We use the term “freak” in different ways.
We use the term "freak" in different ways. For example, those bible bashers on the steps of Flinders Street Station who scream in your face about your inevitable descent into the pits of hell – freaks! Or that girl who orders a parma without the ham and tomato sauce – one word… But the real meaning of the designation is soon to suffer the same modern fate as words like "fat", which can now be used to describe a girl who can’t squeeze herself into a size six pair of jeans.
Let’s rewind a bit to when words meant what they meant and when society was a little more narrow-minded. The time when "freak" was used to describe a person with a physical deformity who would now be whispered about as "differently-abled." Back then, freaks could choose to do one of two things to cope with the card they were dealt. They could live a life of complete social ridicule and isolation or they could exploit their freakishness and join a sideshow.
In the traditional sense, Mat Fraser is the freak from The Freak and the Showgirl – the cabaret-style show that is making its debut in Australia, playing in Melbourne and a couple of Fringe festivals in Adelaide and Perth. He has a disability called phocomelia which arises primarily in children of mothers who took the drug Thalidomide during their pregnancy and causes undeveloped limbs. "It’s striptease and sideshow", he says of the production. "Sideshow and burlesque culture go together and way back in the day, in a carnival, the sideshow to the show would be literally on the side and the girly show would be right next to the freak show, so it’s really historical for strippers and freaks to be together. What we think we’re doing is like a postmodern version of that history."
The "we" includes Julie Atlas Muz – the showgirl. Winner of Miss Exotic World 2006, she has made an impressive name for herself in the neo-burlesque scene and has appeared in Gossip Girl, the HBO series Bored To Death, as well as the Cannes Festival award-winning French film Tournee. In The Freak And The Showgirl, she provides the striptease, or half of it. "We start out as clothed as both of us feel comfortable and by the end of it, you really see the whole shebang. You see us in all of our childlike joy, nude."
Their promotional material claims the show to be "not for the faint hearted." Are they out to shock? "Shock is a very difficult thing to wrap my mind around," says Julie "I exist in such a subculture where the most of my work happens after midnight and I’m sharing the stage with a tranny artist who has got fake tits and a giant dick and she puts a bottle up her ass and takes a poo on stage. So that to me is normal. I don’t intentionally go out to shock other people. As an artist I go out to express what makes me laugh and what makes me interested."
"If anything, what we really want people to do is go home and have sex after the show," Mat continues. "We just want people to relax, have a good time and leave their political correctness at the door, especially when it comes to disability and sexual politics."
But the production is latently political and, as Mat notes, similar to the freak-shows of the early 1900s. "If you think about the 1930s in Alabama, nobody knew anything about disabled people. A freak-show was probably disability awareness.
One of the things I like to do is confront audiences with my disability. During the show we work through their issues, which society gave them. People are so scared to talk about disability that people would rather say nothing. Well I’d rather you said the wrong thing and actually had a conversation."
The couple is, however, quick to note that it’s not just about a boring political message. It’s about having fun and the politics comes "as if by accident".
"We don’t like to bash people with politics," says Mat. "We want people to enjoy themselves and to go out feeling happy and sexy."
The Freak and the Showgirl will be performed at the East Brunswick Club on February 23. Please note that it’s not a spectator sport and there will be some audience participation. Julie’s advice is to put on some nice undies – ones that are cute but ones you can be prepared to mess up. See eastbrunswickclub.com.au for tickets.
