Bouffon

A bouffon is a clown character that playfully and humorously mocks by embracing ugliness and vulgarity. Unlike more lighthearted clowns aimed at amusing children, the bouffon has darker comedic aims, mocking pretension, greed, and vice without shame.

History and Origins

The bouffon character has roots in medieval religious passion plays, which featured a comedic devil figure alongside religious representations to highlight moral lessons. In commedia dell’arte theater starting in the 1500s, crude peasant characters called zanni mocked upper class manners and hypocrisy.

French playwright Jean Genet explicitly defined the modern idea of the bouffon in his mid 20th century plays, by combining elements of medieval jesters, cosmic fools, secular satire, and anarchic physical comedy. Other writers expanded on these themes, with Dario Fo’s award-winning Mistero Buffo in the 1970s using a bouffon character to retell Biblical stories farcically with absurd and offensive humor highlighting political and religious issues of the day.

The bouffon appeared in experimental theater through the latter 20th century, breaking taboos regarding bodily functions, sexuality, and manners. It continues influencing comics and dramatic actors interested in provocative humor delivered with clownish theatricality.

Types and Techniques

Bouffon characters broadly fall into categories depending on their approach:

Fool Bouffons

Plays a foolish madman, obliviously mocking norms through naïveté and misunderstanding how to behave. Represents chaotic rebellion against rules and order.

Trickster Bouffons

Openly rebellious troublemakers fully aware of propriety, intentionally being lewd and provocative to undermine conventions. Embraces being a societal pest while remaining likeable.

Parody Bouffons

Exposes flaws and contradictions in respected institutions by imitating and exaggerating hypocritical behaviors widely practiced privately. Can feign ignorance while implying hidden criticisms through mirrored misbehavior.

Key techniques bouffon performers utilize include:

• Grotesque costume  - Emphasizes ugliness and asymmetry with mismatched loud colors and fabrics, exaggerated features, bizarre unflattering adornments designed intentionally to discomfort and clash with expectations.

• Physical vulgarity  - Uses the body and bodily functions as the primary source of outrageous gags involving nudity, gasses, fluids and crass behaviors that unsophisticated children might find hilarious but shock mature audiences.

• Forbidden mimicry  - Will imitate cultural taboos around gender, sex, religion and manners using caricatured stereotypes to call out problematic double standards regarding what is acceptable for whom to do or say.

• Vicious mockery  - Directly insults and belittles individuals and groups using slurs, personal embarrassment and stinging criticism aimed at provoking anger and horrified laughs. Represents the suppressed shadow side of society’s id.

Bouffon in Contemporary Circus and Clowning

While the bouffon’s comedy arises from devilish rebellion against social niceties, ugly costume, and crude acts means it rarely appears in family friendly circus shows anymore, its spirit remains influential. Contemporary clowns mix bouffon satirical elements by:

• Stereotyping snooty aristocrats and mimes, using affected speech and mannerisms mirroring hypocrisy.

• Dressing as officers, bosses or officials parodying abuses of power and incompetence.

• Sabotaging order with unruly behavior, exposing arbitrary rules.

• In clown gags mocking pretentious high art using bodily processes and noises contrasted against mock sophistication.

The bouffon reminds circus audiences that rebelling against arbitrary conventions open paths for political and social progress. Disorder inverted established orders, allowing early circuses themselves to emerge, offering joyful respites from dreary reality. So bouffon clowns keep spaces for creative misrule alive, so the circus can continue renewing itself.