Freak shows: slavery or forced servitude?

The video on Sarah Baartman and the reading about freak shows brought up a lot of points I never would of thought of before. For instance, I never once thought about how racist, sexist and overall ignorant freak shows truly were. Since this phenomenon is something of generations past, it's no wonder the true happenings and motivations associated with freak shows was distorted or lost. My experiences with freak shows (from Goosebumps or We're Back!: A Dinosaur Story, mostly) all presented them as something a self-described "freak" could do in order to get away from their everyday life, which was easily achieved. And not only did the freaks have the choice of staying or leaving their careers, but they often didn't because they _liked_ their situation.

But from what I've seen in the video and the reading, I know now that I was greatly mistaken.

Now I see that freak shows, REAL freak shows of the 19th and early 20th century really were: a more subtle form of slavery.

It's terrible. As soon as slavery is abolished in most of the west, they invent something else to keep minorities and other people who are "different" down. In the case of Sarah Baartman, it was slavery that the law couldn't save Sarah from. Since she was technically abducted by the Danish in a foreign country, she had no protection from the British when she was forced to become a servant for her captures. Legal loopholes led to the downfall of the "Venus Hottentot."

As for the other "freaks," such as dwarfs or conjoined twins, they may have not been taken from their homes in foreign countries where they had no legal protection, but they were nevertheless forced into a life of ridicule and bondage. Conformity was so ingrained into the minds of westerners that there was no room for anyone remotely different from themselves. This was essentially the only choice for these people. Prejudice and hatred prevented them from getting them any sort of "normal" job, forcing them to be a part of freak shows in order to survive.

I learned a lot from this class this week, and will never again regard freak shows in the same way again.