There was a time, at least in the western world, when clowns used to be the super stars of their time. They featured in newspapers, magazines and in the memories and stories of countless people.
There was a time, when people were literally rolling over the floor laughing, when the clowns entered the ring of the circus tent.
Those times have long gone. In 1970 the famous Italian movie director Federico Fellini made a wonderful documentary about the last generation of clowns that had known that much impact and success. The golden era of clowning had already passed, in the words of one of its greatest performers, not because the clowns weren’t that good anymore, but because the world had changed. People weren’t able to laugh that intensely anymore, about anything. The humorous effect had largely disappeared. Except for the children ofcourse. They still adore the old style clowns, until this day.
In modern day circus, most clowns have disappeared. The comedy stayed, for sure, but the clown has largely disappeared from the stage.
There are actually two distinct types in traditional clowning, and for many glorious decades, the two different clown archetypes entered the ring together. This is nicely depicted on the cover of an old Dutch children’s book on circus that I recently discovered in a flea market, called ‘The colorful dream of the circus’.
On the one hand, we have the August. This archetype is classically depicted with a big red nose, colorful and wild hair, a silly hat, big shoes and shabby clothes – in a thousand variations. August seems to walk like a child, following his nose, his impulses and desires, and not worrying about social norms and expectations.
On the other hand, we have the White Clown. He is mostly white faced, with a more serious, although absurd, costume on, and a straight hat. He has a lot of mannerisms, walks stiff and seriously, thinks highly of himself and wants to impress the audience.
When we put August together in a scene with the White Clown, it used to give sparks for the audience. The comical effect seemed to be gigantic, and it still works nowadays, for children. Not so much anymore for our neurotic, tight assed, stiff upper lip, generation of adults.
A classical scene of the clown duo would be something like this. The White Clown wants to impress the audience with some kind of performance, and August destroys his decorum. A nice example is the drawing above, where the White Clown thinks he will look prettier with some extra make up on, but August paints his face with shoe polish, thereby ruining the public image of the former.
Another variation is a scene where August wants to follow his instincts and wild ideas - for instance bluntly wanting to kiss someone in the public, or stealing a shiny object from someone, or trying something really stupid or dangerous. He is than corrected by the white clown, a kind of humourless mentor, who thinks he is superior and knows how the world really works.
Whatever the situation the two are in: August and the chaos win in the end, and the white clown, with all his morals and hypocrisy and his trying hard to fit in, fails miserably. Comic relief!
The chemistry between these two clown archetypes was also translated in comics, in cinema and television. Think about Laurel and Hardy for instance, or so many comical couples from the past. Think about Charlie Chaplin, or mister Bean, and their constant conflicts with a more dull, serious, 'adult' environment.
They used to be enormously funny, but not anymore, except for kids. Why is that?
I have a theory about that.
“Humour = Pain x Distance”. This is a tried model to explain comedy. Something is funny to us when the distance of the painful situation is far enough for us to laugh with it in relief, so it can momentarily shake off its subconscious threat. Comedians often talk about, or enact shameful or painful situations that would not be funny if it happened to us in real life. Horror tends to have a similar effect, although in the latter genre the laugher is less the catalyst.
When our two clowns are struggling with each other, they are actually depicting a very important facet of our inner struggles. They show us the battle ground of many of our deepest emotional problems, and of our eternal Impasse in modern day times.
In the 21st century it is clear for everyone that you can only ‘make it’ in our societies when you have been educated and disciplined thoroughly. From the age of two or three, you are required to sit still in school, and ‘behave’, and to not act on your impulses and intrinsic curiosity. Our internal August is being professionally eliminated in order to fit in. Imagine being ten and telling the teacher that you don’t fancy to listen to his explanation of some grammatical phenomenon or historical detail, but instead want to chase butterflies, or swim naked in the river. Imagine two kids spontaneously starting to sing in the class room, or chase each other, or hide under their desks in play. What would the reaction be of the teacher, in most of the cases? The teacher would act as a full grown white clown, and try to convince the kid that the endles rehearsal of grammatical rules on this sunny day is way more important and valued than chasing butterflies, swimming, singing or playing. Be like me, the teacher would tell the kids, or else you have to face the consequences, be shamed, and remain naughty, stupid, lazy, criminal or any other type of social outcast. And many of our parents… act in the same ways, not knowing any better.
So most of us try to kill our inner August, and let the White Clown rule our behavior. We self-identify with the white clown, at a very young age, and it becomes our internal tyrant, demanding from us to excell, to impress, to be perfect, and not to show raw emotions. And it works, at least on the surface of our neurotic being. Internally, the struggle continues, and our oppressed August will sabotage us from the shadows at every turn, in a not-so-funny way, quite often leading to boredom, depression, addiction, dogmatic thinking, violent eruptions, and much more 21st century psychological problems.
In the height of the true clown era, around the 1900s, I think people were more aware of the conflict between their inner instincts and the socialisation and discipline that an industrial society demanded of them. People were still taking a piss at white clown types in real society, that wanted to impress the common people with their so called moral and esthetic superiority. Nowadays, the White Clown is so internalised in most people, and the August is so alienated, that the comical friction between the two archetypes has disappeared.
As a therapist, I work quite a lot with these two clowns. Together with my clients, I am rediscovering and reconnecting with their inner child and inner august. Not with the goal of eliminating their white clown side and letting the august run wild. That wouldn’t work. In therapeutic terms: the neurotic suffering would just be replaced with a psychotic suffering. Or else: the Id should not replace the Super Ego.
What I do strive for, is a reintegration of the August part in us, and the promotion of a continuous dialogue and dance between the passion, sponaneity and life force of our internal August on the one side, and the social and moral consciousness of our internal White Clown on the other side. Only when we are aware of both clowns in us, can we make free, conscious and adjusted choices for ourselves, within an ever more complex society, with its own expectations, norms and morality.
To get into this kind of therapeutic endeavour demands quite some time and emotional work, and it is part of my life's mission to help create a step-by-step Gestalt approach of surpassing impasses like this in our lives. But that is not the scope of this article.
There will and should always be a friction between or own dreams and desires, and that of our surroundings. But we needn’t kill one or the other, nor be paralysed by it, but rather search for creative and fruitful compromises and co-creation between the two. It might be painful and sometimes tragical, but it has also a lot of challenge, beauty, and comic relief in it.
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