Fool
This week’s vocab word: more about the power of Clown(er).
PART TWO
Jester? I hardly know her…
For part one of this clownish clattering, look in last week’s Zuko’s Musings vocab word. That part was called “Shaman,” and as such, I discussed the role of the sacred and darkly divine Clown, why we perhaps have this fear of him today, and how he manifests in ways more current than ancient or tribal traditions. This week, I’ll be continuing the Clown breakdown (clowndown?) by talking about a more learnéd type: court jesters and hired Fools.*
A Brief History of the Court Jester
Ah, the court jester. We all know what he looks like: multicolored outfit, hat with floppy ear-like bits and bells. He’s holding an obscene phallus or a tabor (or both). He’s a professional, and highly sought after for his particular skills, especially in high-status establishments. But what’s his job, and why is he the only one who can do it?
The court jester was an essential part of any noble (or even royal) household, because his occupation was one of the most essential parts of a well run, civilized institution. His duties consisted of: telling tales, telling jokes, performing physical comedy feats and goofy shenanigans. He told stories of the history of the community, current news items and gossip (like a live TMZ), and most importantly, his main focus was:
Satire
Poking fun at (and speaking truth to) those in power was perhaps the jester’s most powerful and most important job. He’s the only one allowed to say this stuff, but he is required and hired to do so. Paid to do so. Anyone else who would dare to say the shit Clown does about whatever bigwig he’s cutting into would have a different cutting applied to them: like their head off. But the house Fool is the one who gets to say it.
“There’s no harm in an allowed fool, though he do nothing but rail.”
~Olivia defending Feste’s derogation, in 12th Night, Shakespeare
Who are the jesters of today?
Late night talk shows, satirical news centers, and some standup comedians today do this very thing. They may not live in the homes of those in power, but they use technology to share their Foolish cutting wisdom across society instead. John Oliver, Chelsea Handler, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, The Onion, even some standups like Bo Burnham or Hannah Gadsby and the late great George Carlin do this court jester brand of commentary on society, or speaking truth to power, essentially the same way Fools of old did.
The fragility of the CEO ego, the snowflake fascist, and the toxically masculine ruler’s power is made more rickety by the lack of honor in not having a respectable Fool in one’s retinue. A ruler who is ignorant enough (or toxically fragile enough) to not have a court jester nearby or who decries the Fool as libelous, is not a reliable or a trustworthy ruler, and his power is illusory. Remind you of anyone?
Why, if the Jester Fool is the smartest guy in the room, doesn’t he take over the throne? How come he isn’t given the power which his great brain is due? Nope, that’s not the role of this particular type of wit. Clown is never the CEO: he’s always Arlecchino, never Pantalone. What’s that? Oh, yeah huh: commedia dell’arte is a whole ‘nother article. Which…yeah okay I’m on it. Put an Italian Renaissance pin in that, yeah? You’ve got one of those, right?
Here’s a current-ish example: Barack Obama using Keegan Michael Key’s Anger Translator clown character in a real White House Correspondents dinner. President Obama understood the vitality and the need for a court jester—good rulers, secure in their power that includes their human fallibility, all do. And he’d enjoyed the regularly appearing sketch on Key & Peele before. What could be more fun, I’m sure he thought, than including this classic court jester character in a real speech? And listen to the first thing out of Luther’s mouth: “Hold on to your lily-white butts!” Obama can’t say that (though I have no doubt he’s thought it more than once), but Luther sure can. In this case, he’s not speaking truth to power as much as speaking truth for power.
This type of clown does possess top notch intelligence and the gift of gab to express it, but they’re self deprecating and joke around that fact so much that it takes the edge off. Usually. They’re that pillar of clownhood Shakespeare calls “an allowed Fool,” an essential part of a functioning civilization.
Does a hatred of clowns = hatred of intellectualism or learnedness? Could be.
FOOL: That lord that counseled thee
To give away thy land,
Come place him here by me;
Do thou for him stand.
The sweet and bitter fool
Will presently appear:
The one in motley here,
The other found out there.
…
When thou clovest thy crown i’ th’ middle
and gav’st away both parts,
thou bor’st thine ass on thy back o’er the dirt.
Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown
when thou gav’st thy golden one away.
~Lear’s Fool, speaking truth to the power of the foolish acts of narcissistic King Lear.
Fear is the mime-killer
Related to this concept (along with the Shamanic concepts I introduced in Part 1) is the hatred/fear of mimes. Why? Mimes make things visible that are invisible, and they do things with their bodies that are impossible. This, along with the classic blank-faced mask-like mime makeup adds up to my theory: that people hate mimes because of a version of the Uncanny Valley. It’s just like having a fear of realistic robots or animated mannequins. Same reason people are uncomfortable around mimes. It’s a pet theory of mine, and I’m sticking to it. What do you think?
Clownclusion
Why are you afraid of clowns?
Because, you should be.
SOURCES [for parts 1 (Shaman) & 2 (Fool)]
I got all this shamanistic and tricksterish information from my many many years of studying clowning, both its history and its practice. But here are 3 sources I did specifically consult in the composition of this 2-part iteration of clown-musings in particular:
Lee, Joe. The History of Clowns for Beginners (a Beginners documentary comic), Writers & Readers, 1995.
Parabola journal, Fall 2001 (vol.26, no.3). issue title: The Fool.
Zuko, Jenn. “The Immortal Trickster—the force of chaos in ritual and literature.” from MFA thesis and manuscript Songs From a Bird Brain, submitted to (and approved by) Naropa University, 2001.
*There are actually two different types of jesters that would be regularly used in Renaissance Europe at least. The natural, and the artificial Fool. I’m focusing on the artificial Fools for the purposes of this study, because those were the Fools that came to their profession by means of education, hard study, and high-level physical skills of comedy, acrobatics, tricks, that sort of thing. The natural Fools, by contrast, were those with disabilities or deformities, or they were mentally disabled, like those with developmental disabilities or mental retardation. These Fools were kept more for a morbid interest in their freakishness, akin to freak shows of later centuries, which is a barbaric practice, like bear-baiting, from that time period that I don’t particularly want to spend much time on. They don’t have much of anything to do with the Clowns I’m talking about, either. In other words, the virtuosic Artificial Fool is the clowning artist, whereas the Natural Fool is an exploited vulnerable person. They don’t do the same things.
BravA, as in “bravo, lady!” Did spellcheck screw me? It does that.
Really nicely done. Brava!