Clowns

Remember back to your childhood when life was simpler and it was easy to laugh. One constant of childhood, up until about 25 years ago was the image of a clown. There was clown wallpaper in children's rooms, clown themed bibs, clown dolls and clowns hosting kids' television programs. As one grew older one lost one's appreciation for clowns because of the mistaken belief that clowns were beings for small children and just plain dumb.
But the fact of the matter is that, while those clowns that one was presented were pretty much childish and silly, those clowns were clowns for kids. They weren't real clowns of the classic sense. Real clowning is serious business and real clowns used to reflect the stupidest, the meanest and most frightening elements of our being. Consider the great clowns of the past. Emmett Kelly portrayed a character named Weary Willie. He was a sad sack tramp clown trying, in his own way, to better himself and failing. Red Skelton created Freddie the Freeloader, a tramp clown always looking for an easy life without putting out the work to earn it. Lou Adler (for many years the image of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus) created a clown who was bossy and stupid.
And it is because of, in this writer's opinion, that the classic clown (not kid clowns, not evangelist clowns, not mimes {the exception being Jacques Tati in his M.Hulot series of films}) is so despised by so many adults today. How many times have you heard, or you yourself have said, "I hate clowns" or "I'm afraid of clowns"? Could it be that the open, nay, grotesquely enthusiastic satirization of the worst features of the human condition. Clowns are, in a sense, an ugly mirror. In other words, look into this mirror and see who ugly you are despite the way you paint yourself (the clown's make-up).
Classical clowning has taken a lot of abuse from modern society in the West because the West has lost its Christian identity. To be a Christian is to realize that one is, by nature, deeply flawed and that there is a way to salvation through Christ. In times past, when the West was nominally Christian it was the norm to occasionally examine oneself and find and contemplate one's flaws and indwelling sins. The clown, in a humorous way, brought attention to the flaws. The clown represented the irreducable element of rascality that infects us all and the clown showed that to the audience and showed the consequences for not dealing with those flaws.
But we have, since then, as a society, lost our sense of shame. And it is considered an insult to have one's sins or flaws pointed out either by example (the clown method) or by direct comment (trying telling a friend or co-worker that he is acting like an idiot and see what your dental bill will be the next day). Clowns are creepy and "scary" because they are us
Nowadays, we still have clowns, but they are reality show personalities or celebrities. But before going into that factor of the unrecognized and oddly accepted and compelling clown, let us look at the three classic types of clowns and their bare-faced off-spring.
The first is the white-faced clown. The white-face, as well as painting his face white, wears very little other make-up. He rarely wears a rubber nose, but often a pointed cap. The white-face is a serious clown. He is self serious. He is a clown who knows more than he really knows, smarter than he really is. He is bossy and over-bearing.
The second is the Auguste clown. While often bearing a base of white make-up, the Auguste clown is usually more polychromatic, often with a rubber nose, a fringe wig and a horn or noisemaker of some sort. The Auguste clown appears, at first glance, to be rather stupid and often is stupid. He's usually the underling in some way to the white-face and is often abused by the white-face. In his bumbling and stumbling and apparent idiocy he often comes out in a better position than the white-face while the white-face thinks that he, himself, has come out on top.
Thirdly is the tramp clown. The tramp clown is usually a loner. He is usually rather lazy. He is a bit of a con man in some ways, but he's also a sad sack. Sometimes he is victorious in his endeavors but just as often he fails.
To bring it into classical popular film culture we can look at the Three Stooges. Moe is the white-face. Larry and Joe (or Curly or Shemp) are Auguste clowns. Bud Abbott is the white-face. Lou Costello is the Auguste. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton are tramp clowns.
Television and the celebrity culture has created a whole new variation of clowns without the consumer or the clowns realizing it. Consider such "reality" television programs as "Jersey Shore" or "Keeping Up With the Kardashians." The former features the "real" lives of a group of self-described "Guidos" with the most stereotypical New Jersey accents seeming to live lives of endless partying and coupling. The most famous of the group is a rather troll-like big-breasted young woman called Snookie who seems to live in a tanning booth when she isn't walking around looking like a desperate prostitute on Century Blvd when Hollywood Park isn't in season. The second program features three slut sisters, one at the moment married to a basketball player, living the lush life in Florida and experiencing "crisis" after "crisis". The women make stupid decisions, over-react to setbacks like to show off their zaftig figures.
Both programs are of the type that draw from their audiences reactions such as, "I wouldn't do THAT!", or "How could he do THAT!", or "How could somebody be so STUPID?" Well, the reason is because those people in those programs are doing the things that the viewer would do if given the opportunity. Or at least consider it. The only differences between Snookie or Kim and Lou Adler are that Snookie and Kim wear a different type of make-up and that the viewer, because neither Snookie nor Kim are in clown make-up, does not see themselves in Snookie or Kim in the way they saw themselves in Lou Adler. The audience also, because the programs are billed as "reality" shows, thinks that it is watching a person's real life, when, in fact, it is watching a performance that the performers do not realize is a performance. The clown is performing without the fourth wall of the stage, which makes the performance more personal for the viewer. The "reality" "Star" is in a play of his or her own making and there is a separation between the viewer and the performer that the viewer find comfortable because he/she is not directly addressed with his/her flaws.
The antics of Lindsey Lohan and Mel Gibson are other examples of the contemporary clown. We watch Lindsey on her descent towards turning tricks on Sunset Blvd and click our tongues and wonder how she could, given all the advantages of her life, be so damn stupid and delusional. But we refuse to see that she is, in a sense, a sin eater. We look at her as a young woman on her way down without realizing that she embodies by her behavior the worst qualities of all of us. And that is the point. We refuse to see because she, because of her fame and wealth, is so far away from most of us that we really don't care. She's a side show. A geek of sorts. But since she's not wearing a rubber nose we can always say something like, "Well, that's the way the rich live. They have too much money and they get to get away with the things I would if I had the money." Lindsey, despite her lack of rubber nose, is seen as a much different creature than the Auguste at the one tent circus that came through your town this summer. The viewer identifies less with Lindsey than he/she does with a circus clown.
Mel Gibson is the celebrity white-face clown. Self-involved, self-serious, a control freak. His rants against his Russian slut ex-girlfriend which have been aired for the past few weeks are comical. He started out the relationship reflecting the sin of lust and, once the heat of lust died out and the arrival of a bastard child and money became involved, he exhibited the sins of pride, anger and drunkeness. His performance reflects the perfect white-face attitude -- "I'm right. You're wrong. How dare you oppose me." The Russian slut ex-girlfriend played the Auguste clown perfectly. She has, so far, come out on top despite the fact that she has shown herself to be a slut and a crook. We laugh and act shocked at Gibson's rants, but we are refusing to face the fact that he is acting out the thoughts that all of us would have if we were in a similar situation. And know this, we are all a lot closer to finding ourselves in a variation of Gibson's problem than we'd like to admit.
This writer, being of a rather Victorian attitude, wishes that clowns were restricted to the circus, the Punch and Judy Show or the theater where the clowns are honest clowns and not celebrities or "reality" "stars". At least in the circus or theater the clown whacks one across the face with an inflated pig's bladder to make one realize that the real clown is YOU and ME. The circus clown is the homunculus that entertains us while throwing darts at us. The Celebrity and the "Reality Star" are like performing dogs that crap and copulate while they are supposed to be walking tight-ropes. They are jokes, but we refuse to realize the the joke is not only on us. The joke is us.
And if the reader should wonder what clowns we here at the Manor favour, the answer is Rosencrans and Guildenstern.
And, if the reader should maintain that politicians are clowns, your faithful correspondent can only reply that politicians are not clowns. Politicians are buffoons. They do not have the self awareness of clowns.