Betty Broadbent: "The Lady Who's Different"

Abstract

As one of the most famous circus performers in early twentieth-century American culture, Betty Broadbent's extreme appearance mirrored other tattooed performers at the time. However, Fabiani explores the ways that Broadbent deviated from the common social and cultural practices of tattooed circus women by resisting sexual objectification, breaking from the boundaries of the freak show stage, and rejecting captivity narratives. Broadbent's circus career spanned four decades, but this article focuses on the peak of her popularity from her debut in 1927 to the outbreak of World War II. This essay identifies Broadbent as a unique case within her subculture in an effort to critically deconstruct the social context of negative stigmas and gendered normativity that dominated American tattooing practices at the time. Employing a vast primary source base, Fabiani demonstrates that Broadbent really was "the lady who's different."