Clown World

 

So what are the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, recently controversially honoured by the LA Dodgers, all about?

The Dodgers, and their other deenders, will say they are a charitable organization. Which they are—they promote AIDS education and hand out free condoms. But this does not excuse them if they are also promoting hatred towards some identifiable group. The Taliban also does charity work. The Mafia did. So did the Nazi party. It’s good PR for wicked people.

According to Wikipedia, the group was founded in 1979, as a performance troupe. Their public performances and public protests, then, are their raison d’etre. They diversified into charity work once the AIDS epidemic began to ravish their homosexual community. And their proposed solution—essentially, use a condom—is arguably not the best advice. It might have caused more deaths than it prevented.

Their performances, their name, and the nun’s habit are obviously meant to ridicule the Catholic Church.

But why whiteface? 

Had they chosen blackface, the charge of racism would have been obvious.

You might argue that they were trying to look like clowns, not white people. But then, why do clowns have white faces? When old-time entertainers put on blackface, wasn’t it to mock black people, to make them look foolish? They were blackface clowns. Isn’t the principle the same for whiteface clowns?

But, you might argue, aren’t the perpetrators themselves already white? Are they mocking their own race? And if so, isn’t self-mockery okay?

Not all ”white” people are particularly pale. The English, let alone continental Europeans, are markedly darker in complexion than those living further north, the Irish, the Scottish, the Scandinavians. Are they mocking themselves by making their faces paler, or one or another of these other racial groups?

Why does the classic clown have red hair? Isn’t this mockery of a genetic characteristic concentrated in Northern Europe: in the Irish and Scottish in particular?

Clarabell the Clown

Of course it is. Whiteface clowns are racist if blackface clowns are, in the same way. The Irish have traditionally been held in contempt in the English-speaking world. 

In particular because they are Catholic.

Bozo the Clown

Live public performances in clown makeup of course have an additional benefit: they attract children.

Is it all starting to make a perverse sense?

Ronald McDonald