20 Easter Eggs You Didn't Notice In American Horror Story
14. Briarcliff Manor Is Based On Willowbrook State School
Real-life tragedy has often informed American Horror Story. The second season's Briarcliff Manor is obviously a heightened version of a lot of real-life asylums whose purportedly benevolent staff were actually intensely physically and mentally abusive towards their patients. It just throws ghosts, monsters and Anne Frank into the mix too. One of the most direct lifts AHS ever made from reality, though, occurs in the episode Madness Ends. During her expose on Briarcliff, Lana narrates These images and sounds are far more powerful than any words that can be spoken. But how can I describe to you the way it smells? It reeks of filth, of disease. It smells of death. Powerful stuff. And almost word-for-word quoting real-life TV journalist Geraldo Rivera, who in 1972 reported on Willowbrook State School in New York. A state-supported institution for children with intellectual disability, it was closed down after public uproar over the sub-human conditions and manner its inmates were treated.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
