The corporeal difference is the most fundamental in experiencing the otherness of the other. Confrontations with freak bodies in public spaces often leave us helpless, yet they call for strategies that would resolve the problem of their otherness. Modernity has formulated two basic rules governing the presence of heterotopic body: its medicalization and normativization. It would then seem that there is now a void where once was a freak show. Yet, the traces of freak shows’ spectacular logic can be traced in the television talk show formula. The comparison of these two is not aimed only at pointing at some superficial similarities, but also to more in-depth analogies concerning the logic of representation of corporeal otherness and lastly – to the metanarrative behind the show that justifies its obscenity. The paper concludes with a question of the possibility of adapting, yet, another strategy of making freak bodies publicly visible: freak show-based performances of disabled artists.
The article presents a poetological analysis of PokaZ (ShoW), a performance directed by Justyna Wielgus that refers to the practices of freak show. Piniewska discusses the compositional strategies used in PokaZ to subversively crip the oppressive form of a freak show. Adopting the perspective of critical disability studies, she reflects on the popular cultural images of disability (a victim, a hero, an eternal child, and a medical specimen) and discourses thereof (the discourse of pity and the medical discourse) addressed in the performance. Her analysis centres on the ways of talking about and looking at disability that shape artistic communication with an audience.
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