Creator Of "Freaks Uncensored" Talks With "The Coney Island Reporter"

Coinciding with Coney Island's 1st annual Congress of Curious Peoples, Coney Island Reporter's Brian Childs talks with Ari Roussimoff, the director of "Freaks Uncensored", and one of the world's foremost historians of the sideshow about the 'freaks'. Roussimoff elaborates on them utilizing their 'difference' as their way of life.

Roussimoff:

Today we live in an age where there is a celebration of the commonality. In Hollywood, gone is the glamour of the 1930's, gone is the glamour that was promoted with the stars. The stars today look like common people. But at the same time, a lot of people don't like that and a lot of people want to be different, because commonality becomes a stigma to their existence. These people are gravitating towards something "different," unique. You have a lot of piercing and tattooing and people trying to learn long time working acts like sword swallowing. It's a break from a society that's been
trying to explore how we are all the same and an assertion of your own
individuality.

Brian Childs is a fiction writer and freelance reporter. Currently, he is pursuing a masters degree in magazine journalism at NYU and the blogger for The Coney Island Reporter.

Interview with Ari Roussimoff, Director of Freaks Uncensored [The Coney Island Reporter]