I wish I could give you a better reference, but I seem to recall reading the same sentiment directed at street troupes of Commedia dell’Arte (a 16th/17th century antecedent of modern French pantomime) I don’t recall whether it was the original Italian version or the later French version that inspired such ire.
One reference may have been located in an account of Casanova or the Comte de St. Germaine, if that jars anyone’s memory, but the many and various accounts of both these figures are hopelessly muddled in my brain today.
I don’t hate ALL mimes. Just most of them. Like 99.99999% of them. And that’s because, as I said, most of them are bad at miming, they confuse annoying people with giving a performance, and because they don’t seem to understand that miming is more than doing idiotic things while not making a sound. Not that I’m in favor of doing idiotic things while making sounds, either.
I have similar objections to amateur clowns…clowning was a very popular hobby 15 or so years back, and I saw a lot of people go into clowning as a hobby or as a profession who really had no talent for it. Don’t even get me STARTED on people who insist on reciting their latest poem, unasked, at, let’s say, a family reunion. I have an aunt who does this, and then she wonders why people seem to shun her. Probably it’s because, during any hour’s worth of her company, a good 20 minutes is consumed just by her reciting and explaining her poem. Then she wants to discuss it. In another thread in another forum (I believe it was IMHO), someone wanted to know about people who break into song in public. Many people didn’t care for it.
If you want to perform, fine…just don’t inflict your performance on other people unless it’s GOOD. Practice in private.
Robert Shields has pointed out that there are only about half a dozen good mimes in the world. The rest shouldn’t be performing in public, but those are the ones that everyone sees and remembers. Yes, people hate them; hell, even Shields hates mimes!
Personally, the first time I encountered mime jokes was when reading Bloom County, in the 80s… they had some pretty savage ones, like Opus (the penguin) beating a mime senseles with (as I recall) a loaf, then becoming known as the Midnight Vigilante in the gutter press…
This can be said of anyone who is into any of the performing arts. Well said, Lynn Bodoni.
So why are there so many that are so bad? Is there a school one can go to learn the art of miming? I can’t think of one in the U.S. There may be one in France, but I’m not sure. As for other performing arts, I know of only one course of study in the U.S. for magicians (The Chavez course, but it is taught privately and I think currently there is nobody actually teaching it at present). How about juggling? Perhaps it was taught at Clown College when that was still around, but nowhere else as far as I know.
The fact is that there are very few places, if any, availabe for people to get proper instruction on these types of performing arts, so they are learned through books, tapes, clubs/associations and conventions… all of which give you some basics, but leave you to flounder on the finer points as well as on the advanced stuff. The end result is a whole lot of performers (magicians, jugglers, mimes, etc.) who are all out there performing at very mediocre levels. I think that mimes are simply the personification of that mediocrity. (Even us magicians consider mimes the other white meat )
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