On Human Oddities (as such)...

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Olden Times
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There are two polarized views on human oddities, one side thinking that putting these people on a pedestal for all to see is demeaning and horrible, while the other side thinks putting these people on a pedestal is simply celebrating their uniqueness and individuality.

The advanced political correctness of modern times has deemed this as demeaning and eliminated the "Freak Shows" of yesteryear for the most part. The most popular circus, Cirque de Soleil, does not even have one human oddity on its roster of performers. That brings up a very obvious counter argument right there... where do these folks work now? Most of these folks in question's handicaps make it difficult for them to find gainful employment, and unless they were born into a rich family and able to secure a large inheritence then chances are most of today's human oddities only income is through their respective government's relief programs.

I think they represent a very important cog in the human machine, I believe their personal oddities are actually the height of individuality and should indeed be celebrated. In the back of all our minds we can probably picture a world where everyone is the exactly the same and it's actually scary. A world where everyone looks the same, acts the same, walks the same, talks the same, and behaves the same. The pros of a world such as this would be many obviously, we'd get a lot more stuff done and more efficiently if we were all on the same page I guess, but wouldn't it be fantastically fucking boring though? Can a frightening society as this ever really exist? Can the great big combine harvester of human conformity really meld us into being one and the same? Or are there people who exist out there who are so different that conforming them would be a physical impossibility? Human oddities are indeed those people and they represent the burden of proof that hopefully a society of fully conformed humans will never ever be able to exist.

We've tried over and over to rid the world of these human oddities, most people are aware that Nazi Germany was big on this...they rounded up many people and had them weeded out of the human gene pool with hopes of "improving" it. Most probably don't know that every nation has had it's turn attempting to kill off these offshoots of humanity. Winston Churchill's Britain had tens of thousands of oddities and mentally handicapped individuals sterilized or lobotomized. In Canada, each province had mass sterilizations, the Alberta Eugenics Board was the most fervent in it's attempt to weed out these people (see wiki: Alberta Eugenics and google Canadian eugenics for other data).

Get away from Hans you lascivious howler you!

A great 1932 film entitled "Freaks" (available for viewing here: I mean here) made in the height of the eugenics fervor attempted to show that they were in fact humans with personalities and emotions of their own. It details the plight of a German dwarf named Hans who is in the process of being duped out of his family fortune by a beautiful acrobat, yet before she has the chance to poison poor lil' Hans and kill him, Hans' Freak brethren and sistren corner her on a stage cart and horribly mutilate her...turning her into something she reviled most...a freak herself. It should've been called "Revenge of the Freaks" or "Take that Eugenics" in my opinion, but it is a really good movie nonetheless and it has that Indian parapalegic guy in it too.

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Modern times
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One of the main reasons I love the Howard Stern show so much is their attitude towards the human oddity, they take the latter stance and celebrate these individuals and make them incredibly famous and rich. They love the individuality of oddballs, whackjobs, the criminily insane (see: Elegant Elliot Offen), and for and foremost phyisical human oddities. You've had your dwarfs over the years such as Kessler, Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf, that little shitball Eric the Midget, but one stands head and shoulder above the rest...the great Beetlejuice.

Lester "Beetajuice" Green (background peice) is a microcephalic dwarf who may be the most iconic and beloved human oddity in history and with very good reason. Microcephalic basically means that he has a very tiny misshapen skull.

They're Children!

Three microcephalic dwarf girls appear in the 1932 film "Freaks" as well, they are actually in two of the most poignant scenes of the film. In the first scene we see them, they are running around and playing and laughing and singing outside when two men happen upon them and start telling them that they are "monsters!", their teacher responds by yelling back that they are simply "children!" In the second scene the strong man of the circus is telling one of the girls that he is going to Paris on a trip and that he's going to bring her back a present, and while she's all smiles he follows up with "...yeah! a big old hat! hahahaha!" He makes you want to jump in the screen and beat the shit out of him.

They tried to stop people like this from existing for so long and fervently, yet over seventy years later there are still microcephalic dwarfs and they are living life large. I'm kind of an opponent of organized religion yet I like seeing Jewish people being Jewish because I know from reading history that a powerful group of horrible Nazis tried to kill every Jewish person just for being Jewish and thusly when you see a Jewish person proudly being Jewish it represents a testament to the determination and perseverance of the human race. Similarly, after all the sterilizations and lobotomies and attempts to weed out microcephalics from the gene pool, it is very uplifting to know that there is still at least one out there and he is living life as large as can.

Yeah...you.

Is Beetlejuice that cog mentioned before in the human machine that is impossible by any means to conform? No matter how hard any person, combinations of persons, or streamlined collective subconscious rule system tries...people like him can never be successfully conformed. Does he represent a golden ray of hope that a totally homogenized society can never truly exist?

Is Beetle the best? Yup, and he knows it too...