Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Violence, Women, and Disability in Tod Browning's Freaks and The Devil Doll

1998; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 26; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01956059809602778

1930-6458

Martin F. Norden, Madeleine Ann Cahill,

Spanish Culture and Identity

Abstract Filmmakers who have populated their films with disabled characters have occasionally endowed them with violent behavior, and it should come as no surprise to learn that the vast majority of such characters have been coded as male. Indeed, the early history of disability depictions in the movies can be characterized in terms of a conspicuous gender-based dichotomy: male characters were often designed as castrated Captain Ahab types who destroy all in their wake in the name of revenge, while female characters were infantilized as docile, sexless, godly young things usually rewarded for their enduring purity with a miracle cure.