: Joe’s request to be exhibited as an educational "freak show" is denied because his visible trauma would undermine the military’s heroic narrative. The film critiques doctors and generals who treat his life as a scientific experiment or a statistic rather than a person.

: The film highlights how war reduces a human being to a "piece of meat that keeps on living". Joe is infantalized, fed through tubes, and kept in a "womb-like" state of dependency, stripping him of his masculinity and agency.

: The Subversion of "Patriotic Heroism" in Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun .

: Joe Bonham as a "Freak Show" and the Fear of the Visual Realities of War.

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