Enfreakment In Freakery

Enfreakment
In Rosemarie Garland-Thomson's Freakery: Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body, One of the most fascinating excerpts is the idea of “enfreakment”. This term incorporates the many elements that contribute to the creation of an individual as what most members of so-called normal society might deem a freak:
"Enfreakment emerges from cultural rituals that stylize, silence, differentiate, and distance the persons whose bodies the freak-hunters or showmen colonize and commercialize. Paradoxically, however, at the same time that enfreakment elaborately foregrounds specific bodily eccentricities, it also collapses all those differences into a “freakery”, a single amorphous category of corporeal otherness. By constituting the

freak as an icon of generalized embodied deviance, the exhibitions also simultaneously reinscribed gender, race, sexual aberrance, ethnicity, and disability as inextricable yet particular exclusionary systems legitimated by bodily variation - all represented by the single multivalent figure of the freak. Thus, what we assume to be a freak of nature was instead a freak of culture" (pg 10).
Enfreakment is another way to categorize individuals that do not fit into the normal stereotypes, and what makes them unique in turn spun them into "freaks".

Enfreakment argues that the body may be different, strange, even unusual, but it is the cultural norms that make them or their bodies "freak" or “freakish”. In fact, not one of these people in original freakshows were actually freaks. The identity of "freak" or the “freakshow” is a cultural construct created by circus mastermind, P.T. Barnum. There were numerous ways to show the "freak" to the public. One way this was shown in the readings is when exciting showmen on stilts and fancy outfits called the crowd to the show and presented “the exhibit” to appeal to people's interest in the culturally strange (ex. The elephant man Joseph Merrick). Another way to show the "freak" was glorified is to make sure that the audience knows their body is different. A problem with "enfreakment" is that it did not take into consideration what we now know as

disability.

Baroque Staring
The baroque stare is defined by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson in Staring: How We Look as being “flagrantly stimulus driven” as well as “gaped mouth, unapologetic staring”. This kind of staring is typically prohibited because it is incredibly rude, and can make people feel uncomfortable. The baroque stare typically occurs when an individual sees something that they cannot believe or that they cannot understand, causing them to focus all of their attention on this stimulus, and making them look foolish at times.
This visual exchange between the starer and staree is not involuntary, according to Garland-Thomson; rather, the meaning and impulse behind the stare depend on the situations surrounding the exchange. Garland-Thomson refuses to see all stares as destructive; instead she wants to “theorize the "generative potential" that staring contains.”(10) Staring lets us examine the social and psychological context of the situation and the people involved. Contributing a foundation for understanding what happens between the person staring and their victim. According to Garland- Thomas, “staring offers us one of the great human puzzles in that public life demands that citizens stare at the new and changing worlds we live in, while at the same time staring at one another risks intrusions far too familiar for everyone's comfort. Americans should always see a spectacle but never be a spectacle" (76).
The Baroque stare in public is socially frowned upon because the starer cannot control themselves enough to stop staring, and those who find themselves giving a baroque stare are typically ashamed and embarrassed for doing so. Baroque stares can create either a relationship of power and dominance or one of embarrassment and confusion for the staree. Garland-Thomson writes in the book Staring: How We Look that, “the staree is dominant in this relationship, because they have somehow piqued the starer’s so much that they have forgotten all things that are occurring around them and are instead more focused on the staree. This causes the starer to lose power in this relationship and be somewhat at the whim of the staree.”

Supercrip
"Wow you are so inspiring!"
"Stephanie has truly overcome her handicap."
"John is so brave!"
Do any of these sound familiar? They might if you are a person with a disability who has been on the receiving end of "good intentions" that have to deal with being a “Supercrip”.
Supercrip is the nice, stereotyped crippled person that somehow becomes a hero by being able to do things that so-called normal people might never do. Whether it be running marathons like INSERT HIS NAME mentioned in the Ted Talk film we watched in class or as (NEED TO LOOK UP HER NAME) mentioned in her interview with Stephen Colbert, that she liked having the ability to be different heights and have over 12 different pairs of legs. She is a different kind of Supercrip from Kevin Connoly because although they were both born without legs, they both had vastly differing reactions to their circumstances. In in his memoir Double Take, Kevin Connoly reports that he grew up thinking that he was normal. It wasn’t until he was introduced to what are typically accepted as regular societal norms that he saw himself as disabled. Connoly took Supercrip to the next level when he toured the world on his longboard, taking pictures of over 22,000 people who stared at him along the way. Therollingexpedition.com is an amazing website that embodies the numerous stares that Garland-Thomson introduced us to in Staring: How We Look. The Supercrip's sole purpose is to inspire the majority of non-disabled people while reinforcing the things that make this majority feel awesome about itself. Basically, the Supercrip provides a way for the non-disabled to be inspired by people with disabilities without actually questioning or making changes to how people with disabilities are treated in society today.

Social Model of Disability
The Social Model of Disability suggests that efforts to “change”, “fix", or "cure" individuals, particularly when used against the requests of the patient, can be prejudiced and discriminatory.

It looks at ways of eliminating obstacles that limit life choices for the disabled. When obstacles are removed, the disabled can be independent and equal within societal norms, while being in control of their own lives. The disabled developed the social model of disability because the traditional medical model did not explain their personal experience of disability or help to develop more inclusive ways of living. An impairment as mentioned in class discussion is defined as: “long-term limitation of a person’s physical, mental or sensory function.” A fundamental aspect of the social model concerns equality. The social model of disability focuses on changes required in society. These terms as discussed during class discussion involve attitudes, for example non-disabled forming more positive attitudes toward certain mental traits or behaviors, or not underestimating the potential quality of life of those with impairments. Information, for example using suitable formats (ex. braille) or levels (ex. simplicity of language) or coverage (ex. explaining issues others may take for granted). Public Buildings, such as buildings with elevators and ramp access to make their business more readily

available.