Gibsonton is a Florida town south of Tampa. It had an eerie element to it, akin to a horror movie. After all, it was the place where people from the freak show settled down. It was a utopia, with deformed individuals and even a post office with a counter for dwarfs. Residents had exotic animals as pets and a pair of Siamese twin sisters ran a fruit stand. This is the unique retirement story of Gibsonton, if you fancy having your retirement in Gibsonton, Florida.
Characters
Lobster Boy was a circus freak with a genetic deformity known as ectrodactyly, having only two fingers on each hand, akin to claws.
The Human Blockhead had deformed nasal cavities, which meant he could hammer metal spikes up his nose.
Percilla the Monkey Girl suffered from hypertrichosis, with her black hair enveloping her entire body and face, and strikingly having two sets of teeth. She was in love with Emmitt the Alligator-Skinned man, who suffered from ichthyosis, having reptile-like scaly skin covering his body.
Betty Lou Williams had her baby sister growing out of her own abdomen.
Al the Giant was 8 feet tall as he was diagnosed with gigantism. Jeanie Tomaini was born without legs and stood at a mere 2 feet 6 inches tall. The two married and settled in Gibsonton.
The Freak Show
Ward Hall was a showman and the manager of The Freak Show. He noticed a business potential with his fellow freaks, turning pity into curiosity and subsequently fascination. He insisted that the freaks were not disabled, at least not in their minds.
Ward began by selling bizarre two-head animals, human freaks, fetuses in glass bottles, etc. Some of the freaks performed in Todd Browning’s 1932 film Freaks. Ward confessed that he exploited the freaks but only because of the revenue he could gain from it.
Nonetheless, the freak show was a carnival that celebrated fortitude and resilience in overcoming arduous obstacles and emerging unscathed. Everyone had a dream to better their lives, despite their shortcomings.
The Fall of the Freak Show
Ward’s campaign against the banning of deformed humans for exhibition was a huge success and turning point, as it gave handicapped people the license to work and earn. The ‘carny code’ was the solitude that the freaks had for each other.
However, in the 1940s, the freak shows began to decline. It was of the view that the deformed individuals being a source of entertainment was a form of exploitation. The Americans With Disabilities Act intervened to ensure that the individuals were given adequate job opportunities.
Lobster Boy Grady Stiles was murdered in 1992, a controversial episode that scarred the town of Gibsonton. His murder was engineered by his own wife, Mary Teresa, better known as the Electrified Girl. She arranged for the murder due to years of accumulated physical and emotional abuse by Stiles.
Overall, the rise and fall of the freak shows were centered on society’s changing views on physical differences. With the fall of the carnival, an important piece of Gibsonton was lost.
Nowadays, the town is a bedroom community of Tampa, with hipsters residing there. It is an anachronism in the sense that it is more akin to a city in someone else’s mind.
