2009-11-23 - 12:13 a.m.
There's something off about the clown troupe gathered before me. They all wear the thick makeup and brightly-colored, poorly-fitting clothing required of such work and so it is that I'm unable to pin down just what it is that's unusual until I see one clown sitting in a wheelchair and finally figure it out.
Every one of these clowns is retarded.
Now a dozen or so mentally-challenged clowns surely isn't something that you see everyday and that makes it enough for me to stop to watch. I have joined the act midway. Two clowns are miming their attempt to open a very large and stubbornly-wrapped package.
I think.
I'm finding the performance difficult to watch. And it's not because I don't like clowns.* I know that they want me to laugh but have been taught since childhood very specifically not to laugh at mentally challenged people and furthermore, don't find their act to be at all funny. I'm watching and thinking that the idea of a mentally challenged clown brigade is in epically poor taste. But, at the same time, the clowns seem to be enjoying themselves so, arguably, there's nothing wrong here asides from me being uptight.
I look for a banner. Assuming that this clown troupe has given themselves a name, that will provide a clue as to the spirit in which their group was formed.
In the best case scenario, clowning is just one of the activities that their group does together. And they will have a correspondingly non-clowning-specific name like The Monday Afternoon Club or the Sumpu Rec Center Gang. In the worst case scenario - the one the possibility of makes me uncomfortable - one of their caretakers found a nice way of saying, hey, let's make our kids dress up as clowns and perform like trained monkeys for the amusement of others, and then convinced all these other people to go along with it.
I scan the crowd for facial expressions indicating that someone is having concerns similar to mine and see none.
My mom would enjoy this show. She likes buskers. She likes buskers and I suspect that her enjoyment of them is greatly aided by the fact that she doesn't really see them as people.
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* Although I don't like clowns, that's not the reason these ones hard to take. And while we're on the subject, I don't like mimes either, nor can I really believe that anyone does. And the same goes for most magicians. I generally find myself silently willing public humiliation and other minor disasters upon them. Contortionists and acrobats, meanwhile, are fascinating human beings. I vaguely recall writing what I thought was an excellent story about two Russian acrobats when I was about twelve years old and, to this day, whenever I see such performances I find myself imagining and assigning to them exotic and unlikely life stories.
