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Puppets

As inanimate objects, puppets resemble, move like, and talk like the humans they imitate, parody, or mock. This interplay of similarity and difference, along with conventional and not so conventional aspects of puppets, causes audiences to laugh at them. Puppetry involves people looking at and reframing themselves and their social lives in a comical mode. This entry describes traditional and contemporary puppets and discusses the role of puppetry in culture.

Traditional and Contemporary Puppets

Shadow puppets are cut-out figures that are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-out shapes of the puppets sometimes include translucent color or other types of detailing. Shown here are Javanese shadow puppets (wayang kulit). In 2003, UNESCO recognized wayang kulit as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Source: Sentausa/Wikimedia Commons.

Shadow puppets are cut-out figures that are held between a source of light and a translucent screen or scrim. The cut-out shapes of the puppets sometimes include translucent color or other types of detailing. Shown here are Javanese shadow puppets (wayang kulit). In 2003, UNESCO recognized wayang kulit as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Puppets are classified as either traditional or contemporary (modern), a distinction that is only partially useful. Traditional puppets are puppets that have been in communities for many generations, sometimes for hundreds of years, whereas modern puppets are recent creations. Several types of puppets are widespread around the world. These include glove puppets (England, France), shadow puppets (China, Greece, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Turkey), rod or string puppets (Belgium, Italian mainland, Japan, Sicily), story scrolls (India), masks (Bali), water puppets (Vietnam), and even humans themselves imitating puppets (Indonesia). The word marionette is used to refer to both string puppets and puppets in general. A well-defined line between traditional puppets and contemporary puppets does not exist. Both are found in the same forms and express the same kinds of humor. And all forms of puppetry, even if invented yesterday, draw on many features and techniques that have always been characteristic of puppets.

One of 35 marionettes from the Tiller-Clowes Family Marionette Company, one of the last Victorian marionette troupes in England. Shown here is Clown, the character who developed from the Italian commedia dell’arte. In Great Britain, traveling marionette shows were a popular form of entertainment for adults in the 19th century.

Source: Theatre and Performance Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum; © Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

One of 35 marionettes from the Tiller-Clowes Family Marionette Company, one of the last Victorian marionette troupes in England. Shown here is Clown, the character who developed from the Italian commedia dell’arte. In Great Britain, traveling marionette shows were a popular form of entertainment for adults in the 19th century.

Traditional puppetry still exists in many places, and contemporary puppetry is present in all major population centers. Puppetry is practiced in Palermo in Sicily, as well as other places in Italy; Brussels and Liege in Belgium; Amiens, Charleville-Mézières, and Lyon in France; in Central and Eastern Europe, especially in Prague in the Czech Republic and Moscow in Russia; in Egypt and Greece; in many Asian countries, including Cambodia, China, India, Japan, China, Vietnam, and Taiwan; in Africa; in New York City and other cities in the United States; and in northeastern Brazil and other places in Latin America. In these places, puppets are performed both in public places, often as part of festivals and rituals, and in museums, schools, and libraries.

String puppet from the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Source: Tropenmuseum of the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT)/Wikimedia Commons.

String puppet from the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Puppetry as Popular Culture

Puppetry is an expression of popular and folk culture. It is intended for audiences of adults as well as children and is a form of communication and entertainment and an aesthetic creation. The dominant feature of puppetry is humor. Puppets become animate through the (usually hidden) activities of the puppeteers, who make them perform—walk, talk, sing, dance, burp, fart, and laugh. This disparity and intersection between the animate and the inanimate, the human and the nonhuman, is at the heart of the humor of puppets. Ironically because they are not human, puppets usually can do more and get away with more than can humans.

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