Anxious Undertones

Whether they are a result of supernatural intervention or imperfect nature, people like Milagros almost always succeed in causing a stir - usually an emotional stir.

Most of us rely upon the regularity of nature, the cycling of the seasons, of birth and of death, of day and of night. We are habit-forming creatures that find regular patterns comfortable and predictable, a sign that all is well in the world. Most of the time the natural world operates with a regularity that we understand.

Except, that is, for the odd hiccup, quirk or freak. A disturbance of the norm is something to guard against. All too often, violations of natural order instil fear and pity in us.

Historical studies reveal that cultural obsessions with the freakish tend to go in trends that often coincide with periods of upheaval and national instability. In England of the 1560s there was a surge of media interest in so-called 'monstrous births' amidst the turmoil of religious reform, economic strife, plague and threats of war. A second trend in the 1640s appears to reflect the havoc caused by civil war.

More recently, in the years following the First World War, a new cultural phenomenon was initiated in Germany - the surrealist movement. It predominantly represented the human body with missing, dislocated and distorted body parts. It blurred the boundaries of human and animal forms and gave rise to a new cult of horror films, of which the 1921 film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror was the first. The post-war culture clearly reflects an anxious preoccupation with deformed and disfigured bodies.

When Milagros Cerrón was born, in Huancayo, news of a fish-child spread like wildfire. A local TV crew leapt at the story, riveting audiences nationwide with film of the Little Mermaid. Milagros caused an immediate sensation.

The Peruvian nation, in the midst of the chaos of economic recession, found enormous emotional appeal in the plight of a disabled little girl. Could she rise above her condition? Would she be cured? The anxieties and tensions of a whole nation were aired and offloaded onto the fate of Milagros. A heavy burden for so small a child to bear.