy.  Cleo creates this struggle by attracting the attention of Hans and encouraging his affections even though he's already engaged to Frieda.  She does this as a joke at first (of course until she finds out about Hans' fortune), which just showcases her affinity for cruelty, especially towards the "freaks."  In a typical melodrama, the issue that a woman causes is usually "solved" by either marriage or death.  In "Freaks," the solution is, I'll admit, a lot more brutal.  But when the "freaks" go after Cleo, I don't see it as them being irrational.  SHE POISONED HANS.  She didn't just break one of their company's hearts... She actually and legitimately tried to murder him.  Because of her murderous intentions, the resulting actions of the "freaks" should be considered as a self defensive move as opposed to in cold blood.

But how cool is that super old wine bottle though?

Something that just dumbfounds me about the reception of this film in the early 1930s though is the fact that the Parent Teacher Association and other organizations tried to ban it because they thought it was "morally indignant."  That, if nothing else, proves why this movie stands much more for equality than anything else.  They weren't lobbying for the ban because they thought that the "freaks" were portrayed as monsters, they were lobbying for the band because the "freaks" were being portrayed at all.  They didn't want their children seeing a movie about the "scourge of society."  Simply the act of putting these people into a movie like this is showing that they deserve to be seen and have their stories heard.  As it even was shown in the opening of the film, these people were outcasts; basically thrown away by their own families.  And on top of all that, they get treated on a regular basis like Cleo treated them in the movie.  And because it was obvious that Cleo was the antagonist of the film, I think it's expressing that "normal" people can be just as bad as disfigured people were believed to be, and that all these "freaks" want is to be accepted.