A Real Clown’s Perspective On Clown-Centric Horror
Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, is considered to be one of the most common phobias. Approximately 10% of surveyed individuals report having severe coulrophobia, while an estimated 50% report some fear of clowns. However, the commonality of this fear seems extremely high when considering that only approximately 0.012% of the world’s population works as professional clowns. Even though you’re more likely to die in a car crash than encounter a clown, the fear of our favorite red-nosed party entertainers remains at the forefront of both rational and irrational minds alike. But for those of us (myself included) pursuing the art form of clown, living in a world trained to be scared of clowns proves difficult.
Experts have pinpointed a few common triggers associated with clowns that make them a common source of fear. First and foremost, the clown’s inhuman appearance. Clowns straddle the boundary between realism and absurdity, occupying a region of the uncanny valley where facial cues become confused by blocky shapes and grease paint. Even when a clown is drawn with a red smile on their face, their intentions and actions can be wildly unpredictable, frightening children and adults alike who rely on these signals to predict an individual’s behavior.
Why So Serious?
From the jester to the rodeo clown, clowns have also regularly served as tricksters, defying expectations for purposes both pleasant and sinister. To trust a clown is to be foolish, as the clown always has another trick hidden up his sleeve. Be it Pennywise’s shapeshifting escapades or Twisty the Clown hiding a deadly club amongst a bouquet of flowers, clowns exist in a perpetual state of play, regardless of their intentions.
When we look at the history of clowns in film, it’s unsurprising that the conniving, trickster, scary side of clowning is what is held in the mainstream’s consciousness. Perhaps the most famous scary clown, Pennywise from Stephen King’s It, has become the most recognizable clown after Ronald McDonald. With Spirit Halloween stores all over the country mass-producing scary clown masks, it’s unsurprising how It: Chapter One’s release alongside a viral scary clown craze back in 2016 would skyrocket the film to become the highest-grossing horror film of all time. However, outside of scary clowns, the best clown representation clowns have is perhaps Krusty the Klown, who is, unfortunately, a scheming, conniving alcoholic.
On Becoming A Real Clown
Even though society is vehemently anti-clown, I have met diverse individuals from varied backgrounds, career paths, and walks of life who have found themselves drawn to the joy that is clown.
While I am unsure of the exact moment when I become fixated with clowns, I would guess it would have to be the Scooby Doo, Where Are You? episode “Bedlam in the Big Top”, which pits Mystery Inc. against the Ghost Clown who uses his hypnotic powers to trick the gang into perilous circus tricks as they attempt to find out who is stealing from the circus. The thing about the Ghost Clown that drew me wasn’t simply his clowny exterior but rather the joy he exhibits when he succeeds at his trick.
In January 2024, I found myself enrolled in my first clown course, a weekend workshop on the role of tricksters in fables and how we can learn to clown from these stories. Prior to my enrollment in so-called “clown college”, I hadn’t known what to expect regarding the kind of people who become clowns. And while I held an image of unshaven carneys smelling of cigarette smoke and covered in grease paint in my mind, I quickly came to realize that there is no stereotypical clown. In the two years I’ve embraced clowning, I’ve met lawyers and brain surgeons, life coaches and psychic gurus, even a professional Santa impersonator. Often, I’ve left class only to wander onto social media and discover my new clown friends are world-renowned in their fields or touting thousands of Instagram followers.
Why Clown?
Clowning is an art form built on the concept of play, engaging with a conflict or problem through a non-judgmental lens to the point that solving the problem isn’t as important as the journey to get there. It’s all about dissecting the systems we use to judge ourselves, and leaning into the qualities of ourselves we dilute or hide to have fun, regardless of societal faux pas.
The question of ‘why clown?’ frequently comes up. For many, they are prescribed clowning by a therapist or doctor, instructed to push past their own biases and expectations through the exercise in absurdity. For others, they view clowning as a tool for delivering aid, melding the world of medicine or crisis intervention with humor as humanitarian clowns. Then, of course, you have the ones like me who aim to break away from the personas we wear in our everyday lives, instead touting absurdity and depravity on our sleeves. All of this tends to overwhelm the common person who views clowns as more creatures than participants in an art form.
The debate on whether scary clowns hurt or help the community is often divisive. Some view our society’s reliance on the scary clown trope as equal to the demonization sharks faced post-Jaws. But I personally fall into the camp that scary clowns present clowns with a unique opportunity to educate others on the clown lifestyle.
Send In The Clowns!
Often, my clown persona, Jester LeRoux, will get flagged down by drunks in downtown Los Angeles or by the casual commuter on my way to that night’s shindig. While people’s initial reaction tends to be shock, which is fair considering you don’t always see a clown on the city bus, the conversation often becomes curious as I explain the ways in which clowning can serve as both a creative outlet and a restorative tool. Upon learning more about clowning, people tend to let their guards down, connecting with me beyond their preconceived notion of what clowns are.
While films like It and Clown in a Cornfield entangle their horrors in the visual motifs of the clown, they are not testaments to the nature of clowns themselves. Rather, the fact that both films feature nefarious forces hiding behind the image of a clown illuminates more about the current state of clowning. The image of the clown has become political, be it in film & television or in global affairs. While the term clown is often thrown as an insult across Congress, clowns get people talking. It’s no wonder that the image of a clown has been co-opted by protest movements, most famously in England’s Clown Blocs, where participants tout clown shoes and grease paint to protest the utter foolishness of their opponents.
Clowns are scary because they are unafraid to exist between extremes, horror and humor balanced between two sides of the same coin. But that is also one of their greatest strengths. Regardless of how a person finds clowning or the clown they become when they find it, the world remains fixated on them.
Categorized: Editorials
