(For Day 10 of NaPoWriMo, the prompt was for a poem that incorporates alliteration and wordplay, two of my favorite devices.)

The freaks reek (it’s in the name),
Reek of pity, guilt, and shame,
Of all those shattered might-have-beens
Their parents might have held for them.

Anomalies aren’t animals,
Just popular improbables,
While others claim it isn’t cruel
To void for them the Golden Rule.

Abnormalcy (abnormal, see?)
Says, hey, how great can normal be
When normal people tend to hate
The things to which they can’t relate?

Unusual, peculiar, odd,
Yet don’t all share the image of God?
Suggesting human value might
Be more than limbs or average height.

Normalcy can’t stand the thought
That there are lives it fathoms not,
Chained to common, standard, same…
But freaks are free (it’s in the name).
________________________

MPA rating: Not Rated (a strong PG)

I was familiar with Tod Browning’s pre-Hays Code horror classic Freaks, if only for its immortal chant of “one of us,” but I never sat through the short one-hour film until recently. It was notorious from the start for its portrayal of circus freaks played by actual sideshow performers with real disabilities, from a pair of little people (siblings Harry and Daisy Earles of the Doll family, who also played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz) to conjoined twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton) to a legless “Half-Boy” (Johnny Eck) walking with his arms. In the film, one of the dwarfs Hans is targeted by the scheming trapeze artist Cleopatra, who seduces him for his money, fooling the circus freaks until it’s made clear that she is not “one of them.”

While the film doesn’t shy from depicting the grotesquerie of sideshow oddities and wringing horror from it, it’s surprisingly empathetic for its time, presenting them as actual people with hopes, relationships, and emotions, living life despite their limitations. It’s Cleopatra, the beautiful but undeniable villain of the tale, that voices disgust toward her fellow circus members, so her comeuppance feels more like a cautionary tale than mere exploitation. It was odd for me watching the climax of the film since I really thought I had seen clips of it but didn’t remember that it all happened in a driving rain storm, making it even more memorable, one would think. Owing to its pre-Code daring, Freaks is more notable than the typical product of its time, both creepy and compassionate in equal measure.

Best line: (the celebrating freaks) “We accept you, one of us! Gooble Gobble!”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2025 S.G. Liput
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