Freakshow is a 2007 independent film which was made by The Asylum, directed by Drew Bell. It is an unofficial remake of the Tod Browning film Freaks. According to the film poster and DVD cover art, Freakshow is banned in 43 countries, though there is no mention of which countries banned it….Freakshow (film)

12, follows the story of Billy Bloom, a teenager who loves to dress up and be himself while obliterating gender norms. The narrative of Billy and his campaign to be homecoming queen definitely seems like something that could be based on real events, however it isn’t based on a true story.

Alex LawtherFreak Show
Billy Bloom/Played by

Styler leans heavily on a stingingly acidic turn from British actor Alex Lawther as Billy Bloom, a young man who, quite rightly, refuses to compromise his fabulousness in order to assimilate with the jeans-and-polo-shirt majority at his new school.

Freak Show2017
Billy Bloom/Movies

Shows of the early 19th century that are today considered freak shows were known at that time as raree shows, pit shows, or kid shows. Freak show did not come into use until close to the end of the 19th century, after the death of the American showman P.T.

Norman’s American counterpart, P.T. Barnum, developed a similar idea by first setting up a museum stocked with oddities and by 1871 had become the mastermind behind a freak show that traveled with his circus, “P.T. Barnum’s Grand Traveling Museum, Menagerie, Caravan and Hippodrome” [source: Jando].

Today, while you can still find the occasional freak show, the performers are generally ones who with extreme body modifications (such as tattoos and piercings) or those that can execute astonishing physical performances like fire-eating and sword-swallowing — all of which represents a welcome departure from the …

Although not all abnormalities were real, some being alleged, the exploitation for profit was seen as an accepted part of American culture. The attractiveness of freak shows led to the spread of the shows that were commonly seen at amusement parks, circuses, dime museums and vaudeville.

a display of people or animals with unusual or grotesque physical features, as at a circus or carnival sideshow. any ludicrous, bizarre, or dehumanizing occasion, function, performance, etc.; grotesque, circuslike event: endless interviews and auditions that became a ridiculous freak show.

: an exhibition (such as a sideshow) featuring freaks of nature.

From the 1870s, Barnum popularised the circus sideshow, which featured so-called ‘born freaks’, such as dwarfs, giants, skeleton men, and overweight ladies; what we might call ‘exotic freaks’, such as ‘cannibals’, ‘Zulus’ and ‘savages’, and the ‘self-made freaks’, like tattooed men and those performing novelty acts.