TY - BOOK ID - 16242364 TI - Media, Performative Identity, and the New American Freak Show PY - 2017 SN - 331966462X 3319664611 PB - Cham : Springer International Publishing : Imprint: Palgrave Macmillan, DB - UniCat KW - Freak shows KW - Mass media and culture KW - Sideshows KW - Popular Culture. KW - People with disabilities. KW - Culture. KW - Gender. KW - Film genres. KW - United States-Study and teaching. KW - Popular Culture . KW - Disability Studies. KW - Culture and Gender. KW - Genre. KW - American Culture. KW - Genre films KW - Genres, Film KW - Motion picture genres KW - Motion pictures KW - Cultural sociology KW - Culture KW - Sociology of culture KW - Civilization KW - Popular culture KW - Cripples KW - Disabled KW - Disabled people KW - Disabled persons KW - Handicapped KW - Handicapped people KW - Individuals with disabilities KW - People with physical disabilities KW - Persons with disabilities KW - Physically challenged people KW - Physically disabled people KW - Physically handicapped KW - Persons KW - Disabilities KW - Sociology of disability KW - Culture, Popular KW - Mass culture KW - Pop culture KW - Popular arts KW - Communication KW - Intellectual life KW - Mass society KW - Recreation KW - Plots, themes, etc. KW - Social aspects KW - United States—Study and teaching. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:16242364 AB - 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. . ER -