Leaving aside the Kennedy picture for a moment, the reason I object to Evelyn Evelyn (as someone who does like Amanda Palmer and does think that some of her aforementioned dark humor is right on the mark) is that I can't see how we're not meant to be laughing AT the conjoined twins. I can't see how they're not being ridiculed. And I don't understand what the point of that is--like, for a crowd of able-bodied people to laugh at this? The only analogy that I can come up with is blackface. And that's not funny. It's just not.

I do think art can be uncomfortable, I do think art can be edgy and sharp (Palmer's "Oasis" actually works like this, for me), but this project isn't sharp, it's kicking people who are already often and repeatedly ridiculed and marginalized. You have to know what the hell you're doing, when you're an artist. This recalls freakshows, which is to say, shows in which they showed off people who are 'freakish and different', and I get that they're doing it on purpose, but I don't see what's different about it to make it okay.