The circus is basically a relic of bygone eras of family activities at this point and I'm not really all that wistful for the time when they were a prominent fixture of all-ages entertainment. As Patton Oswalt
once noted in his stand-up, circuses inherently are creepy and have an extensive history of exploiting people and animals. For an example of pop culture representation of the former element, look no further than the 1932 Tod Browning directed feature
Freaks, which is all about following the lives of a large number of physically handicapped individuals who are put on display by a traveling circus as members of their Freak Show exhibit.
