#rosco ates

[filmjunky-99]

f r e a k s, 1932 🎬 dir. tod browning 'The Wedding Banquet'

[dweemeister]

Why the 1932 Movie ‘Freaks’ Is a Touchstone for Disability Representation

Though it has detractors, scholars and advocates have largely embraced this film for the way it shows people just living their lives while d

June 26, 2023

By Nicolas Rapold

(New York Times) — Hollywood’s track record for portraying people with disabilities has been sketchy at best. There have been inspirational figures, noble martyrs and lovable oddballs — some of these performances garnering Academy Awards — but there aren’t a lot of people simply living their lives.

The search for truly resonant disability representation in the history of cinema is continuing, but over the decades, many scholars keep returning to a perhaps surprising touchstone: a 91-year-old film set in a circus.

Tod Browning’s most widely known work is “Dracula” (1931), starring Bela Lugosi, but the next year, he broke new ground with a movie featuring an extensive cast of actors with disabilities. Browning’s “Freaks” (available on most major platforms) centers on a close-knit group of circus sideshow performers who rally around a friend after he is betrayed by his lover, a trapeze artist.

Despite the sensationalist spectacle, the sense of both community and agency among the characters is noticeable, with a variety of experiences represented (some of them extremely rare onscreen). For example, Harry Earles, a little person who plays the betrayed lover, Hans, by some accounts told Browning about the original story, “Spurs,” that “Freaks” adapts; Frances O’Connor, who plays a member of the troupe, was born without arms and had toured with Ringling Brothers; and the performer known as Schlitzie is one of a few cast members with microcephaly.

“It was really appealing to see that they have a recognizable disability culture and they form a community,” Carrie Sandahl, head of the Program on Disability Art, Culture and Humanities at University of Illinois, Chicago, said of the film. “They stand up for each other and have their own insights and humor.” Sandahl co-wrote and co-produced “Code of the Freaks,” a 2020 documentary that surveyed disability representation in Hollywood and held up the Browning film as a rare bright spot.

[tcmparty]

@tcmparty live tweet schedule for the week beginning Monday, September 27, 2021. Look for us on Twitter…watch and tweet along…remember to add #TCMParty to your tweets so everyone can find them :) All times are Eastern.

Friday, October 01 at 6:45 p.m. FREAKS (1932) A trapeze artist violates the code of the side show when she plots to murder her midget husband.                                          

[filmjunky-99]

f r e a k s, 1932 🎬 dir. tod browning 'Love at the Circus: Violet and Roscoe'

[michigandrifter]

Roscoe Ates 1895-1962

[movie--posters]

[still-she-haunts-me-phantomwise]

Sterling Holloway as the Frog Footman and Rosco Ates as the Fish Footman in Alice in Wonderland (1933). This picture is from a 1934 Big Little Book edition.