The symbol of happy/sad drama masks (Thalia and Melpomene) is an ancient reference to this same dynamic.
Was prompted to look up the definition of the word "pathetic," recently, and it means evocativeness of emotion, but typically sympathy or pity instead of laughter. Being comical and pathetic seem like the same thing, we just don't understand the word well because it's an epithet in pop culture that nobody considers the meaning of. When you look at a lot of art or music as pathetic in that they are aimed to stir a kind of nostalgia or sorrow, it's the same underlying art that produces laughter and joy. It's like a spectrum of Handel to Chopin, where one evokes soaring joy and the other a sense of nostalgia and memory.
I'm very funny, but I also make very pathetic art as expressions of the same underlying capacity for pathos. In the essential meaning of the word comedy is a pathetic artform that refines out the neutralizing emotions and produces pure involuntary laughter. Whereas the well of personal experience the performer uses is going to have all the "sadness" (in the form of wistfulness, nostalgia, romance, etc.) as well. Someone who is funny or brilliant or entertaining operates using pathetic (evocative) means. This "sadness" of clowns is only a problem when we judge or criticize it.
Really, if you can just see your comedic sadness as a natural capacity for pathos, (and take the Zen view of not being your feelings) it's another source of creative energy.
Stewart Lee: Please help doctor, I’m really depressed, is there anything you can do?
Doctor: The greatest comedian in the world is in town, Stewart Lee, you should go see him.
Stewart Lee: But I am Stewart Lee!
Doctor: O right, sorry I didn’t recognise you, you’ve got really fat.
This whole thing is pretty damn well-argued, paints a compelling picture. I see myself in it, but it could be in a horoscope / med student way.
Humour is definitely a way to de-fang the world, and smooth over difficult situations. The "making other people" laugh bit is interesting, considering the smile / bared teeth dichotomy.
My favorite example is Jack Point from Yeomen of the Guard [0]:
Point:
Oh, thoughtless crew!
Ye know not what ye do!
Attend to me, and shed a tear or two —
For I have a song to sing, O!
All:
Sing me your song, O!
Point:
It is sung to the moon
By a love-lorn loon,
Who fled from the mocking throng, O!
It's a song of a merryman, moping mum,
Whose soul was sad, and whose glance was glum,
Who sipped no sup, and who craved no crumb,
As he sighed for the love of a ladye.
There's a related phenomenon I've seen a lot, sometimes firsthand, of people who consider themselves shy while others consider them the life of the party.
As I was saying, jokes are unit tests of understanding:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38058350
That "understanding" could well be coping with pain.
"To me, clowns aren't funny. In fact, they're kinda scary. I've wondered where this started, and I think it goes back to the time I went to the circus and a clown killed my dad."
-- Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey
Almost all comedians are fucked up emotionally, it's kind of a truism. Only the most desperate for approval go through as much work, practice and humiliation it takes to occasionally get laughs
Boy does this ring true. I’ll hafta talk to my therapist about it, wonder how widely known it is.
Everyone should watch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mera_Naam_Joker. It's such a great movie.
"A study conducted by Fisher found humour-orientated individuals likely to identify their mothers as demanding, unsympathetic and distant. They were seen as avoiding the nurturant role, commonly falling on the father to fulfil this role for the family.[21] "
Wow I didn't expect to read a wikipedia page written explicitly about my life today. Except in my case, my father didn't nurture either.
I never thought of my tendency towards humor as a tool for disarming family conflict, but it feels very accurate
Lol, now you can't even be funny in peace... If you're too funny, you might be diagnosed as depressed... smh.
Tough crowd. :p
...or perhaps, Robin Williams syndrome?
So, reading the comments.. there seem to be an internal and an external explanations to the paradox.
Internal explanations are that people who want to do comedy tend to be somehow messed up somehow.
External explanations are that the world itself is messed up, and if you want to do comedy, you have to understand it, and that makes you sad.
I think to determine which one is true, we should look at people curious about the world who don't do comedy, for example, scientists or activists. Are these often sad too?
Nick Mullen comes to mind
Part of it is that happy clowns just aren't interesting to study or hear about.
What if we "mentally ill" are the ones that see reality correctly, and when we make common sense observations the normies find it funny?
I really dislike when something is “non-intuitive” to the completely naive and thus a phenomenom is called a paradox.
By this logic, trolls who make others miserable must be the happiest people in the world.
> Sad clown paradox is characterised by a cyclothymic temperament.
How do I parse this sentence?
Well balls.
Doesn't seem paradoxical to me at all. If you learn enough about the world, quite a lot of it turns into a big joke. It's a surreal feeling. Like nothing you do matters because it's all just an absurd joke.
That “Rorschach test” section is weird, someone basically decided to summarize some random book.
"But doctor, I am Pagliacci"
I did a clowning masterclass in France a few months ago. (That was a whole, wild experience that I’ll be haunted by for years). While I was there I realised I’ve been operating under a certain kind of dumb philosophy my whole life without realising it. The philosophy is something like this: “I believe if I’m “good” enough, nobody will reject me for being “bad” and people will like me.” And fill in whatever you want for good - be clever, say the right things, get a good mark on the test, remember everyone’s name, be competent, and so on.
When I was at clown school, I realised that philosophy is totally wrong. We don’t like people who are perfect. We like people for their flaws. At the heart of clowning is something called “the flop”. That is, when something doesn’t work and it’s seen to not work, instead of going down into shame, working with the flop is looking at the audience and acknowledging it. Everyone’s acknowledgement is different - but in that moment of failure we’re all deeply connected. And the clown being ok with it is catharsis for everyone.
I think the clowning philosophy is something like: “When I make mistakes, people connect with me the most. But it has to be real. I have to enter with a dream, and when it falls apart they love me when they see my eyes”. Or something like that. I think I can’t quite articulate it yet.
Anyway, of course there’s a set of clear psychological traits associated with comedians. It’s not because comedians are uniquely messed in the head. It’s because connecting to others through failure is different from connecting to others through success. They can both be used as coping strategies. And both can be used to bring out the best in us.
It was quite the slap in the face for me to realise my perfectionism meant I was doing everything all wrong on stage. I cried a lot. But there’s also something beautiful in it. In having new ways to show up. I like it.