Freak
Encyclopedia
In current usage, the word "freak" is commonly used to refer to a person with something unusual about their appearance
or behaviour. This usage dates from the so-called freak scene
of the 1960s and 1970s. "Freak" in this sense may be used either as a pejorative, a term of admiration, or a self-description. It can also denote a strong obsession with a particular activity, e.g., "He's such a neat-freak" or "You're a singing freak". The term "freaky" can also apply to a person who is sexually adventurous, or by itself as in "that person's a freak" (in bed). As an extension of this definition, within pornography
, the word can refer to someone who is viewed as being a particularly extreme sex addict, or for whom sex is a central focus of their lives.
An older usage refers to the physically deformed, or having extraordinary diseases and conditions, such as sideshow
performers. This has fallen into disuse, except as a pejorative, and (among the performers of such shows) as jargon
. A "freak" in this sense can be formally defined as someone not falling within typical standard deviations. For example, people of small stature would not be classified as freaks unless they are within the third standard deviation
for the general population, while the same principle would apply to exceptionally tall people. "Freaks" of this kind can be classified into two groups: natural freaks and made freaks. A natural freak would usually refer to a genetic abnormality, while a made freak is a once normal person who experienced or initiated an alteration at some point in life (such as receiving surgical implants).
"Freak" continues to be used to describe genetic mutation
s in plant
s and animal
s, i.e. "freaks of nature." "Freak" can also be used in a verb form, and can mean: "to become stressed and upset". Usually, in this form, the word is followed by "out" to complete the phrase, "freaking out". However, this meaning and usage is usually considered slang. Adjectival forms include "freakish" as well as "freaky." The verb "freaking" (or, "freaking out") means "engaging in panicked or uncontrolled behavior"--for example, as the result of psychedelic drug use. "Freaking" may also be a minced oath
used in place of "fuck
ing," e.g. "Oh my freaking God!" The word is a homophone
of "phreak" (referring to the illegal hacking
of telephone systems), which it probably inspired.
'Freak' can also be seen being used as a surname, derived from French and Scottish heritage. Meaning, through interpretation 'keeper of the plains', the name is rarely seen but exists in some numbers. A notable carrier of the surname 'Freak' is Reece Freak, noted philanthropist and industrialist of Adelaide
, South Australia
.
. Many of the theories led to pseudo-sciences that are still supported by some. One persistent pre-19th century superstition
is that, if a pregnant woman is scared by someone or something, the child would be born with the quality of the source. (The widely accepted scientific theory regarding inherent qualities is that of mutation
).
In some religion
s since ancient times, the birth of abnormal offspring has been associated with astrological
events. Rues cited the recent solar eclipses as reason for the increased number of mutated infants born at that time. Karma
is also believed in some eastern religions to be a cause of abnormalities. In other faiths, the cause is attributed to direct intervention by the will of God
. Example of the usage of this term include, "smita you're a freak" and "smita you don't sleep so you're a freak."
of the 1960s, especially during the heyday of the hippie
counterculture
on the west coast, many teens and young adults, disillusioned with the austere confines of the postwar, suburbanite American way of life and the resultant countercultural and New Left movements defined themselves as "freaks". American musician and composer Frank Zappa
and his band The Mothers of Invention
were central to the freak scene in the mid to late 1960s, both in the Los Angeles
/San Francisco Bay Area
music scene and in New York
, where the band had a now infamous residency at the Garrick Theatre.
'"On a personal level", wrote Zappa in what should have been a put-on but wasn't, "Freaking out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricted standards of thinking, dress and social etiquette in order to express CREATIVELY his relationship to his environment and the social structure as a whole"'.
The freaks, by Zappa's reckoning, resisted the binaries of right versus left, dominant culture versus counterculture, or squares
versus hippie
s, preferring instead to align themselves with an aesthetic not narrowly defined by fashion or political leanings. (There is a certain irony here in that a freak was someone who resisted labeling, while the idiosyncratic individuality of people who deemed themselves freaks resulted in a shared identity among members of the subculture
). The concept also allowed The Mothers to celebrate the freak identity, which until then was used to describe perversions of nature or carnivalesque sideshows. 'Bearded and gross and filthy, entirely obscene, they...were freaks. They were meant to be. They were playing the same old game again, epater le bourgeousie, but this time round it wasn't called Dada
or Existentialism
or Beat
, it was Freak-Out'.
At the first Mothers of Invention concerts, audience members were invited to "freak out!" (also the title of the band's first album
), which meant to express themselves freely, be it through dancing, screaming, or letting a band member spray them with whipped cream. In terms of concert culture, the freak mentality influenced similar bands of subsequent musical generations.
The freaks, with their aggressively anti-social stance, came in for much criticism, not only from conventional culture but from within the counterculture itself, for their 'pretext of a theoretically total but actually quite false revolt against the "conventional lies of civilization"'. John Lennon
sang how '"freaks on the phone won't leave me alone"', explaining how he was 'sick of all these aggressive hippies or whatever they are, the Now Generation...demanding my attention as if I owed them something...under a delusion of awareness by having long hair and that's what I'm sick of'. Dylan
also suffered from 'Dylan freaks...once more trying to force him to live up to their concept of what he should be'. In a not atypical exchange, he'd be told '"you've got to live up to your responsibility as a culture hero - you're DYLAN, man, every freak has a soft spot in heir heart for ya...you're DYLAN, DYLAN, DYLAN."' only for him to reply '"I'm not Dylan, you're Dylan"'.
Freak subculture may also be linked to Jerry Rubin
's 'Filthy Speech Movement'.
or the band Murderdolls
), a reaction to a disfiguring accident, an attempt to stay young, or a symptom of body dysmorphic disorder
. There are various types of "made freaks"
, each of which may be used to create an effect which would make the person a freak.
word tatu or tatau, and incorporating Japan
ese traditional irezumi
("insertion of ink") methods, tattoo
ing became very popular among sailor
s, and then caught on with bikers and others who like to have permanent artwork on their skin. Today "made freaks" are often associated with having excessive tatooing all over the body, as in the case of The Enigma.
and styles such as spikes, mohawks
, dreadlocks
, and other uncommon styles designed to look as far from 'normal' hairstyles as possible, are still associated with punk
, although those styles were not popular at the time of punk rock
's emergence in the 1970s. It is possible to look at the 1961 movie The Rebel
starring Tony Hancock
and see representations of Paris artists with blue, green or crimson dyed hair and black clothing, parodying the antics of the surrealist
s or, looking back through old magazines and news items from the 1950s, to see news of British rock and roll
er Wee Willie Harris
with his pink hair or Peter Sellers
' early 60s comedy reference to a rock singer dying his "hair a luminous green" in the song "I'm So Ashamed".
has been around since ancient times, and has been attributed mystic
al significance. These days, it is often regarded by those who use it as an enhancement of one's natural appearance, as with most forms of body modification
.
Piercing of the face (especially ears and lips) has been integrated into teenage fashion, along with the subsequent stretching of these piercings by inserting increasingly larger jewelry into the healed fistula.
, or it can be totally transformative and literally serve to significantly alter the appearance of a person.
are becoming more common. Speculative fiction
and futurology
conjecture that this trend may continue to the point where the line between human and machine becomes very blurred. According to the philosophy of transhumanism
, technologies
such as cybernetics
will enable humans to transcend their current physical limitations. The philosophy prescribes a new kind of evolutionary mutation which transcends biology.
Human physical appearance
Human physical appearance refers to the outward phenotype or look of human beings. There are infinite variations in human phenotypes, though society reduces the variability to distinct categories...
or behaviour. This usage dates from the so-called freak scene
Freak scene
The freak scene was a term used by a slightly post-hippie and pre-punk style of bohemian subculture. It referred to overlaps between politicised pacifist post-hippies, generally non-political progressive rock fans, and non-political Psychedelic music and Psychedelia fans...
of the 1960s and 1970s. "Freak" in this sense may be used either as a pejorative, a term of admiration, or a self-description. It can also denote a strong obsession with a particular activity, e.g., "He's such a neat-freak" or "You're a singing freak". The term "freaky" can also apply to a person who is sexually adventurous, or by itself as in "that person's a freak" (in bed). As an extension of this definition, within pornography
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
, the word can refer to someone who is viewed as being a particularly extreme sex addict, or for whom sex is a central focus of their lives.
Sideshow
In America, a sideshow is an extra, secondary production associated with a circus, carnival, fair or other such attraction.- Types of attractions :There are four main types of classic sideshow attractions:...
performers. This has fallen into disuse, except as a pejorative, and (among the performers of such shows) as jargon
Jargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
. A "freak" in this sense can be formally defined as someone not falling within typical standard deviations. For example, people of small stature would not be classified as freaks unless they are within the third standard deviation
Standard deviation
Standard deviation is a widely used measure of variability or diversity used in statistics and probability theory. It shows how much variation or "dispersion" there is from the average...
for the general population, while the same principle would apply to exceptionally tall people. "Freaks" of this kind can be classified into two groups: natural freaks and made freaks. A natural freak would usually refer to a genetic abnormality, while a made freak is a once normal person who experienced or initiated an alteration at some point in life (such as receiving surgical implants).
"Freak" continues to be used to describe genetic mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
s in plant
Plant
Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...
s and animal
Animal
Animals are a major group of multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. Their body plan eventually becomes fixed as they develop, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on in their life. Most animals are motile, meaning they can move spontaneously and...
s, i.e. "freaks of nature." "Freak" can also be used in a verb form, and can mean: "to become stressed and upset". Usually, in this form, the word is followed by "out" to complete the phrase, "freaking out". However, this meaning and usage is usually considered slang. Adjectival forms include "freakish" as well as "freaky." The verb "freaking" (or, "freaking out") means "engaging in panicked or uncontrolled behavior"--for example, as the result of psychedelic drug use. "Freaking" may also be a minced oath
Minced oath
A minced oath is an expression based on a profanity or a taboo term that has been altered to reduce the objectionable characteristics.Many languages have such expressions...
used in place of "fuck
Fuck
"Fuck" is an English word that is generally considered obscene which, in its most literal meaning, refers to the act of sexual intercourse. By extension it may be used to negatively characterize anything that can be dismissed, disdained, defiled, or destroyed."Fuck" can be used as a verb, adverb,...
ing," e.g. "Oh my freaking God!" The word is a homophone
Homophone
A homophone is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose and rose , or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or to, two, and too. Homophones that are spelled the same are also both homographs and homonyms...
of "phreak" (referring to the illegal hacking
Hacker (computer security)
In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...
of telephone systems), which it probably inspired.
'Freak' can also be seen being used as a surname, derived from French and Scottish heritage. Meaning, through interpretation 'keeper of the plains', the name is rarely seen but exists in some numbers. A notable carrier of the surname 'Freak' is Reece Freak, noted philanthropist and industrialist of Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
.
History
In early science, there were many theories concerning the existence of natural abnormalitiesAbnormality (behavior)
Abnormality, in the vivid sense of something deviating from the normal or differing from the typical , is a subjectively defined behavioral characteristic, assigned to those with rare or dysfunctional conditions...
. Many of the theories led to pseudo-sciences that are still supported by some. One persistent pre-19th century superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
is that, if a pregnant woman is scared by someone or something, the child would be born with the quality of the source. (The widely accepted scientific theory regarding inherent qualities is that of mutation
Mutation
In molecular biology and genetics, mutations are changes in a genomic sequence: the DNA sequence of a cell's genome or the DNA or RNA sequence of a virus. They can be defined as sudden and spontaneous changes in the cell. Mutations are caused by radiation, viruses, transposons and mutagenic...
).
In some religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
s since ancient times, the birth of abnormal offspring has been associated with astrological
Astrology
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world...
events. Rues cited the recent solar eclipses as reason for the increased number of mutated infants born at that time. Karma
Karma
Karma in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Sikh philosophies....
is also believed in some eastern religions to be a cause of abnormalities. In other faiths, the cause is attributed to direct intervention by the will of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
. Example of the usage of this term include, "smita you're a freak" and "smita you don't sleep so you're a freak."
Frank Zappa and the freak subculture
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
of the 1960s, especially during the heyday of the hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
on the west coast, many teens and young adults, disillusioned with the austere confines of the postwar, suburbanite American way of life and the resultant countercultural and New Left movements defined themselves as "freaks". American musician and composer Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
and his band The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention
The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1964 to 1969, and again from 1970 to 1975.They mainly performed works by, and were the original recording group of, US composer and guitarist Frank Zappa , although other members have had the occasional writing credit...
were central to the freak scene in the mid to late 1960s, both in the Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
/San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
music scene and in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, where the band had a now infamous residency at the Garrick Theatre.
'"On a personal level", wrote Zappa in what should have been a put-on but wasn't, "Freaking out is a process whereby an individual casts off outmoded and restricted standards of thinking, dress and social etiquette in order to express CREATIVELY his relationship to his environment and the social structure as a whole"'.
The freaks, by Zappa's reckoning, resisted the binaries of right versus left, dominant culture versus counterculture, or squares
Square (slang)
Square used as slang may mean many things when referring to a person or in common language.In referring to a person, the word originally meant someone who was honest, traditional and loyal. An agreement that is equitable on all sides is a "square deal"...
versus hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s, preferring instead to align themselves with an aesthetic not narrowly defined by fashion or political leanings. (There is a certain irony here in that a freak was someone who resisted labeling, while the idiosyncratic individuality of people who deemed themselves freaks resulted in a shared identity among members of the subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...
). The concept also allowed The Mothers to celebrate the freak identity, which until then was used to describe perversions of nature or carnivalesque sideshows. 'Bearded and gross and filthy, entirely obscene, they...were freaks. They were meant to be. They were playing the same old game again, epater le bourgeousie, but this time round it wasn't called Dada
Dada
Dada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
or Existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
or Beat
Beat
-Film:*Beat , the smallest unit of dramatic action in a play*Beat , a film about writer William Seward Burroughs*Beat , a 1998 Japanese film*Directorial beat, an exchange of behavior between characters in a screenplay...
, it was Freak-Out'.
At the first Mothers of Invention concerts, audience members were invited to "freak out!" (also the title of the band's first album
Freak Out!
Freak Out! is the debut album by American band The Mothers of Invention, released June 27, 1966 on Verve Records. Often cited as one of rock music's first concept albums, the album is a satirical expression of frontman Frank Zappa's perception of American pop culture...
), which meant to express themselves freely, be it through dancing, screaming, or letting a band member spray them with whipped cream. In terms of concert culture, the freak mentality influenced similar bands of subsequent musical generations.
The freaks, with their aggressively anti-social stance, came in for much criticism, not only from conventional culture but from within the counterculture itself, for their 'pretext of a theoretically total but actually quite false revolt against the "conventional lies of civilization"'. John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
sang how '"freaks on the phone won't leave me alone"', explaining how he was 'sick of all these aggressive hippies or whatever they are, the Now Generation...demanding my attention as if I owed them something...under a delusion of awareness by having long hair and that's what I'm sick of'. Dylan
Dylan
Dylan is a Welsh boy's name common in America . It may refer to:* Dylan , people named Dylan* Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet* Dylan , a language with Lisp-like semantics and ALGOL-like syntax* Dylan Ail Don, a sea-god in Celtic mythology...
also suffered from 'Dylan freaks...once more trying to force him to live up to their concept of what he should be'. In a not atypical exchange, he'd be told '"you've got to live up to your responsibility as a culture hero - you're DYLAN, man, every freak has a soft spot in heir heart for ya...you're DYLAN, DYLAN, DYLAN."' only for him to reply '"I'm not Dylan, you're Dylan"'.
Freak subculture may also be linked to Jerry Rubin
Jerry Rubin
Jerry Rubin was an American social activist during the 1960s and 1970s. During the 1980s, he became a successful businessman.-Early life:...
's 'Filthy Speech Movement'.
"Made freaks"
The word "freak" is also used these days by people who intentionally choose to alter their physical appearance by artificial means. The motivation for the change may be bravado, a lifestyle choice (an example of this is The Enigma, rockstar Marilyn MansonMarilyn Manson
Marilyn Manson may refer to:* Marilyn Manson , an American rock musician* Marilyn Manson , the American rock band led by the singer of the same name...
or the band Murderdolls
Murderdolls
Murderdolls is an American horror punk supergroup, founded during 2002 in Hollywood, California. The band line-up consists of core members Wednesday 13 and Joey Jordison. Former members include Ben Graves, Acey Slade, Eric Griffin & Tripp Eisen....
), a reaction to a disfiguring accident, an attempt to stay young, or a symptom of body dysmorphic disorder
Body dysmorphic disorder
Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a type of mental illness, a somatoform disorder, wherein the affected person is exclusively concerned with body image, manifested as excessive concern about and preoccupation with a perceived defect of his or her physical features...
. There are various types of "made freaks"
Body modification
Body modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression...
, each of which may be used to create an effect which would make the person a freak.
Tattooing
Taken from the TahitianTahitian language
Tahitian is an indigenous language spoken mainly in the Society Islands in French Polynesia. It is an Eastern Polynesian language closely related to the other indigenous languages spoken in French Polynesia: Marquesan, Tuamotuan, Mangarevan, and Austral Islands languages...
word tatu or tatau, and incorporating Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese traditional irezumi
Irezumi
Irezumi is a Japanese word that refers to the insertion of ink under the skin to leave a permanent, usually decorative mark; a form of tattooing....
("insertion of ink") methods, tattoo
Tattoo
A tattoo is made by inserting indelible ink into the dermis layer of the skin to change the pigment. Tattoos on humans are a type of body modification, and tattoos on other animals are most commonly used for identification purposes...
ing became very popular among sailor
Sailor
A sailor, mariner, or seaman is a person who navigates water-borne vessels or assists in their operation, maintenance, or service. The term can apply to professional mariners, military personnel, and recreational sailors as well as a plethora of other uses...
s, and then caught on with bikers and others who like to have permanent artwork on their skin. Today "made freaks" are often associated with having excessive tatooing all over the body, as in the case of The Enigma.
Punk hair
Unusual hair coloringHair coloring
Hair coloring is the practice of changing the color of hair. Common reasons are to cover gray hair, to change to a color regarded as more fashionable or desirable, and to restore the original hair color after it has been discolored by hairdressing processes or sun bleaching...
and styles such as spikes, mohawks
Mohawk hairstyle
The mohawk is a hairstyle in which, in the most common variety, both sides of the head are shaven, leaving a strip of noticeably longer hair...
, dreadlocks
Dreadlocks
Dreadlocks, also called locks, a ras, dreads, "rasta" or Jata , are matted coils of hair. Dreadlocks are usually intentionally formed; because of the variety of different hair textures, various methods are used to encourage the formation of locks such as backcombing...
, and other uncommon styles designed to look as far from 'normal' hairstyles as possible, are still associated with punk
Punk fashion
Punk fashion is the clothing, hairstyles, cosmetics, jewelry, and body modifications of the punk subculture. Punk fashion varies widely, ranging from Vivienne Westwood designs to styles modeled on bands like The Exploited. The distinct social dress of other subcultures and art movements, including...
, although those styles were not popular at the time of punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
's emergence in the 1970s. It is possible to look at the 1961 movie The Rebel
The Rebel (1961 film)
The film The Rebel is a satirical comedy starring the British comedian Tony Hancock, and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.-Plot:...
starring Tony Hancock
Tony Hancock
Anthony John "Tony" Hancock was an English actor and comedian.-Early life and career:Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, England, but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in...
and see representations of Paris artists with blue, green or crimson dyed hair and black clothing, parodying the antics of the surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
s or, looking back through old magazines and news items from the 1950s, to see news of British rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
er Wee Willie Harris
Wee Willie Harris
Wee Willie Harris is a British rock and roll singer. He is best known for his energetic stage shows and TV performances since the 1950s, when he was known as "Britain's wild man of rock 'n' roll".-Life and career:Working a job as a pudding mixer at Peek Freans' London bakery, Harris turned...
with his pink hair or Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
' early 60s comedy reference to a rock singer dying his "hair a luminous green" in the song "I'm So Ashamed".
Piercing
Body piercingBody piercing
Body piercing, a form of body modification, is the practice of puncturing or cutting a part of the human body, creating an opening in which jewelry may be worn. The word piercing can refer to the act or practice of body piercing, or to an opening in the body created by this act or practice...
has been around since ancient times, and has been attributed mystic
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
al significance. These days, it is often regarded by those who use it as an enhancement of one's natural appearance, as with most forms of body modification
Body modification
Body modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self expression...
.
Piercing of the face (especially ears and lips) has been integrated into teenage fashion, along with the subsequent stretching of these piercings by inserting increasingly larger jewelry into the healed fistula.
Cosmetic surgery
Cosmetic surgery can refer to the simple removal of a scarScar
Scars are areas of fibrous tissue that replace normal skin after injury. A scar results from the biological process of wound repair in the skin and other tissues of the body. Thus, scarring is a natural part of the healing process. With the exception of very minor lesions, every wound results in...
, or it can be totally transformative and literally serve to significantly alter the appearance of a person.
Medical implants
Medical implantsImplant (medicine)
An implant is a medical device manufactured to replace a missing biological structure, support a damaged biological structure, or enhance an existing biological structure. Medical implants are man-made devices, in contrast to a transplant, which is a transplanted biomedical tissue...
are becoming more common. Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction
Speculative fiction is an umbrella term encompassing the more fantastical fiction genres, specifically science fiction, fantasy, horror, supernatural fiction, superhero fiction, utopian and dystopian fiction, apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, and alternate history in literature as well as...
and futurology
Futurology
Futures studies is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch under the more general scope of the field of...
conjecture that this trend may continue to the point where the line between human and machine becomes very blurred. According to the philosophy of transhumanism
Transhumanism
Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human...
, technologies
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
such as cybernetics
Cybernetics
Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to information theory, control theory and systems theory, at least in its first-order form...
will enable humans to transcend their current physical limitations. The philosophy prescribes a new kind of evolutionary mutation which transcends biology.