Editing Freaks (1932 film) (section)

===Disability and eugenics===
[[File:Wallace Ford, Johnny Eck, and Leila Hyams in Freaks.jpg|thumb|right|upright=1|Critic Jon Towlson notes that the everyday interaction between the able-bodied and disabled circus performers serves to uphold an anti-[[eugenics]] sentiment.]]
The film's depiction of [[disability|people with disabilities]] has been a significant point of analysis amongst film critics and scholars.{{sfn|Towlson|2014|pages=22–25}}{{sfn|Smith|2012|pages=88–92}} In his book ''Subversive Horror Cinema: Countercultural Messages of Films from Frankenstein to the Present'' (2014), critic Jon Towlson proposes that ''Freaks'' exemplifies an anti-[[eugenics]] sentiment.{{sfn|Towlson|2014|pages=22–25}} In presenting this idea, Towlson cites vignette sequences that make up the beginning of the film, largely consisting of the freaks in the context of their sideshow, before Browning "begins to undercut the voyeuristic aspects of the traditional freakshow by showing the freaks engaged in the activities of everyday life, dispelling the initial shock and revulsion, and encouraging the viewer to see the freaks as individuals who have overcome their disabilities."{{sfn|Towlson|2014|p=25}}

Towlson also notes that the freaks' everyday interactions with the able-bodied sideshow performers, such as Phroso, Roscoe, and Venus, who treat the freaks as equals and friends, further blurs the distinction between the able-bodied and disabled members of the circus, and that the physically beautiful characters—such as trapeze artist Cleopatra—are the ones who are vindictive, supremacist, and immoral.{{sfn|Towlson|2014|pages=25–26}} He further argues that the implied sexuality in the film—such as the implication that the conjoined twin sisters (played by [[Daisy and Violet Hilton]]) carry on their own separate sex lives{{sfn|Hartzman|2006|p=169}}—is an affront to the eugenic stance against reproduction and sexual activity among the "physically unfit."{{sfn|Towlson|2014|p=29}} Towlson ultimately concludes that this subversion of character exemplifies a stark opposition to the core belief of eugenics, which is that physical appearance is equated with internal worth.{{sfn|Towlson|2014|p=25}}

Angela Smith, a scholar of film and disability, similarly notes that ''Freaks'' presents numerous scenes in which the freaks engage in routine and ordinary domestic behavior.{{sfn|Smith|2012|p=89}} Among them, Smith cites the freaks' celebration of the birth of the Bearded Lady's baby, and the film's key dinner party sequence in which Cleopatra grows enraged when the freaks sing "We accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us" as a welcoming song.{{sfn|Smith|2012|pages=89–90}} Film scholars Martin Norden and Madeleine Cahill, however, question Browning's intention of the film's final revenge sequence, in which the freaks mutilate the able-bodied, morally cruel Cleopatra.{{sfn|Norden|Cahill|2000|pages=163–165}} "The implications of the violence against [Cleopatra] are far from clear," they write. "Members of a traditionally disempowered minority use their collective force to disempower a majority member—turn her into one of them, in effect—leading us to wonder if she is truly disempowered or empowered in a new way. Browning's ambiguity on this point only enhances the film's unsettling properties."{{sfn|Norden|Cahill|2000|p=164}}