Tod Browning's Freaks takes place in circus and centers around a man named Hans who falls in love with a woman named Cleopatra. It just so happens that Hans is a dwarf and leader of the side-show performers and Cleopatra is a "big" (normal-sized) woman and trapeze artist. Cleopatra fools Hans into believing that she has also fallen in live with him, and concedes to marry Hans after she finds that he has a fortune. When Hans' side-show friends find out that Cleopatra has only married Hans for his fortune they punish her.
Some critics argue that the story is a demonization of difference and not a defense of equality. Personally, I agree. Throughout the entire movie, the"freaks" were constantly being displayed as different and I feel that Browning did a great deal of work to establish that they were not "normal". In doing so, I think that he did a great job of presenting the two very different extremes in which the"freaks" (in this case people with physical abnormalities) faced: 1) they were thought of as docile and child-like, unable to fend or defend themselves; 2) they were monsters capable of hurting and turning other "normal" people into "freaks" like themselves.
In the beginning of the movie, he portrayed the sideshow acts as docile and child-like, almost as if they were helpless and could not fend for themselves. This was established by the scene in which Madame Tetralini (the owner of the circus) takes some of the "freaks" out for exercise, during which they run into a gentleman and his groundsperson. The gentleman proceeds to tell Madame Tetralini that she and her "freaks" must get off his property. She explains to the gentleman that the "freaks" are in fact "children from my circus...When I get the chance I like to take them out in the sunshine and let them play like children." While she is saying this, the pinheads (three of the "freaks") flock to her for protection like child would to their mother's skirt. This scene reinforces the docility and weakness of the "freaks", painting them as people who cannot fend for themselves like a "big person" can.
In contrast, the ending of the movie paints the "freaks" as dangerous and deadly things to be feared. After Cleopatra has married Hans, she (with the help of her lover the strongman Hercules) begin poisoning Hans in hopes of taking his fortune. When the other "freaks" find out they set out to make her pay. In final scene, there is a big storm and the freaks are seen walking on their hands through mud and rain, crawling and creeping toward Hercules and they set out to murder him. After murdering Hercules they chase the screaming Cleopatra as she runs through the woods. The movie ends with Cleopatra being turned into the very thing she loathed, a freak, by the very same "freaks" of whom she made fun. Thus, the "freaks" have turned from docile, weak children to horrible, vengeful monsters who must be feared. This part of the movie probably played on the real life fear that many people during that time had: "freakism" is contagious.
I think Browning's Freaks mirrors the social constructs of the lives of people who where thought of as different back then. The fact that the story takes place in a circus also probably speaks to the fact that for many people who were physically different, the only place for them was in a circus during the 1930s. Although there are parts in the movie in which Browning tries to paint the "freaks" as normal, the fact that the movie is named "Freaks" and that even the humane "big people" refer to the sideshow acts as freaks only further demonizes the physical differences of the sideshow acts. Therefore, I think Browning's Freaks is a just a demonization of physical differences; painting those with physical abnormalities as too weak to fend for themselves and thus dependent on "normal" people or as scary monstrosities that are to be feared due to their ability to turn you into a freak just like them.
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