This essay, about the film The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980), was written for a continuing education activity on Cinema and Collective Health at Unisinos (University of the Sinos River Valley, São Leopoldo, Brazil). It attempts to contribute towards the debate on health, disease and abnormality. The film, set in Victorian England, is the story of a man affected by a disease that caused extensive physical deformities, which caused him to be exhibited at circuses as a freak. The discussion, inspired by Foucault, covers three main issues: the concept of abnormality that became consolidated within the field of Medicine during the nineteenth century, thereby defining the boundary between health and disease; the transformation of hospitals into standardized healing spaces; and care as a practice of ethical and political nature.
Care; Normality; Abnormalities; Motion pictures; Public health