Posted on 04/14/2009 9:15:46 AM PDT by 668 - Neighbor of the Beast
No earthly society is above or outside cultural anthropological study. Therefore I propose to examine the possibility of a functioning clown society in America.
They call themselves many things, but are most commonly known as homosexuals.
Clown society is defined in wikipedia: "Clown society is a term used in anthropology and sociology for an organization of comedic entertainers...who have a formalized role in a culture or society."
With a little more help from wiki we learn:
Sometimes...the purpose served by members of a clown society is only to parody excessive seriousness, or to deflate pomposity.
In the sense of how clowns serve their culture:
* A clown shows what is wrong with the way things are.
* A clown shows how to do ordinary things the wrong way.
Who does that sound like?
~ Members of a clown society always dress in some kind of a special costume reserved for clowns, which is usually an absurdly extreme form of normal dress.
~ In the case of the Zuni clown society of the Pueblo Indians, "one is initiated...by a ritual of filth-eating" where "mud and excrement are smeared on the body for the clown performance, and parts of the performance may consist of sporting with excreta, smearing and daubing it, or drinking urine and pouring it onto one another."
~ Clown societies usually train new members to become clowns.
~ "The sacred clown and his apparently antisocial behavior which is condoned in Indian ceremonies seems outrageous to Western people who believe it is savage for a culture to institutionalize behavior that seems to be psychotic and perverted." -- Shanley, Kathryn W., "The Indians America Loves to Love and Read: American Indian Identity and Cultural Appropriation."
At clownbluey.co.uk, Bluey's History of Clowns tells us: "The performance is symbolic of liminality - being outside the rules of regular society the clown is able to subvert the normal order, and this basic premise is contemporarily used by many activists to point out social absurdity."
When you think of clowns, what comes to mind? Classic whiteface, or exaggerated makeup; outrageous clothing; evil clowns, maybe evil clowns in the closet, freaks plotting to osmose a little chaos into your orderly universe? Sad or gay? Irreverent? Always pushing that envelope a little?
Why do children, those least civilized among us, often experience coulrophobia -- the fear of clowns? It seems to assault their sensibilities, just to watch a clown doing his ordinary performance, nothing particularly menacing to anyone. A child is also doing his ordinary behavior, which is learning to construct a social geometry, arrange boundaries and sort out acceptable behaviors from unacceptable ones, and the clown is telling him much the same thing a criminal would tell him. (A really shameless criminal, anyway.)
We are all primitive still. We have a nature, and our society has a nature, though much of it lies beneath the sparkling iceberg of our civilization. We have behaviors that work for us, and sometimes we don't recognize them, because everything old is new again to those who don't study the past. We have our marginal people and our ways of classifying and arranging them. We have classes and castes, nobles and untouchables, priests and warriors and village idiots and minstrels and shamans and clowns.
In good times, our clowns are amusing and useful. They provide entertainment, and serve as pressure valves to release some of the resentment or the stress we're under; these are valid functions of clowns, and like any other fraternity they're going to uphold some boundaries, who's in and who's out, and they don't seek to metastasize, overwhelm, or take over the larger society.
Today's homosexual community has overstepped its natural boundaries. They're about as funny as a sheepdog that has reverted to the wild and discovered it's more inclined to slaughter sheep than to herd them. And they were never as helpful as sheepdogs.
They are now in schools, demanding to be taken seriously, telling our children that anyone may be a clown sporting with excreta and unnatural behavior. They are now in our legislatures, demanding to be married to one another. They are now in our courts, demanding adoption and custody rights. They are now in our churches, proclaiming homosexuality is "a gift from God" (Harry Knox) and abortion a "blessing from God" (Katherine Ragsdale). They were always in the media.
What do you do when the circus comes to town, and won't go away?
What do you do when a society dissolves its standards to the point where the teachers, politicians, judges, and ministers feel obliged to tell the young people that clowns are just like everyone else, and that being a clown is just as wonderful as being an inventor, philosopher, scientist, or saint?
In fact, they're saying it's better. None of those other groups have special rights under the law.
Clowns need clown societies. We all need clown societies, as a category in which to place clowns.
And we can't do that if we don't know clowns when we see them. Gays are clowns gone viral.
This is such a brilliant essay, may I post it at my blog, please?
Why sure. Just call me “668” please. I ain’t into fame. :)
Everybody loves a clown, so why don’t you?
A clown has feelings too...
(just kidding)
I’m sick of the clown culture too.
An interesting viewpoint, well-written. Hadn’t thought of it that way before, but it’s certainly a good, valid way to see things.
What is helpful is that it doesn’t resort to throwing flames at homosexuals, nor does it throw moral judgments their way (deserving or not). That is for other writings, and it’s been canvassed at length in the past.
This approach is original. And novel. And very clever.
Well done!
Gary Lewis and The Playboys...God, am I getting old.
Something else which may be of interest: The Commedia del’Arte is a very old form of improvised street theater. It involves clowns such as Pierrot, Harlequin, and Punchinello.
These characters have appeared in European culture for centuries. The great French painter Watteau is best known for his painting “Gilles” which portrays a man dressed as Pierrot. Picasso was famous for his clown paintings which featured players from the Commedia. Diaghilev was very interested in these figures and much of modern ballet sensibility can be traced to his appreciation of Commedia art forms.
If one probes into the foundations of Modernism, the Commedia makes frequent appearances, and one can also notice how connected it is to the growing importance of homosexuality among the artistic class. Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde are also names that are associated with this cultural phenomenon.
It’s a rich field and I wouldn’t try to provide too much detail in a short space, but my point is that homosexuality and clowns are culturally linked going back for well into the 1800’s. The underpinnings of a great deal of our modern artistic culture are very much related to homosexuality and how it was able to express itself in a relatively safe manner through the activities of the clown. The homosexual elements could be presented with great subtlety or quite flagrantly, depending on the time and place. And, of course, it was all “in good fun” and therefore not to be taken too seriously nor censured.
Homosexuality is inextricably tied in with clown culture.
Interesting parallelisms, indeed. It was an interesting read.
Was it a real clown, or just someone made up to look like a clown?
*honk* *honk*
Excellent essay.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.