Word: sideshow
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...life, this sense has made its victims unwilling, if not unable, to participate in a traditional society; they are the sideshow of mass culture, offering freakish realizations of hidden fears and fantasies. In art, absurdity has changed form by radically altering the relationship among man, his pride and his gods. The dramatic structure that created the liberating pity and terror of the Oedipus plays, for example, only makes sense if one truly believes that there are gods who would destroy a man who grows too arrogant. Even the Freudian metaphors that have been used to give modern meaning...
...million casino that manages to be gaudy and raucous even by the extravagant standards of the Strip. Inside, aerialists, unicyclists, jugglers, trained dogs and 15 clowns perform their acts right in the gaming room. And if that isn't enough distraction, there is also a carnival-style sideshow with dart games, a coin toss and an electronic shooting gallery for the kiddies. For the grownups, the sideshows are spicier. In one, a nearly nude girl bounces out of a bed and dances a quick Watusi whenever somebody hits a nearby target with a baseball...
...results would hardly qualify for a sideshow in a Festival of Life. The display simply consists of white explosions of light which dart erratically about, accompanied by an electronic tape which chortles across the pond in spontaneous gurgles. If it proves anything, I'm afraid it indicates "the neuro-electrical basis of human consciousness" resembles nothing more than a phrenetic, McLuhanized frog pond...
...empty as Harvard sent its second, third and even fourth strings in to do the mopping up. A few diehards stayed on to watch the band woo three wiggly Bucknell cheerleaders over to the Harvard side. But the carnival on the field just couldn't compete with the sideshow in the stands...
FREAKS is indeed like a freakshow. We enter hopefully, morbidly, expecting terrors to make us put our hands in front of our eyes--and then peek through our fingers. But like visitors to a carnival sideshow we leave feeling restless, vaguely disgusted, and even cheated by a show which lives up to none of its Brattle brouhaha...