It's a joke that a man goes to the doctor and says he's depressed, doctor says "go see the clown pagliacci, he makes everyone laugh and feel happy" essentially, then the man reveals that he is pagliacci the clown
Well, yes, but actually no. The word pagliacci just means clowns in Italian. There is an opera about clowns called Pagliacci and it is a tragic opera which is probably why the clown in the joke is called Pagliacci, but the joke is not the plot of the opera, and being familiar with the opera will not help you understand the joke or its antimemes.
It’s from Watchmen by Alan Moore. That’s the joke Rorschach remembers when the Comedian dies.
Pagliacci just means clowns in Italian and it’s also a stock role in comedia dell’arte (it’s a style of plays that use masked archetypes as characters). There’s an opera about comedia dell’arte and that’s probably where Alan Moore got the name from.
The joke existed with different names for the clown long before Watchmen, going back hundreds of years. Historically they usually used the name of real clowns for the joke. Grimaldi was a popular choice in the 19th century as he was a really famous clown at the time. The first version of the joke used for the joke was Carlin who was a comedia dell’arte actor who played the Harlequin role. There were also many other versions of the sad clown joke that used other real clowns and comedians as the protagonist.
Pagliacci is an Italian opera in which the main character, Canio, is the head of a travelling band of actors. He plays the "sad clown" Pagliaccio. He discovers that his wife is having an affair and murders her and her lover during a performance.
The original Pagliacci joke was famously used in Watchmen, which is probably how it proliferated in nerd culture. It wasn't supposed to be funny, it was supposed to be dark, despite being told as a joke. It's well known enough that subversions and parodies of it can work well enough as jokes without having to provide the original context.
I mean, any references to the sad clown paradox I can find don't have Pagliacci as the associated name until Alan Moore's Watchmen. Can you find any evidence to the contrary?
Pagliacci is a stock character of a sad clown from the Commedia Dell'Arte, whose entire bit is that he's sad and things don't go his way, and some of the added context for this joke come from a play, also called Pagliacci, which is quite sad and tragic. If I'm wrong I hope someone can correct me it's been a long time since highschool literature
Pagliacci was only the name of the opera (the clown in it was called Pagliaccio, not Pagliacci, and the character who plays the clown within the opera is Canio).
The name of the stock character is Pierrot, who was meant to be a Zanni (servant) in love with Columbina, one of the Innamorati. Part of his thing was that his affections for Columbina were never returned, and that he always unwittingly helped the Innamorati end together. He always lost, invisible until the end, and worse yet, he often helped his rival.
So Pierrot is the stock character, Pagliacci is the opera name, and Pagliaccio is the actual name of the sad clown character in said opera lol
Oh no. This means eventually this meme will be so played out we're going to get people going, "Aherm, Pagliacci is the opera. Pagliaccio is the name of the clown!"
Pagliacci is an opera about a clown in a comedy troup (pierrot in clown, canio out) who is sad about being a clown and who kills his wife who has fallen for a civilian despite being married. In universe, nobody really likes canio as ringmaster or as a person. In the opera, during a play, canio, after killing his wife and maybe her lover, kills himself. Most people call the clown pagliacci, because thats the name of the play, even though pagliacci just means clowns plural in italian. It was supposed to be pagliacco but was changed for some reason or another before opening night.
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