Animal Side Shows
For the tv-series see Freak Show (TV series).
A freak show is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with both male and female secondary sexual characteristics, people with other extraordinary diseases and conditions, and performances that are expected to be shocking to the viewers. Heavily tattooed or pierced people have sometimes been seen in freak shows, as have attention-getting physical performers such as fire-eating and sword-swallowing acts.
Read more about Animal Side Shows: History, Historical Timeline, Modern Freak Shows
Famous quotes containing the words animal, side and/or shows:
“Man is the only animal that laughs or weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be. We weep at what thwarts or exceeds our desires in serious matters; we laugh at what only disappoints our expectations in trifles.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“In those days, the blag slag, the waste of the coal pits, had only begun to cover the side of our hill. Not enough to mar the countryside nor blacken the beauty of our village. For the colliery had only begun to poke its skinny black fingers between the green.”
—Philip Dunne (1908–1992)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)