of inclusion is often cited as one that embodies horror in the film. What does it mean to be 'one of us'? The chilling horror of the chant 'one of us' reveals why the freak show persists." In the book Midnight Movies (1991), critics J. Hoberman and Jonathan Rosenbaum compare Freaks to Gold Diggers of 1933, writing that the former is "almost literally dealing with the same thing [class disparity]... but more directly—because the end product isn't just putting on a show, but slaves breaking their chains and triumphing over their masters. Freaks is asking a Depression audience to identify not with the Beautiful People, but with sideshow mutations, a total underclass." John Stanley, longtime publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, describes the film as "A Classic of the Grotesque" in Creature Features. Disability and eugenics The film's depiction of people with disabilities has been a significant point of analysis amongst film critics and scholars. In his book Subversive Horror Cinema: Countercultural Messages of Films from Frankenstein to the Present (2014), critic Jon Towlson proposes that Freaks exemplifies an anti-eugenics sentiment. In presenting this idea, Towlson cites vignette sequences that make up the beginning of the film, largely consisting of the freaks in the context of their sideshow, before Browning "begins to undercut the voyeuristic aspects of the traditional freakshow by showing the freaks engaged in the activities of everyday life, dispelling the initial shock and revulsion, and encouraging the viewer to see the freaks as individuals who have overcome their disabilities." Towlson also notes that the freaks' everyday interactions with the able-bodied sideshow performers, such as Phroso, Roscoe, and Venus, further blurs the distinction between the able-bodied and disabled members of the circus, and that the physically beautiful characters—such as trapeze artist Cleopatra—are the ones who are vindictive and immoral. He further argues that the implied sexuality in the film—such as the implication that the conjoined twin sisters (played by Daisy and Violet Hilton) carry on their own separate sex lives—is an affront to the eugenic stance against reproduction and sexual activity among the "physically unfit." Towlson ultimately concludes that this subversion of character exemplifies a stark opposition to the core belief of eugenics, which is that physical appearance is equated with internal worth. Angela Smith, a scholar of film and disability, similarly notes that Freaks presents numerous scenes in which the freaks engage in routine and ordinary domestic