The video was meant to portray two little girls who thought bad thoughts about their older sister (as portrayed in dream sequences)… but in the end the sister was completely innocent of their suspicions/fantasy accusations, and in fact was just off taking a nap. Its message was in fact NOT to judge people, and to give them the benefit of the doubt! Other than that, the story was pretty much taken directly from the rather scatalogical lyrics.

When we made the video for Amanda and Jason (soon after I directed her “Leeds United” video), we did not know about / Amanda had not yet made up the background of the twins as survivors of abuse. Just to note, we are completely NOT down with that.

That’s the director of the fan video. He got permission to use the song and it looks like he got permission to screen it at some festival in Italy and has her personal email address. I’d say she’s aware of the video and has not offered any objections to it. Who is this indeciSean? I see him everywhere defending AFP and assume he’s some employee, PR flack, manager, or something like that?

—possibly triggering—

The video portrays yet ANOTHER sister Evelyn, this one happens to be a woman of color. How the two little blonde white girls have a WOC sister is another question, maybe in a circus all the performers are “family”. By the end of the video this Evelyn gives the finger before she beats up a bare breasted showgirl and then is raped/has sex with a monkey while smoking a joint. In the lyrics she is called a floozy and ho-bag. I’m not kidding. Yes, scary angry aggressive over-sexed slut druggie WOC….they didn’t miss any of the stereotypes.

And Elizabeth, this is from one of their press releases: “When I first heard their songs, I was astounded at the sheer, raw talent and super-clever songwriting,” says Palmer. “But when I found out they were actually conjoined twins who had spent their lives trapped in the circus industry, I wanted to help them reach a new audience.”

Trapped doesn’t sound like they were empowered. So far their “freak show” has been exploited in child pornography, and in a circus, so now they have Amanda and Jason to “save” them.

“The freak show genre has historically been very empowering of disabled people, especially in premodern times (when the alternative was life in an institution or as a shut-in).”

I can imagine it was very empowering if the other choice was life in an institution or as a “shut-in”. Because it was the better of those choices given. Which does not mean it was a necessarily GOOD choice. If I had the choice between being forced to live my life apart from society, forced into a institution where I will likely be mistreated and handled like a “freak” against my will, or choosing to go into an entertainment career where I got to present myself as a freak for profit and the feeling of getting something over on other people who see me as freakish ANYway, yea, I’d choose the freak show. But wouldn’t it be so much better if I got to choose to do things that didn’t put my differences on display as freakish and horrifying and entertaining and instead got to follow other career options and passions??

“So the very fact that this musical group is referencing sideshow is NOT, in itself, ableist.”

It is not that they are “referencing” sideshow. It is that they are recreating the affects of it not only by furthering the idea of disability/conjoined twins/different bodies as freakish and entertaining, but also by performing it themselves as abled/non-conjoined twins/”normal” bodies who can take the costume/identity off any time they wish, and who seem to think the whole idea is something funny and silly to entertain other abled/non-conjoined twins/”normal” bodied people. It is Very Much like black face.

“I’d also like to say that there essentially are no real conjoined twins anymore, thanks to medical normalization. There are four living pairs of adult conjoined twins in the world today. Four.”

There are essentially no “real” conjoined twins anymore, except for the four living pairs who are very much real. One pair of whom are actually in the entertainment business themselves and have been a part of many documentaries and interviews, which shows that they are willing to be approached by people who wish to understand their experiences. JMS above makes a really good point about this pair. I wonder how they might have reacted if Palmer and Webley had approached them and asked them if they would like to be a part of this project. You know, Palmer and Webley make up a story about conjoined twins that they personally have helped to promote as musicians. Possibly they could have actually promoted a conjoined twin’s career as a musician instead of dressing up in a freakish parody of them for laughs and their own career promotion.

“This portrayal is definitely not accurate, but even if they were interested in making it accurate, it’s not like there were tons of people they could have asked for advice.”

In Wbeley’s blog post, he says that he spent time researching historical conjoined twins. He also admits that he was scared that the few living conjoined twins in the world today would be offended by the project but hoped they wouldn’t be. This tells me he had the foresight to understand that the project was possibly offensive, that he knows there are conjoined twins living in the world today, that he was willing to do as much research as that but failed to go far enough to bother even attempting to discuss the project with any of them.

Not to mention that there are other people living who were born conjoined and have been separated and who also could have been contacted for input. Not to mention all of the friends, family, and loved ones of people who either currently are or were born conjoined.

Not to mention all of the many many many people living in the world who have bodies that are othered, looked upon as freakish, and who have had similar life experiences.

Just some food for thought.

Think about that for a minute. There is a singer/songwriter who is currently living as a conjoined twin, and that person (who has recently made a name change from “Reba” to “George” so I don’t know which gender pronoun that person prefers) has had to struggle for attention, perform at open mike nights, etc.

And yet Amanda Palmer and Jason Webley are masquerading as conjoined twins for shits and giggles, and getting far more attention than George Schappell, who lives with the challenges of this infrequent physiology EVERY SINGLE DAY has ever gotten.

It’s not more OK to masquerade as a person with a disability if it’s a rare disability. Remember, this project isn’t drawing fire because it’s “referring to” people living as conjoined twins—it’s drawing fire because Palmer and Webley are MASQUERADING as conjoined twins.