ABSTRACT
Postmodern society offers paradoxical representations of the fate of the body. The Jim Rose Circus Side Show’s representation of the body’s fluids, pains, and pleasures refuses panic simulacrum by forcing the audience to confront the body’s visceral presence. The Jim Rose Circus Side Show exploits pain’s resistance to language by representing an odd mixture of pleasure and pain. The presence of the live physical body in pain presents a challenge to the distancing effects of technology and creates the illusion that the pain is “real.” Audiences and critics alike favor those feats which appear most painful and those which most strongly challenge the taboos concerning the boundaries between the inside and outside of the body—boundaries which have been accentuated by the AIDS panic. Jim Rose encourages interaction between the spectators and the performers throughout the show which reinforces the credibility of the stunts.
