Laughter is the best medicine against sexism
Okay, maybe it’s not always the best, but it’s one of the good ones. When produced by women, humor can be especially subversive and revolutionary.
That’s what I learned from the women I talked to when I did the research “Women clowns: the poetics and politics of female comedy” (the full research in Portuguese is here, and I share the main highlights in this shorter article in Revista Ártemis, which in 2018 launched the thematic dossier “The humor of women and women in the humor”).
It all started in 2008 when I worked as a production assistant in the show “Mini traveling circus”, of the Magnificent Troupe of Varieties. I’m not an artist, but I like to be close to artists — and I also love to drive. Then I had the opportunity to accompany the troupe on a tour through the interior of the state of Rio de Janeiro as a driver, assistant, and doer-of-what-is-necessary. The presentations were made in public squares, mostly in peripheral neighborhoods. There were eight artists, among magicians, acrobats, clowns, and a pyrophagist — Aline Figueiredo, the only woman in the troupe.
Before becoming a circus driver, I had never thought about the figure of the clown and the wide range of possibilities — theoretical, artistic, political, and human — that the practice of clowning mobilizes and inspires.
+ If you think that a clown is a children’s party animator, take a few minutes to listen to Márcio Libar. I guarantee you will not regret it. He shows that the clown is the one who makes mistakes, who loses, accepts and assumes his own failures. We all lose at times, and we tend to waste a good time of life with the fear of looking like a loser or being ridiculous. We have a lot to learn from clowns.
+ “We get together, or we go extinct” was the theme of the last edition of Anjos do Picadeiro, an International Clowns Encounter that takes place in Rio de Janeiro always with an incredible program of shows, workshops, conversation circles, urban interventions, exhibitions, etc.
When I started to get to know the clownery, I was intrigued by the fact that I only mentally represented the clown as a man, and I realized that there could be a supposed opposition between femininity and humor — in the circus arena, in the theater, in the sociocultural construction of women and in the experience of women who have nothing to do with clowning. Can women go wrong? Can they expose their own ridicule? This opposition is explicit in authors like Georges Minois, who says that “femininity excludes the comic” in his “History of Laughter and Mockery”:
“There are no women-clowns, there are no women-buffoons. Even dressed as a man, the woman is not funny, whereas the man dressed as a woman makes you laugh. Only the old woman, precisely the one who has lost her femininity, can make you laugh. In the game of seduction, laughter supplies the absence of charm”.
At the same time, I approached the work of the group of clowns “As Marias da Graça” — the first group of women clowns formed in Brazil, in 1991. More than being women clowns, the “Marias” adopt the mission of thinking and publicizing a “female comedy/humor”. Then I attended, in September 2009, the “International Festival of Female Comedy”, an event organized by the quartet — which in that year was in its third edition. Entitled “Esse Monte de Mulher Palhaça” [This bunch of women clowns], the festival — held in Rio de Janeiro — featured clowns from Rio de Janeiro, Maranhão, Pernambuco, Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Santa Catarina, Brasilienses, as well as international guests (from Austria, France, Argentina and Mozambique).
+ Besides the shows and workshops for people focused in the art of clowning, the Marias da Graça have also developed projects to support women in situations of violence. “Through the art of the clown, they will discover a different perspective on life and on them. Clowning can help them to understand and accept themselves as they are, improve their self-esteem, see that making mistakes is not so bad! The laughter is transformative “, they say.
+Also check out Las Reinas Chulas, from Mexico, who since 1998 have used humor and satire as a form of activism:
“Humor brings you to a new place, and when you look back, you are shocked at what you learned, who you were, and what you believed. That’s when you realize why you react the way you do. That’s when you start asking yourself: How did I swallow so much rubbish?”, they said in this interview.
The “Esse Monte de Mulher Palhaça” Festival is one of the initiatives of an increasing movement of women in the art of clowning and also of the development of a collective artistic and political project to strengthen and raise the visibility of these artists.
The pioneer event in this sense was the International Festival of Clowns in Andorra, which started in 2001. The Andorra festival has inspired others around the world, such as the Clownin Festival in Vienna, in Austria, the Red Pearl Women Clown Festival, in Helsinki, Finland. In Brazil, other festivals followed the “Esse Monte de Mulher Palhaça”, such as the Encontro de Palhaças in Brasília, which then it was renamed the Festival Mulheres do Mundo; the International Meeting of Women Clowns in São Paulo, the Meeting of Clowns of Chapecó, the Festival of Female Clowns of Recife and the Meeting of Clowns and Circus of Vale do Paraíba and Meeting of Clowns of Amapá, created in 2018.
There are also courses and workshops for women clowns, such as the Escola de Palhaças, in São Paulo, which aims “to offer a space for training and reflection on the presence of women as clowns and their struggle to establish themselves in the artistic field”.
But what would characterize a female comic? Or rather: is there a “female comedy or humor”? If so, how is it constructed, and what does it have to inform about gender relations in its context?
Well, this conversation can be quite long, but we must not forget the fact that there is no universal woman, nor is there a universal clown or a single model of female humor. How does each artist work with gender elements when building their clown? I must mention that some understand the clown as a character and others as a kind of revelation of an inner self.
+ Sarah dos Santos interviewed several women clowns for her master’s research.
+ Katia Kasper also delved into the subject.
In the last years, this growing and vibrant scene of women clowns, female artists who dedicate themselves not only to clowning but to debating and promoting the presence and practices of women in this field, has been enriching and diversifying.
+ Meet for example Las Panamericanas, Fran, and Cucaracha and Theobalda.
Laughter can be a way of contesting, of liberating, of revealing. Surrender yourself to its transformative power.
