The Virtual Circus: A Comparison of Appropriation of The Black Body in 19th & 20th Century Freak Shows and Contemporary Instagram Trends TATYANA BROWN
Black people have a history in the United States of having their bodies used for white consumption. In the late 19th and early 20th century, Black people were placed on stages and in cages in zoos, and museums. The “freaks” on display at museums, zoos, carnivals, and sideshows can be compartmentalized into five classes: natural freaks, people of determination with physical deformities; self-made freaks, who generate their own curious identity (i.e. tattooed people); novelty act artists, who are noted for their performances rather than their bodies (i.e. fire-eaters); “gaffed freaks,” who use performances to fake physical deformities (i.e. unattached “Siamese Twins”); and non-Western freaks, ethnic people (i.e. “savages” and “cannibals”) who were typically kidnapped from communities of color, often as children, to perpetuate stereotypes of being the lowest humans in the social hierarchy to white crowds for their entertainment.1 The non-Western freaks, and in the case of this paper, specifically those of the Black race, were intentionally advertised to cater to 1 Springhall, John. 2008. “The Freak Show Business: Step Right Up, Folks.” The Genesis of Mass Culture: Show Business Live in America, 1840 to 1940, 37-56
A COMPARISON OF APPROPRIATION OF THE BLACK BODY
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