Laughter has always been the language of the spirit. We open our mouths to laugh, and the gods of healing and good fortune find a way inside the hardest heart. Long live the clown!
By "clown" we usually mean the comic characters known for their buffoonery and garish makeup. That clown, however, is preceded historically by other more intelligent incarnations known as jesters, minstrels, tramps, tricksters, troubadours, and mimes. For symbolic purposes, we include the entire family of clowns going back centuries, because they all live to mock the serious world we live in. Their common purpose is to induce laughter through humor. The remind us, perhaps with a smile or perhaps with a tear, that to be human is to make mistakes. Really stupid mistakes. We are all, in the eyes and actions of the clown, fallible.
In tattoo art, the circus clown - the one with the big red nose, the bigger smile, and even bigger shoes and crazy hair - is an obvious symbol of playfulness and laughter.
These classic clowns pose as "losers". They fail at everything they attempt. They are awkward, off balance, bumbling idiots who act out our most embarrassing shortcomings. They are just like us. When we watch a clown's pratfalls, we recognize ourselves. Their antics induce laughter not so much because they're funny, but because the human condition often appears hapless and impotent. Clowns put themselves down so that others may get a lift. That's the serious side to the clown, and it goes back centuries.
