Fwd: Freak as 1960s/1970s Term

[Grant Barrett]

This is a summary originally posted to the History Net List for American Studies (H-AMSTDY) in by the author of the following original query. It may be of interest to others here. 

In the 1960s and early 1970s the meanings and use of the term "freak" proliferated. I am attempting to chart an anatomy of that term and would appreciate any suggestions for its appearance in literature, popular culture, or social/political texts of this period.

Rachel Adams, Assistant Professor Department of English and Comparative Literature Columbia University rea15 at columbia.edu


[1]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 00:47:57 EDT From: Matt Roberts Matrob81 at aol.com

Two obvious but still worth citing sources from 68-69 are Wolfe's Electric= Cool-Aid Acid Test (which itself cites usage from at least 1965) and Easy Rider (eg, Karen Black to Dennis Hopper, "You're a freak, arent you." "I never thought of myself as a freak, but I love to freak...")

C'est chic, le freak.

Matt Roberts Matrob81 at aol.com


[2]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 01:45:27 -0500 (Central Daylight Time) From: Dean A. Masullo dean.a.masullo at vanderbilt.edu

(I've already posted a reply to Professor Adams' inquiry through another list in which it appeared, but I thought I'd post it here as well in case anyone else was interested.)

A good place to start would be the decidedly anti-hippie (and largely anti-drug, at least initially) freak scene that coalesced around Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention in Los Angeles in the mid-sixties. Zappa's early music with the Mothers is an obvious touchstone (his first album, entitled *Freak-Out,* effectively captures the tenor of the times, as do several subsequently-released "bootlegs" from that period, including *Freaks and Motherfu*$@%!*), and there are a few good studies of his oeuvre that are worth looking at. Among them is Zappa's own book (not a "study," precisely, or at all, really) *The Real Frank Zappa Book* written with Peter Ochiogrosso (New York: Poseidon Books, 1989); Ben Watson's compendious *The Negative Dialectics of Poodle Play* (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993) reads Zappa through the Frankfurt School and has a subchapter devoted to the freak scene; Richard Kostelanetz's *The Frank Zappa Companion: Four Decades of Commentary* (New York: Schirmer Books, 1997) and Michael Gray's *Mother!The Frank Zappa Story* (London: Plexus, 1993) both give Zappa's relationship to the freaks attention as well.

You might also want to look into the all-girl rock group the GTO's (Girls Together Outrageously). Their only album, *Permanent Damage* (1969), was produced by Zappa and is available on Straight/Enigma Retro Records. Although regretably short (at about 32 minutes total), it's quite a piece of work nevertheless.

I hope that this proves to be of some use to you in your work. Good luck.

Best,

Dean A. Masullo

Dean Anthony Masullo Department of English Vanderbilt University dean.a.masullo at Vanderbilt.Edu

"The world is made up of stories, not atoms." --Muriel Rukeyser


[3]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 15:18:12 +0800 (CST) From: E-ChouWu ecwu at simon.pu.edu.tw

In James Baldwin's _The Price of the Ticket_, there are two or three essays concering his self-narration of gay experience. As an insider, he expressed sharp views on the term "freak" used by American public.

E-chou Wu Dept. of English Providence Univ., Taiwan ecwu at pu.edu.tw


[4]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 08:12:27 -0400 From: Patricia Carey pec at acsu.buffalo.edu

Rachel,

I believe Leslie Fiedler has done some work in this area. I will see if I can get more specific information on where that might be found from colleagues here at UB.

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 08:23:03 -0400 (EDT) From: David F Schmid schmid at acsu.buffalo.edu To: Patricia Carey pec at acsu.buffalo.edu Pat, If my (admittedly imperfect) memory serves me correctly, 'Freaks' is the title of one of Leslie's books, published (I think) sometime in the mid-70s. DS

Pat Carey pec at acsu.buffalo.edu


[5]

Date: Mon, 17 May 99 09:30 CST From: Jeffrey A Steele JASTEELE at macc.wisc.edu

Look at the 1967 _Time_ magazine with the cover stories on "Hippies."

Jeff Steele UW-Madison JASTEELE at macc.wisc.edu


[6]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 09:43:22 -0500 From: Ed Donovan edon at mail.utexas.edu

Aside from Rick James' "Superfreak", a Funkadelic album from 1976, titled "Uncle Jam Wants You", has two songs, "Freak of the Week" and "Not Just Knee Deep", that both deal extensively with the "freak". Funkadelic uses the term to refer both to some kind of sensual dance and to a woman. Lyrics include "The girl's a freak, the girl never misses a beat" and "Not just knee deep, she was totally deep, when she did the freak with me..."

Ed Donovan University of Texas at Austin edon at mail.utexas.edu


[7]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 11:25:04 -0500 From: Patricia Scheiern Lewis pslewis at midway.uchicago.edu

One of the things I love about this list is that I so frequently receive, as if from the ether, the inspiration to go on little five-minute research "freaks" (def. 1).

Rather long paste from OED, most quotations deleted:

1. freak

freak , sb.1 Not found before 16th c.; possibly introduced from dialects, and cognate with OE. fr=EDcian (Matt. xi. 17) to dance.

1. A sudden causeless change or turn of the mind; a capricious humour, notion, whim, or vagary.

2. The disposition of a mind subject to such humours; capriciousness.

3. A capricious prank or trick, a caper.

Cf. the earlier synonym reaks.

4.

a. A product of irregular or sportive fancy.

freak of nature

freak of nature, =3D lusus natur=E6): A monstrosity, an abnormally developed individual of any species; in recent use (esp. U.S.), a living curiosity exhibited in a show.

1847 A. M. Gilliam Trav. Mexico 230 Many were..the freaks of nature that I beheld in the singular formations of the rocks.

1883 Daily News 11 Sept. 2/5 An association of..natural curiosities usually exhibited at booths..called the `Freaks' Union', the word freaks being an abbreviation of the term `freaks of nature' by which these monstrosities are described.

c. One who `freaks out' (freak v. 3); a drug addict (see also quots.).

1969 R. R. Lingeman Drugs from A to Z 79 Freak... One who prefers a certain kind of drug, as in acid freak or meth freak... By extension, one who is obsessed with a certain way of thinking as in `political freak'.

1970 C. Major Dict. Afro-Amer. Slang 55 Freak, one who practices socially unaccepted forms of sexual love; strong believer in something.

d. With qualifying word or phrase: one who shows great enthusiasm for the activity, person, or thing specified, as health freak, train freak, etc.; an aficionado. Cf. buff sb.2 6 b and fiend sb. 4 c. colloq. (orig. U.S.).

1908 Court of Appeals, State of N.Y. III. 455 He had a camera. Evidently from the evidence in this case he was one of your kodak freaks.

1946 B. Ulanov Duke Ellington xix. 270 `I'm a train freak,' Duke says.= 
1959 L. Lipton Holy Barbarians i. 39 He looked more like one of those beachcomber Nature Boy health freaks than a real hipster.

1967, etc. [see sense 4 c above].

5. Comb., as freak-storm; freak-doing adj.; also quasi-adj. to denote something abnormal or capriciously irregular;

freak show

freak show, at a fair, etc.: a sideshow featuring freaks (sense 4 b).

1862 R. H. Patterson Ess. Hist. Art. 470 The freak-doing Aswins.

1887 E. R. Pennell in Contemp. Rev. Mar. 400 note, What I should call penny peep, or rather freak, shows.

1898 Daily News 17 Mar. 6/5 `The yellow kid', a personification of `freak' or sensational journalism.

1907 Westm. Gaz. 26 Sept. 7/2 The boats which have been built for this race of recent years are freak boats pure and simple.

1907 Daily Chron. 5 Oct. 4/4 Conditions in America seem particularly favourable to the propagation of freak religions.

***

I was especially surprised by the early use of "freak" to mean "aficionado" (1908 "kodak freaks"). My dictionary of American slang (ed. Robert L. Chapman) also lists "freak" as a drink made of Coca-Cola and orange flavoring. That is one definition I had never heard of. Def. 2 reads: "[slang of] jazz musicians; A male homosexual: '"Freak" is a homosexual' -- Stephen Longstreet." (Unfortunately, neither date nor work are given.) This def. seems to tie in to OED's citation from the Dictionary of Afro-Amer. Slang, "one who practices socially unaccepted forms of sexual love." The other defs given by Chapman are already covered in OED.

Hope this helps!

Patricia Scheiern Lewis Deptartment of English The University of Chicago http://student-www.uchicago.edu/users/pslewis


[8]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 13:11:24 +0000 (GMT) From: Helen Dennis ensah at snow.csv.warwick.ac.uk

Rachel,

Leslie Fiedler wrote a study on this, entitled Freaks. My copy is at home so I can't give you an exact d o p, possibly slightly later than your perameters, but it might be useful all the same.

Helen Dennis ensah at snow.csv.warwick.ac.uk


[9]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 21:30:03 -0400 From: Brina Coronado brina at mail.ggg.net

The comic "The Furry Freak Brothers" probably mid to late seventies, possibly early eighties. I don't know the publisher or any other info.

There's also a song with the words "Freak, Le Chic" and "Freak Out" a disco tune from the mid seventies about a dance of the same name. Again I don't know the author or the band who recorded it.

Brina Coronado brina at mail.ggg.net

[Editor's Note: I think the title is actually "Fabulous Furry Freak= Brothers," but I may be wrong.--C. Lavender]


[10]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 22:36:49 EDT From: Annette Zilversmit AZilver at aol.com

Leslie Fiedler did a whole study of freaks and I think his book is called FREAKS.

Annette Zilversmit AZilver at aol.com


[11]

Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 20:46:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Deandra Little deandra.j.little at vanderbilt.edu

Rachel Adams, Although it's a bit earlier than your search boundaries indicate, Carson McCuller's novel (and later play) "The Member of the Wedding" (1946) spends a good deal of time discussing "freaks" and freakishness, as do many of the gothic novels of the southern renaissance era. What sense of the term "freak" are you planning to chart?

Deandra Little deandra.j.little at vanderbilt.edu