Clowns are for kids—or so declared mid-century entrepreneurs as they turned them into toys and emblazoned them on dollhouse walls. But clowning has always been a serious business. From royal courts to movie sets, clowns have weaponized humor to puncture the status quo, often acquiring great wealth and power in the process.
Many of associate clowns with the circus, but the basic principles of clowning can be observed whenever anyone stands in front of a crowd intending to humor them into submission. Feigning foolishness, clowns invite us to laugh AT them. But by gradually letting us in on the joke, they commandeer our affection, often our loyalty, and sometimes even our adulation, until we find ourselves laughing WITH them at their real targets.
Children, however, often burst into tears not laughter, when confronted by the frozen expression on a clown’s painted face. These ice portraits reveal the complex characters they sense beneath the masks.
