Rosemarie Garland Thomson's Extraordinary Bodies

In her 1997 article “Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring physical disability in American culture and literature” Rosemarie Garland Thomson explores the spectacle that was the 19th and 20th-century freak show. According to Thomson, the American freak show served as a “figure of otherness upon which spectators could displace anxieties and uncertainties about their own identities” (Thomson). The stars of the show were seen as freaks of culture, often crippled by medical deformities that left them on the periphery of society (Thomson). It was these spectacles that gave the American people one collective identity, helping distance themselves from the “anarchic body” that was being paraded. (Thomson). Although the traditional model of the freak show met its death in the 1950s, the Jim Rose Circus managed to successfully reinvent the spectacle for a 21st-century audience.

During the era of P.T. Barnum, the stars of the freak show were those that were visibly deformed, the more extraordinary their disability, the more successful of an act they were (Thomson). Thomson notes that eventually the extraordinary moved from “portent to pathology”, the freaks of the 19th and 20th-century became the medical specimens of the 21st-century (Thomson). As moral values shifted in modern day society, Rose

worked to redefine the “freak”, focusing his act on those who subjected themselves to bizarre acts such as torture and others who had modified their body’s. Some of Roses most popular acts were covered from head to toe in tattoos, with various body piecing’s. However, despite this shift away from the physically disabled “freak”, the Jim Rose Circus does little to change the audience’s attitudes towards the performers. As Thomson stresses in her article, the acts of the past were regarded as freaks of culture that soothed onlooker’s doubt (Thomson). In the Jim Rose Circus the acts are still looked as the cultural “other”, those who are willing to tattoo their entire bodies, pierce their tongues, and swallow razor blades. Their extraordinary bodies help define the ordinary and give the audience one collective identity of the “common man”.
The Jim Rose Circus was an incredible success; it performed at Lollapalooza in 1992, headlined seven world tours the year after, and was given cameos on television shows such as the Simpsons and the X-files (Citation). Rolling Stone described it as an “absolute must-see act” while Melody Maker called it “revolted amusement” (Jim Rose Circus). The positive reception of the show suggests a society that has little changed in the last 100 years, still defining uniqueness as deviance, and striving to achieve sameness and similarity. As Thomson argues, the freak show’s popularity seems to stem from the need to “constantly reaffirm the difference between ‘them’ and ‘us’” (Thomson). This statement seems to hold true whether or not the “freak” has a physical deformity in the case of the early 1990s, or simply strays from the cultural norms, like those in the Jim Rose Circus. The same theme of enfreakment, which Thomson defines as the body enveloping and obliterating the freaks potential humanity, seems to be present in Roses show. Performers are given stages names such as “The lizardman” or “Zamora the Torture King” which work to further erase any sense of humanity that the audience may see in them (Jim Rose Circus).
The Jim Rose Circus did how some differences from the shows of P.T.

Barnum; perhaps the most notable was the different treatment of the performers. In Rose’s shows the “freak” is celebrated, not necessarily an object to be marveled at, but a subject that can be a source of joy and entertainment. Thomson makes clear in her article that the value of the “freak” stayed the same whether or not they were alive or dead, that their bodies became pure text to be read by the audience (Thomson). Rose’s show cannot maintain its success if his performers are covered in glass and made to be a display, he relies on the interaction with the audience to conjure a repulsion that turns to

amusement.
Although the definition of the “freak” is different between the shows of P.T. Barnum and Jim Rose, they both served as a way for Americans to displace anxieties and uncertainties about their own bodies and participate in a collective sameness. As Thomson stresses in her article, these acts are simply “freaks of nature”, a collection of characteristics that the American self rejects, that rejection could be a bearded women or a man who has covered himself in tattoos. The massive success of the Jim Rose Circus highlights a society that still places a heavy value on sameness while shunning uniqueness.