Page 51 - WTP VOl. XII #1

In constructing “Shifting Gears,” we recorded voice actors dramatically reading American prose and poetry that confirmed the close, even symbiotic, relationship between technology and American life. Fiedler’s name and writings were not mentioned
in “Shifting Gears,” but his ideas were an influence on the structure and content of all the audiovisual shows I worked on for the USIA, and this was espe- cially true of “Shifting Gears.”
As Dan Scherr and I went to Tel Aviv, heading into the sunset in a U.S. government van, knowing I was about to hear Fiedler speak, I felt like a fanboy going to see Elvis in person.
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At the auditorium of the USIA branch in Tel Aviv, posters and flyers informed us that the subject
of Fiedler’s talk was his recently-published book, Freaks—Myths and Images of the Secret Self. Some in the audience had copies of Fiedler’s previous books for him to sign. I regretted not having brought my well-thumbed, marked-up, dog-eared paperback of Love and Death in the American Novel, which would have been an unsubtle signal that I was a fan.
Facing the crowd comfortably, the 61-year-old Fiedler gave the impression of a slightly heavy-set, or at least well-fed, Jewish paterfamilias, someone who might have been a boxer past his prime but still spry. His easy and frequent smile, as if nursing secrets he might not be willing to share, communicated both outsize intelligence and a gentle self-mockery, letting us know that this global tour was a pleasant side-gig, a junket paid for by the U.S. government.
When speaking about Freaks, Fiedler told us to think of P.T. Barnum’s sideshow featuring humans who possessed bizarre physical characteristics and whose mere presence induced people to pay good money to gawk at them. He readily acknowledged that ‘freaks’ was a word that—even a hundred years ago—was rejected by the human beings labeled that way. He
chose it as a book title, partly because of its histori- cal use and partly for its shock value. He urged us to consider that in literature, mythology and popular culture, these human oddities represent aspects of ourselves that ‘normal’ humans are reluctant to face or talk about.
His latest book’s basic concept, Fiedler said, was that physically abnormal humans can be divided into four categories which have to do not only with the nature of the oddity, but also with how these strange physi- cal characteristics affect our consciousness.
One has to do with size: tall, short, fat, skinny. What do I see when I look at a mirror? Do I see someone whose dimensions are odd or misshapen?
The second has to do with sexual identity: hermaph- rodites, humans who have both male and female characteristics. How do I define myself sexually? Am I secure in my sexual identity?
The third has to do with those we think of as horribly ugly or as misshapen, with missing limbs, or animal- like characteristics like the dog-faced boy, the elephant man, a human with a tail. How near or far am I to the line, if such a line exists, that separates me from animals?
And the fourth has to do with the concept of twin- ness, represented by the famous Siamese Twins. Who is the real me? The good and kind Dr. Jekyll or the sinister Mr. Hyde? Or both?
Fiedler stressed that it’s a universal reaction to feel horror in the presence of these ‘freaks,’ but he added that there are other feelings as well, such as erotic attraction when we’re in the presence of humans who call into question our long-held ideas about size, sexual identity, our animal nature, or the twin lurking within.
It was a brisk and memorable lecture, followed by questions that Fiedler handled with poise, good humor and unquestioned brilliance. One of the things he stressed was that this book, Freaks, was a deliberate attempt on his part to move from high- brow to middlebrow, a word I’d come across in Fiedler’s writing. Freaks was Fiedler’s foray into popular culture, which he said was more important to him now than it had ever been. He talked about diving into comic books, daytime television, science fiction and other forms of pop culture he’d rarely written about. He had come to believe, he said, that in popular culture, more than in highbrow art, were the clues to seeing who we really are and where our
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