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This book traces how the American freak show has re-emerged in new visual forms in the 21st century. It explores the ways in which moving image media transmits and contextualizes, reinterprets and appropriates the freak show model into a “new American freak show.” It investigates how new freak representations introduce narratives about sex, gender, and cultural perceptions of people with disabilities. The chapters examine such representations found in horror films, including a prolonged look at Freaks (1932) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), documentaries such as Murderball (2005) and TLC’s Push Girls (2012-present), disability pornography including the pornographic documentary Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan Supermasochist (1997), and the music icons Marilyn Manson and Lady Gaga in their portrayals of disability and freakishness. Through this book we learn that the visual culture that has emerged takes the place of the traditional freak show but opens new channels of interpretation and identification through its use of mediated images as well as the altered freak-norm relationship that it has fostered. In its illumination of the relationship between normal and freakish bodies through different media, this book will appeal to students and academics interested in disability studies, gender studies, film theory, critical race theory and cultural studies. .

Freak shows --- Mass media and culture --- Sideshows --- Popular Culture. --- People with disabilities. --- Culture. --- Gender. --- Film genres. --- United States-Study and teaching. --- Popular Culture . --- Disability Studies. --- Culture and Gender. --- Genre. --- American Culture. --- Genre films --- Genres, Film --- Motion picture genres --- Motion pictures --- Cultural sociology --- Culture --- Sociology of culture --- Civilization --- Popular culture --- Cripples --- Disabled --- Disabled people --- Disabled persons --- Handicapped --- Handicapped people --- Individuals with disabilities --- People with physical disabilities --- Persons with disabilities --- Physically challenged people --- Physically disabled people --- Physically handicapped --- Persons --- Disabilities --- Sociology of disability --- Culture, Popular --- Mass culture --- Pop culture --- Popular arts --- Communication --- Intellectual life --- Mass society --- Recreation --- Plots, themes, etc. --- Social aspects --- United States—Study and teaching.