‘Freaks’: the banned movie that inspired two classic rock songs
Life imitates life. Art imitates art. Art imitates life. And so it goes, on and on and on, until the end of time. Given that people draw influence to create art from both real life and the artistic world, it’s hardly a surprise that when a movie depicting real-life people was deemed too grotesque to show, the art world would continue to draw from it. That’s precisely what happened with these two classic rock songs written by the Ramones and Devo.
Many different musicians have taken inspiration from films in the past; doing so is hardly anything new. The association between rock music and horror is pretty straightforward, given they are both commonly labelled to have shocking qualities and often use similar symbolism of cynical spiritualism. Devo and the Ramones decided to go down the route of borrowing from iconic horror movies, as the tracks ‘Jocko Homo’ and ‘Pinhead’ both refer to characters in the 1932 film Freaks.
Freaks is a movie that was deemed too shocking for its time but has since been embraced not only as a good movie but also as a masterpiece. It’s set in a travelling French circus, where a trapeze artist joins the carnival performers to seduce and murder a dwarf in the troupe to gain his inheritance. Her plan is simple enough but begins to backfire as she goes further into the group and finds dangerous consequences to her actions.
The reason why the movie was met with so much controversy isn’t because of the plot but rather the portrayal of the characters. The way a lot of the so-called “freaks” looked discomforted people on set, and other than those who were dubbed “normal looking” were banned from being on the studio lot, instead relegated to their own specifically built tent. Talk about life imitating art.
The people who played the “freaks” did have genuine conditions; there were little people, Siamese twins and the people who played the “Pinheads”. The controversy wasn’t the inhumane treatment of the movie’s actors; instead, the public’s reception of them mirroring those people on set. Viewers found the film unsettling, so it was banned in the UK for 30 years for being “brutal and grotesque”.
The movie had a resurgence and is now seen through a different lens. Movie critics have called it compassionate, saying the attitude towards the sideshow characters in the film is one of sympathy instead of exploitation. Since it has come back out and become more accessible to the public, it has inspired two big songs.
The first is The Ramones ‘Pinhead’. The movie’s influence is relatively straightforward, as the song references one of the prominent characters. The band would also hoist a banner at the end of gigs that read “Gabba gabba hey”, which became a rallying cry for fans but also references a foreboding scene in Freaks.
Devo’s reference to the movie is a little more subtle as the track ‘Jacko Homo’ pays more of an homage to the film Island of Lost Souls with the repeated line “Are we not men?” That being said, the track also refers to pinheads, again, one of the more prominent characters within the movie Freaks.
It’s likely bands have adopted the reference to this movie as a metaphor towards been an outcast, something that musicians often brand themselves as. A film that highlights that in a way that is now considered sympathetic is naturally a good place for bands to look when considering the inspiration for how best to portray such feelings.
Freaks continues to be considered by many a classic whilst still disturbing others. The best art is often the most divisive, and the fact it is still not only being talked about today but referenced by some of the biggest rock bands in the world only highlights the movie’s ingenuity.
