Film Fatale: Where Are All the Clown Girl Films?
Words: Charlotte Amy Landrum
Make it stand out
There is no one that understands the clown more than a funny woman. Once looking past the nose-honking, tiny car and squeaky shoes, there is a tragedy to the clown that the quick witted woman can appreciate: The highs and lows of being a spectacle, the contemplation of whether they are laughing at you or with you, and having your makeup drip off in the rain during your 5 minute cigarette break.
With Halloween imminent, for many it is clown season. Once again forced to wonder: Are you a Pierrot girl, with a pyjama-like outfit and a little pointy hat? Are you a more traditional Harley Quinn leaning into sex appeal and the fantasies of your gamer boyfriend? Or are you another type completely, merging your personal style with the signifiers of the clown, a few steps away from copyrighting your look at the Clown Egg Register? I’m still unsure what clown I am, but I do know that wearing oversized clothing and having any sort of jesters privilege in the name of your job sounds pretty grand.
The woman’s affinity to the clown spans hundreds of years. In 2019, the BFI had an exhibition covering the pioneering women of clowning in the 1920s and 30s, which included Clara Bow and Dorothy Devore looking silly and free in their androgynous shirts, ties and balloon shaped trousers. There were female court jesters during the Medieval and Tudor periods such Mathurine de Vallois of France, Jane Foole of England and her Italian companion Lucretia the Tumbler. We hear about these women very rarely despite the scarce historical recordings we have of them holding such cinematic potential.
See Mathurine la Folle: who is “probably best known for her assistance in stopping a man who had tried to assassinate King Henry IV by blocking his passage. The French would-be-assassin, Jean Châtel was later arrested and executed after Mathurine’s assistance in stopping his escape.” Where is A24 when you need them? Where is the HBO mini-series? Why can I not share a tankard of mead with these women? And don’t just give me a Netflix documentary; they are worthy of great artistic direction.
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Despite media hyperfixation with only the generic Halloween clowns, where their creators could not care less about the endless potential of the harlequin pattern, the girls yearn to fool. The intensely quick growth of fame for Chappell Roan can be attributed to, of course, her queer-focused catchy pop music, but also an array of other things - one being her signature circus chic looks that fans replicate, adore, and discuss in great detail with one another. As Georgina Bruce writes when exploring the correlations between Roan and author Angela Carter: “The circus represented a subculture in all the best senses of the word: Subliminal, sublime, subterranean, subversive.” Clowning and the circus is home for the outcasts - the We Are the Weirdos Mister type people - it has all the elements for a jaded young woman to photosynthesise and flourish - but when we look to the cinema screen, only Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix look back.
When the Joker: Folie à Deux trailer was released 5 months ago in May, I finally understood how it felt to be a farmer hundreds of years ago seeing rain clouds gather for the first time after months of drought. The film was set to be a musical, starring Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn as the new feminine presence. The snippets of the star showcased examples of some solid femme clown looks that leaned more into the grime of the clown rather than the cliche Suicide Squad (2021) with Margot Robbie’s aesthetic that evoked Facebook ‘local’ behaviour - and it filled my heart, and I assume many others, with hope that this would be the moment for clown girls to shine and to tap dance their way into the spotlight. Gaga would force mainstream audiences to appreciate the nuances of being a clowning woman, a feminine jokester, the misunderstood jesterette, one chequered babydoll dress at a time.
“These films give their women a chance to show an audience how it feels being a jester whilst also being expected to supply beauty and obedience to men that are half as good looking as you and a third as funny.”
Spoiler: Joker: Folie à Deux was really bad, as you might have heard or seen yourself, and the film failed at planting the seed of girl clown cinema. So, where can you get your fix?
The brutal reality is that there are not many films I can find that give the nuances of the clowning woman a fair shot, but there are two: La Strada (1954) directed by Federico Fellini and Funny Girl (1968) directed by William Wyler. These films give their women a chance to show an audience how it feels being a jester whilst also being expected to supply beauty and obedience to men that are half as good looking as you and a third as funny.
Watching Funny Girl feels revolutionary - particularly the first half where we see our protagonist, Fanny Brice, break into the theatrical and comedic world she was made for. Barbra Streisand gives a performance that will deeply affect silly women years to come with her sense of humour that dominates the situations she gets into - including failures, successes, and heartbreak.
Her Jewishness plays an important role in the film; a part of her identity that she feels lessens her chances of becoming another ‘pretty’ girl dancing on stage - but ultimately plays a part in her comedy which wins the public over. Fanny Brice - based on the a real person of the same name and similar story - is the most classic depiction of the femme comic as well as one of the most notable moments in film where we see a character clasp their natural ability to make a room laugh and use it to transform their life.
But what about the more traditional clown we picture in our minds we think ‘woman joker’ - the one that Todd Phillips did not let us have? With less freedom and fewer words, Gelsomnia is a young woman who is bought from her family by Zampanò, an abusive ‘strong man’, in Fellini’s La Strada. Together they are on the harsh road of post war Italy as they perform from the street to the seashore to make a living, Gelsomnia painting her face white with little black eyebrows and eyelashes as she gives her charming silent clown performances.
Gelsomnia holds a strong wonder for the world around her, despite being treated cruelly by the bitter and unhappy Zampanò. She has a Chaplinesque quality as she communicates via mime-like expressions and trumpet playing. Despite the lack of love and the absence of money, Gelsomnia is constantly finding wonder in the world around her that is falling apart. She is inspirational really, a figure who finds joy and compassion even when she is not receiving it. Both Funny Girl and La Strada offer us a peek into what this strain of cinema could look like from opposite lifestyles and culture. The only universal factor for Gelsomnia and Fanny being that humour can be used as a tool for hope when you are feeling like the most useless carny in the world.
We are not short on comedies but we are short on the on-screen female comedians, even though it seems we are in the golden age of funny women - something I decided after drunkenly going to my first Brooklyn basement comedy show. We are moving away from Amy Schumer specials and into the light, but cinema has to catch up. We need someone with money and regard to slam their hand down during the annual Hollywood Movie Meeting where they decide what to make next and say: Hear me out… Joker: la dame.
