Question is how this got started. AFAICT, fat people aren’t more (or less) funny than thin people, on average. But most stereotypes have some basis and don’t arise out of thin air.
A lot of clown costumes deliberately convey a fat appearance, but that begs the question, and my inclination would be that the costumes are intended to invoke the stereotype rather than that they were initially done that way for no apparent reason and then created the stereotype. Though I suppose it’s possible that some early and influential clown was overweight and others copied his image.
My theory is that it arose from movie roles. Fat people were less suitable for lead romantic or adventure hero roles, and thus a disproportionate percentage of fat people in leading roles were in comic roles. Enough Fatty Arbuckles, Oliver Hardys, Lou Costellos, and Jackie Gleasons and so on, and the stereotype was created. (Note: that’s not to say that there weren’t also a lot of comic thin actors, but rather that the thin comics were a much lower percentage of thin leading roles as compared to the percentage of fat people of fat leading roles.)
Maybe it comes from Santa, at least partially? IIRC, the popular image of the fat, jolly Santa Claus came about at roughly the same time as the performers you mention.
Fat people were rare until extremely recent times. They would have stood out, be noticeable, and be teased or bullied. A minority who can’t fight back often resorts to humor to deflect opprobrium.
I’d say Falstaff is a direct descendant of Bacchus, made fat and jolly through drink. The original beer belly.
Falstaff also has elements of the Roman stock character Miles Gloriosus, the braggart soldier. The Romans brought this over from the Greek stock character Alazon.
Fat people would have been rich and powerful due to that fact that they could be fat. Its doubtful they would have been bullied. Also physics. F=MA. Its only in very modern times can people become obese through a sedentary lifestyle.
Back when most people worked hard and didn’t get a lot to eat, people who had the leisure and resources to get fat had reason to be jolly. The stereotype of the fat person as being contented at least, if not jolly, while thin people were morose, goes back a long time:
The stock characters in Atellan Farce include a couple of fat guys. Maccus and Buccus. These were adopted by the Romans and then plagiarised by everyone else. Plautus used them a lot and he was a big influence on Shakespeare. His Sponge character was a fool and a glutton.
So I’d say at least 391BC.
I thought the ill-fitting clothes clowns wear is part an parcle of a vagabond donning whatever second-hand rags he could acquire, just like reason they’re typically color-uncoordinated.
Laughing Buddha has been around for quite awhile, too.
Budai (a.k.a. the Laughing Buddha) appears to be based on a Chinese monk from roughly the 10th century, and was integrated into Chinese Buddhism by the 12th century.
It’s only in very modern times that *ordinary *people can become obese through a sedentary lifestyle. The rich and powerful have pretty much always been sedentary.
Yeah, no. Check out Daniel Lambert. Not rich or powerful, definitely teased and bullied. When he fell into poverty he needed to make a career of being on display.
He’s the most extreme example but he’s not one of a kind. There was little the obese could do except be treated as an object of scorn. Obese people turn up regularly in cartoon caricatures throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Women were especially mocked and shamed if they grew obese. Even among the upper classes, sufferers of gout were thought to be dissolute.
Earlier examples have already been mentioned in this thread. I’m using America and England from the 18th century on because it’s easier to find examples after newspapers and magazines began printing illustrations. But it’s obvious that if Shakespeare used a fat person as a type, then fat people were instantly recognizable to his audiences, and they certainly couldn’t only have been the rich and powerful.
Yeah, statues of Gautama himself usually show a thin guy. Also, for some reason, a guy who has huge holes in his earlobes, and hair that grows in little tufts, like an African Bushman’s.
Every time I hear “Jolly” I have to share a conversation I had with my wife:
Wife: “Do you think I look jolly?”
Me: “Oh, sure, fat people always look jolly.”
Wife: “I said ‘JOWLY’…”
Me:
(or maybe it was a joke I read in Reader’s Digest 40 years ago)
But it was Laurel who wrote the scenes – see, I think, Creators, by Paul Johnson, or possibly Humorists by the same author. (He also goes into how hard Charlie Chaplin worked at his craft.)