Circus Freaks of Yesteryear Look Fairly Normal for Today (Pics)
A woman with her back tattooed! How scandalous! How freaky!
Seriously, though, Project B has a new collection of vintage sideshow photos for purchase as fine art prints. They’re beautiful pictures – and they also bring home how, in a pre-Internet age, nobody realized just how common some “strange” appearances actually are in the world.
Would you even bat an eye if you saw this lady in a Walmart?
A not-uncommon deformity – but add obviously fake flippers and she becomes a “bird girl.”
Conjoined twins are more unusual – but note the sensationalistic renaming of the condition as two-headed.
Calling an amputee “the human Venus de Milo” is actually quite an eloquent thing to do. It’s hype, but it’s flattering hype to be compared to a masterpiece rather than an animal.
Check out the rest at Project B’s website.