Gut-wrenching : a phenomenological investigation of somatic responses to disgust in American Horror Story : Freak Show

Abstract

The horror genre is very good at evoking an excess of heavy emotions and eliciting intense visceral responses in the viewer. The fourth season of the show titled American Horror Story: Freak Show (Murphy 2014–2015) follows the fall of one of the remaining freak show acts in 1942 in South Florida, focusing on the troupe of performers’ lives and the trials they face to survive.

This dissertation presents a phenomenological analysis of Freak Show (Murphy 2014– 2015) to understand how this television show elicits somatic and affective responses from its viewers. It therefore focuses on the affective response of disgust as understood through the theoretical lenses of embodied perception and the abject. This study investigates how disgust plays a role in a viewer’s experience of Freak Show specifically concerning selected social issues explored in the series such as the social hierarchy, sex, homophobia, and the family unit. This study concludes by describing the transformative potential of the somatic encounter with Freak Show (Murphy 2014–2015).