Disabling fun

The connection of the bodily and mentally disabled and the profession of fool under the consideration of the benign violation theory of humour

Forfattere

  • Jonathan S. Meyer-Küpers

Nøgleord:

Disabilities, Humour theory, Performance Art, Clowns, Fools

Resumé

This paper examines the Benign Violation Theory of Humour (BVT) in relation to disabled individuals in the professions of historical fools and jesters. It explores how cultural and historical contexts have shaped their employment and impact on modern performances. Finally, it analyses how shifts in thinking influence the perception of humour in these performances.

 

Denne artikel undersøger the Benign Violation Theory of Humour (BVT) i forhold til handicappede personer i erhvervet som historiske narre. Den undersøger, hvordan kulturelle og historiske kontekster har formet deres beskæftigelse, og hvilken indflydelse det har på moderne forestillinger. Endelig analyseres det, hvordan ændringer i tankegangen påvirker opfattelsen af humor i disse forestillinger.

Forfatterbiografi

Jonathan S. Meyer-Küpers

Jonathan S. Meyer-Küpers has an M.A. and B.A. degree in Dramaturgy from Aarhus University and is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Rhetorics. In his Master thesis, he has explored the cultural status and perception of the clown and their predecessors.

Referencer

Bala, Michael. 2010. “The Clown: An Archetypal Self-Journey.” Jung journal 4 (1): 50-71. doi: 10.1525/jung.2010.4.1.50.

Barbieri, Donatella. 2017. Costume in Performance: Materiality, Culture, and the Body. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Bogdan, Robert. 2014. Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Borbély, Ştefan. 2006. “The Court Jester: Anthropology and Power.” Caietele Echinox (10): 275-281.

Borusławski, Józef. 1820. Memoirs of Count Boruwlaski. Containing a sketch of his travels, with an account of his reception at the different courts of Europe. London and Durham: Francis Humble and Co.

Bouissac, Paul. 2015. The Semiotics of Clowns and Clowning; Rituals of Transgression and the Theory of Laughter. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing.

Di Summa, Laura T. 2022. A Philosophy of Fashion Through Film: On the Body, Style, and Identity. First edition. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Doran, John. 1858. The History of Court Fools. Vol. 1. Project Gutenberg. URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59618/59618-h/59618-h.htm

Durwin, Joseph. 2004. “Coulrophobia and the Trickster.” Trickster’s Way, Vol. 3 (1), article 4. https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/trickstersway/vol3/iss1/4

IMDb.com, Inc. n.d. “Tony Cox, Imdb Page.” Accessed January 23, 2024. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0185272/.

Jürgens, Anna-Sophie, Jarno Hietalahti, Lena Straßburger, and Susanne Ylönen. 2020. “Schlock horror and pillow punches: Introduction to the dialectics of the violent clown – and this special themed journal issue.” Comedy studies 11 (1): 1-11. doi: 10.1080/2040610X.2019.1692537.

Kant, Leo, and Elisabeth Norman. 2019. “You Must Be Joking! Benign Violations, Power Asymmetry, and Humor in a Broader Social Context.” Front Psychol 10: 1380. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01380.

Konarska-Zimnicka, Sylwia. 2012. “Ugly Jester – Funny Jester? The Question of the Comic Nature of Ugliness in the Middle Ages and Renaissance.“ Holy cross University Periodic Publication 4 (29): 125-134.

McGraw, A. Peter, and Caleb Warren. 2010. “Benign violations: making immoral behavior funny.” Psychol Sci 21 (8): 1141-9. doi: 10.1177/0956797610376073.

McGraw, A. Peter, Caleb Warren, Lawrence E. Williams, and Bridget Leonard. 2012. “Too close for comfort, or too far to care? Finding humor in distant tragedies and close mishaps.” Psychol Sci 23 (10): 1215-23. doi: 10.1177/0956797612443831.

Otto, Beatrice K. 2001. Fools are everywhere : the court jester around the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Peacock, Louise. 2020. “Battles, blows and blood: pleasure and terror in the performance of clown violence.” Comedy studies 11 (1): 74-84. doi: 10.1080/2040610X.2019.1692549.

Pradeep, Malavika 2022. “Inside clowncore, the aesthetic reclaiming our love for clowns with vibrant humour.” Screenshot-Culture-Internet-Culture, 25 April.

Richards, Ruth. 2020. “Transgressive clowns: between horror and humour.” Comedy studies 11 (1): 62-73. doi: 10.1080/2040610X.2019.1692544.

Southworth, John. 1998. Fools and jesters at the English court. Stroud: Sutton.

Stiker, Henri-Jacques 1999a. “The Birth of Rehabilitation.” In A History of Disability. University of Michigan Press.

Stiker, Henri-Jacques 1999b. A History of Disability: University of Michigan Press.

Stott, Andrew Mcconnell. 2012. “Clowns on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: Dickens, Coulrophobia, and the Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi.” Journal for early modern cultural studies 12 (4): 3-25. doi: 10.1353/jem.2012.0044.

Tyson, Philip John, Shakiela K. Davies, Sophie Scorey, and William James Greville. 2023. “Fear of clowns: An investigation into the aetiology of coulrophobia.” Frontiers in psychology 14. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1109466.

Weihe, Richard. 2016. “Die Paradoxie des Clowns — sieben Spielformen: Schlussbemerkungen.” In Über den Clown by Richar Weihe. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

Downloads

Publiceret

2025-02-19

Citation/Eksport

Meyer-Küpers , J. S. (2025). Disabling fun : The connection of the bodily and mentally disabled and the profession of fool under the consideration of the benign violation theory of humour. Peripeti, 22(40), 32–48. Hentet fra https://tidsskrift.dk/peripeti/article/view/153310