Despite its classic film status (eight Oscar™ nominations), I was disappointed that John Merrick, the true life title character of 1980s The Elephant Man, didn’t have a trunk. How the heck is he supposed to eat peanuts? With that grotesquely misshapen head, leg and arm they should’ve called him The Play-Doh™ Man. (How insensitive of me. I should be made to clean out an elephant cage.)
John Merrick was hideously deformed man in 19th Century London. Until he was discovered being exploited and beaten like a step-child rug at a stink filthy Victorian circus sideshow, Merrick lived a life lower than that of a street elephant.
Rescued by surgeon Frederick Treves, a doctor who all the Monarchy want sticking rubber gloves into their royal holes, Merrick is taken to the hospital and given a clean room, hot meals, a bed and a private place to make doody that he was forced to do in public for the delight of paying customers.
Treves is compassionate and honest when he tells Merrick that, despite all his surgical skills, can’t fix him. But hey, free rent! Merrick’s horrific physical condition soon becomes newspaper fodder and celebrity soon follows. But all is not a free-range lifestyle for Merrick as his former employer, a drunken bully asshook douche bag, comes back to re-hire him.
The Elephant Man, based on the true story of John Merrick, is hard to watch if you have even a sliver of a soul. Fortunately, I am not cursed with one of those things. But I did like the movie. And I like peanuts.
Drinkin' & Drive-in 