Le Freak C'est Chic

Back in 1932, a dark little film called "Freaks" was released by MGM studios to the masses. The story revolved around a gold-digging trapeze artist who seduces and marries a sideshow little person in order to get her hands on his large inheritance. Eventually, she poisons him, starts having an affair with an average-size man, and when the rest of the sideshow performers learn of her deceit, they viciously attack and mutilate her and her lover in a macabre and unforgettable climax.


The movie was highly controversial then and still is, because the cast consisted almost entirely of people with real-life deformities and illnesses. They included a multitude of dwarves, a pair of conjoined twins, the Human Torso (i.e. a man with no limbs), who in one scene lights a cigarette with matches, using only his mouth. You'd think that this kind of exploitation for entertainment's sake could have only come out of an era before color televisions, Civil Rights, computers.

Well, think again. Because the popular channel TLC -- best known for its "family-centered" reality shows like the mega hit "Jon & Kate Plus 8" -- has become the main purveyor of a slew of documentary programming that can only be described as a kind of modern, repackaged version of "Freaks." And their growing popularity says a lot about us as the audience.


On an average night, usually after 8 p.m., you can learn the true story of Tony, the 750 lb teenager, or Hayley, the girl with progeria -- the disease of rapid aging; or Zahra, the woman who was pregnant for 45 years and didn't know it, or Ronnie and Donnie, the oldest living conjoined twins, or Sharon, the primordial dwarf (tiny, but proportionate). And just like the bluntly-titled "Freaks," the titles of these TLC shows offer no mystery about the contents that await. Here is a sampling:

"The 650 lb Virgin"
"The Tiniest Toddlers"
"Dwarfs: Standing Tall"
"The Smallest People In The World"
"The Girl Who Never Grew"

TLC has tapped into that corner of our psyche that is simultaneously repelled and drawn to human oddities. And although the deformities they feature are no less unusual than the ones displayed in "Freaks," TLC has made theirs somehow more digestible to middle America -- in some cases, even endearing. I mean, who is not going to melt into a puddle of goo when they watch a little primordial dwarf that weighs 11 lbs and stands at about 28 inches, at age four, talk in her tiny voice and wave around her miniature hands, and bat her teeny tiny doll-like eyes? Especially when you have a woman with a gentle, sympathetic voice narrating the whole affair.

And so, the shows play like this, for hours, daily, peppered with commercials advertising everyday people stuff like prescription drugs and Verizon cell phones, as the average American sits there and watches, eyes open wide in both shock and curiosity, secretly thinking, Damn, my life is not so bad.