Code of the Freaks
“Code of the Freaks presents one of the most comprehensive looks at disability in film thus far.”
Title: Code of the Freaks (2020)
Director: Salome Chasnoff 👩🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Susan Nussbaum 👩🏼🇺🇸♿️, Alyson Patsavas 👩🏼🇺🇸♿️, and Carrie Sandahl 👩🏼🇺🇸♿️
Reviewed by Dana 👩🏼🇺🇸♿
Technical: 2.5/5
As discussions about inclusion have (finally) become more mainstream, terms like “problematic,” “privilege,” and “appropriation” are breaking out of activist circles and into the public lexicon. They offer a means of describing things that have always been harmful, but whose detrimental effects are only recently being recognized by those not personally affected.
Less widespread are the more nuanced phrases, ones that represent specific harms whose histories run deep and tangled: “Whitewashing.” “Male gaze.” And, most pertinent to Salome Chasnoff’s Code of the Freaks—which saw its world premiere at ReelAbilities’ virtual film festival this week—“cripping up.”
While only a few mentions of the term come up, the concept of non-disabled actors playing disabled roles remains a steady focus of the documentary, from start to finish. As Code reminds us, “cripping up” poses a uniquely lucrative opportunity for non-disabled actors, filmmakers, and their studios when it comes to winning major awards.
In between critical analysis of various works, artists and scholars delve into the assumptions that underlie certain depictions, unspooling the insidious threads that date back to classics like Heidi (1937) and The Wizard of Oz (1939). Overall, Code of the Freaks lays out the long history of disability onscreen—one that is neither honest nor kind.
Yet it’s hard to move past the doc’s dispassionate tone and muddled message. “I think the operative word is ‘code,’ not ‘freaks’,” says co-writer Susan Nussbaum over a clip from the 1932 film Freaks, “and it means community. And disabled people, particularly activists, really lean on each other. I think you have a sense that people have your back.” In between her words, the clip shows a trio of disabled characters wielding knives and advancing on what appears to be a helpless man as rain pours and thunder crackles. It’s an odd selection to go with the sentiment: disabled people, banded together ... to murder someone who slipped and fell in the mud?
Code struggles to synthesize its intellectual discussion into a cohesive argument. While commentators articulate the failings in disability representation well, an absence of emotional urgency dulls the effect. We’re told there is a problem, but without personal insights or a sense of evolution over time, it’s hard to truly feel the impact of decades worth of deeply damaging messages beyond the sense that Hollywood has always been terrible at portraying people with disabilities, and will probably continue to be terrible for the foreseeable future.
Gender: 4/5
One of Code’s most compelling points illustrates the sexism inherent to how vision impairment has been rendered throughout film history. Male characters, as the commentators point out over clips of Daredevil (2003) and Scent of a Woman (1992), gain superpowers both literal and figurative from their disability. Their stories emphasize the way such acts of traditional masculinity—such as driving a car or fighting—are denied to them by their disability. Female characters, by contrast, are rendered vulnerable and fetishized, exemplified by Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (1967). Long, lingering shots that focus on a stunning actress—invariably, an actress who is not actually blind—become voyeuristic, as she is unaware that someone’s watching.
Any real gender-based analysis, though, stops there. Male characters dominate the discussion, as the majority of films referenced in Code feature disabled men, not women. It’s unfortunate that the documentary’s lineup of keen observers gloss over the intersection of gender and disability beyond the above observations. No one even offers a lampshade, acknowledging the dominance of men within the scant roles afforded disabled characters throughout film and TV history.
Race: 3.5/5
Code devotes a bit more time to discussing race in the context of disability than it does gender, focusing in particular on how disability is often used as a narrative tool to render Black men less “threatening.” Citing examples like To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), critics argue that for decades, the primary representation of Black manhood came by way of a disabled character. I admit, the assertion forced me to rack my brain, thinking of other examples—it was one of the moments in the documentary when numbers might have made a stronger case.
The point itself, if not the claim of ubiquity, remains strong: Disability allows storytellers a way to mitigate the “threat” of Black masculinity that might otherwise be unpalatable to non-Black audiences. Cuba Gooding, Jr., in both Radio (2003) and Men of Honor (2000), demonstrates this trend through emasculated roles that allow white audiences to feel comfortable in the continuation of centuries-old paternalism.
Bonus for Disability: +1.00
Code of the Freaks presents one of the most, if not the most, comprehensive looks at disability in film thus far—and one that crucially centers the voices of people with disabilities. Chasnoff devotes methodical attention to sensory and physical disability, and her documentary provides its most affecting moments through example after example of movies like Me Before You (2016) or Gattaca (1997) that hammer home the disposability of disabled lives: Once characters have served the interests of the non-disabled protagonist, they die. These deaths are usually framed as merciful relief, nowhere more egregiously than in Million Dollar Baby (2004), and coagulate into the stomach-dropping message that a disabled life is not a life worth living.
That said, there is significantly less focus on invisible disabilities. While commentators reference depictions of mental health and use clips from Forrest Gump (1994) as examples of larger trends, intellectual and psychiatric disability get almost no attention. There’s no discussion at all of chronic illness—despite writer Alyson Patsavas’ academic expertise on the subject. Perhaps most personally exasperating, in the process of discussing institutionalization as a resolution, we see a clip of Girl, Interrupted (1999), for which Angelina Jolie won an Oscar. Despite resonating deeply with many people with mental health issues, Code insinuates that it offers an unrealistic portrait of hospitalization, a contention with which I strongly disagree. Yes, Girl, Interrupted has problems, notably its own use of the “Magical Negro” trope which Code covers well, but it does get life in the psych ward pretty close to reality. I can’t help but wonder how much representation there was of mental health disabilities in the making of Code itself, and—perhaps unfairly—taking that absence as a subtle insinuation that mental illness isn’t a “real” disability.
Mediaversity Grade: B- 3.67/5
While Code of the Freaks offers thoughtful analysis of an issue that’s too rarely discussed, it feels more like a panel discussion than a documentary. Whereas peers like Queering the Script (2019) and Half the Picture (2018) make their cases with equal parts passion and information, Code lacks poignancy. As necessary as it is—and it is, truly—to scrutinize the myriad ways in which movies fail to positively represent people with disabilities, the overwhelming theme that it’s all done wrong and in bad faith feels limiting. Notably, Code pays little attention to why these failings persist—the lack of representation behind the camera, the exclusion of critics with disabilities from dialogue, the inherent ableism of the business process itself, etc. etc. Viewers are left dejected, with no inkling of what they might do to change things and no bright spots on the horizon to reach for.
The frequent returns to classic film Freaks, directed by Tod Browning who also helmed the legendary Dracula (1931), inspires significantly more excitement from the assembled experts than any other subject. Their visible reactions provide the one real takeaway for me: I want to know more about that movie.
Despite little background from Code, it’s clear that Freaks was unique in casting actors with disabilities to portray their own stories. Indeed, an independent foray into the film’s history proves intriguing. Freaks was a pre-Hays Code production based on a short story, and was banned for decades due to the so-called objectionable imagery of people with physical disabilities. Even this bare background invites more questions, chief among them why Chasnoff chose not to devote more time to the topic.
For its part, Code of the Freaks does plant the seed of curiosity in viewers minds, and primes us to make more critical assessments of how characters with disabilities are being portrayed onscreen. That’s definitely something.
Like Code of the Freaks? Try these other titles that confront prejudice in showbiz.
Judy (2019)
The L Word: Generation Q
Late Night (2019)