As it turns out, two readers knew the answer to yesterday's riddle as evidenced by their posted comments. The two readers who knew the answer just happened by coincidence to be two of my daughters.
In 1932 the movie “Freaks” was released. |
The story line of “Freaks” goes as follows:
The circus sideshow freaks are a good-hearted and sociable group and among each other they form a close-knit, supportive familial circle.
Cleopatra pretends to fall in love with Hans and seduces him away from Frieda, then prevails upon him to marry her, which, completely smitten with the irresistible Cleopatra, he does.
Hans and Cleopatra are married, and the freaks joyfully celebrate at their friend’s wedding reception, except for heart-broken Frieda.
Then proceeds the famous (among the film savvy), iconic scene from “Freaks,” in which the Freaks chant over and over again to the horrified Cleopatra:
Cleopatra throws the wine at the freaks and she and Hercules threaten them and insult and shame Hans, who succumbs to the poison.
"Freaks" was considered so horrifying when it opened in 1932 that the final "duck woman" scene caused audiences to run screaming from the theater. One woman claimed the movie caused her to miscarry.
However in the 1960's the film was rediscovered and has since picked up a cult following among hard-core movie buffs such as myself (I'm not actually a cult-follower of "Freaks," just a hard-core movie buff) and the line "One of us! One of us!" is a frequent in-joke reference (that few get but from now on you will) in pop culture, as it has been on The Simpsons, Big Bang Theory, South Park, in a hilarious kiddie book my grand daughter likes called Dog Man,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freaks