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Contribution short abstract:

Using a mixed methodology of discourse and performance analysis, this paper analyses the affordance of clown figures in contemporary politics, by exploring how the claim of political authenticity in the practice of clowning has led to ambivalent significances.

Contribution long abstract:

For the past decades, in the context of Brexit and the election of Trump in the US, the figure of the clown has become a recurrent motif in media discourses, usually intended to mock and parodise Western politicians. These accusations assimilate

renewed strategies of political communication with the practice of clowning: in far-right populism especially, these are characterised by an assumed propension to foolishness and comedy, ambivalent performances of ‘authenticity’ and discourses upon societal and political failures. This renewed affordance of the clown seems to attest of a grotesque and performative shift in the spectacle of power in Western

representative democracies, which used to be associated with more theatrical forms of ritualisation such as in political ceremonies.

This paper analyses the affordances of the clown figure in contemporary politics by exploring its ambivalent posture of authenticity. It first retraces the construction of clowning as a site of authenticity in acting theory and media discourses, by showing how its historical evolution has led to ambivalent significances. If clowning has been claimed as an authentic and ungovernable political force, inspired by the 1970’s leftist revolutionary discourses, it has also been the place of colonial practice and humor as well as an oppressive attitude of ‘jouissance’ in public spaces and conservative politics. By exploring clowning as this ambivalent practice of political

authenticity, the paper explores how performative practices and humour can reflect larger political schemes, offering both resistance and complicity in the contested commons of political life.