Blog Dispassionate dances and sexual stances

In recent decades, circuses have taken a lot of heat, from PETA protesting the exploitation of elephants to hirsute women griping about the objectification of bearded ladies. As such, the current iteration of Ringling Bros. And Barnum & Bailey Circus is more mainstream than the traveling shows everyone’s grandparents used to see. (Seal Boy is gone. There are no diving ponies anymore. Even the “unicorn” Ringling Bros. used to trot out has vanished.) 

That said, the circus is still a weird spectacle—a showcase of the bizarre. Even though it has gone mainstream, this is still a forum where albino tigers prance like housecats, motorcycles race within a steel sphere, and dogs ride horses.

As the Ringling Bros. And Barnum & Bailey Circus pitches its proverbial tent for its annual run at the United Center today, The A.V. Club is happy to present some of the smaller, easily overlooked oddities that persist within “The Greatest Show On Earth.” 

Dispassionate Dancing
At the start of the show, all of the circus performers parade into the arena and groove to the upbeat introductory tune. Keep your eyes on the Russian gymnasts or the Mongolian strongmen for some wonderfully dispassionate dancing.

Balance Good!
One of the tightrope walkers—on whose head his partners stand—wears a helmet made to resemble hair. It’s furry and black, with a flat top and hard edges, lending the athlete a Frankensteinian air.

High Flying, Low Blows
Maybe he was upset at missing the quadruple flip a few minutes earlier, but the star trapeze artist got into a pissing match with a baton twirler in the grand finale of the show I saw. She nearly smacked his face with her baton; he slapped her hand away and cursed her out. Good stuff.

Rapper or Ringmaster?
“Come and ride the train!” shouts ringmaster Jonathan Lee Iverson, in a voice sounding more like the Quad City DJ’s than a circus performer.

Sexual Circus
With all the exposed flesh and spandex costumes, there’s a definite sexual vibe to the circus. One of the contortionists is built like Jessica Simpson, which makes her ability to squeeze into a microwave-sized glass cube with two other women all the more thrilling. Snake charmers wearing serpentine bras dance suggestively with pythons (Mother Nature’s most phallic creatures). At one point in an aerial acrobatic routine, a woman hangs from a ball gag in her partner’s mouth.

Tiger Tights
The tiger trainer’s shiny black tights have decorative, blood-red claw marks scratched into the thighs. The intent is to communicate the danger of this craft, but the claw marks seem to broadcast incompetence, like a plumber in a wet uniform or a boxer entering the ring with two shiners.

Pachyderm Procreation
During his elaborate introduction for an elephant calf, the ringmaster boasts about the circus’ successful “elephant consummation,” which—for anyone who has seen mammoths copulate knows—truly is the greatest show on Earth.