[Paboberto]

This is from the speaking or not thread:

<<"In clown ministry, the non-verbal clown is the WORD becoming ACTION. The clown must show meanings rather than trying to explain them." She goes on to explain another reason as well: "Another reason many clowns remain silent relates to the symbolic death mask of the white makeup. Dead people don't talk. In respect of this, clowns give up speaking. Putting on the white face becomes an opportunity to recall things they must die to; a type of confession for clowns."

Clown Ministry by Floyd Shaffer, pg 25.>>

Okay. I am going to take issue with this. I am a English major and appreciate symbolism and metaphor more then most, but calling a whiteface's makeup a "death mask" is absurd. Here is why:

1) The face moves whether it speaks or not. It is expressive and alive.

2) The Red Nose and color on the lips and cheeks. In dead people all the blood moves away from the face, (if you can see the face that is) and since it doesn't circulate it turns blue. Red is a live blood color.

3) The clown is antithetical to a zombie. They don't act anything a like. Clowns move a lot more and respond to the world a whole lot more than any dead or undead person. Also Clowns are representations of life not death.

4) The white face makeup is much more easily explained as symbolic of a drunk. Just watch W.C. Feilds movies, and it is obvious.

Oh and 5) It is not only the only kind of clown that does not speak.

Now, if you stretch it. If you really stretch it. There is a kind of death the clown face symbolizes but it is the same "death" that clowns symbolize in general: death to stagnation, propriety, superego, boundaries, pride, and everything that stands in the way of actual life happening. When you are watching a clown, or being a clown, just about the last thing you are thinking about is death. Transience? Sure. But the point of a clown, the point of comedy is that life goes on. Death has no hold on a clown. Things appear and then go away, stuff happens, the clown remains.

The spiritual implications of this are pretty nifty, but belong in another thread (forth-coming). My point here is that there is no connection between a whiteface and a death mask and certainly not to the lack of speech on a clown's part.