Thanks to popular media, when one hears the word “clown,” feelings of discomfort, fear, and anxiety may appear. While not everyone has a negative association with clowns, coulrophobia and general dislike of clowns is far more common today than it was a hundred, or even fifty, years ago.
Before the age of film and television, clowns were seen in a different light. Clowns played significant societal roles speaking truth to power for millennia around the world from the Lakota to Ancient Egypt to the Korean imperial court. In theatre, clowns were more than mere entertainers. Sometimes they challenged the status quo, revealed truths that no one was brave enough to confront, and were the voice of the people. Some of the best-known clowns can be found in William Shakepeare’s works, including Twelfth Night, Hamlet, As You Like It, and King Lear. In King Lear, the fool tells King Lear that it was a bad idea to leave the kingdom to his two eldest daughters because they would betray him. The only other person to regularly question the goings-on is the disinherited Edgar, who spends most of the play in disguised as Tom of Bedlam. In Twelfth Night, Olivia relies on Feste for advice because he is smarter and wiser than anyone she knows, in large part due to his ability to navigate both the world of the servants and elites.
Today, the idea of clowns has been transformed from entertainer/wise counsel/everyman to creepy, terrifying, uncanny, unsettling, and murderous.
While clowns have been used by corporations to sell products or services, it has generally been seen as an unhealthy, disturbing, cheap, gimmicky, and a joke. For example, referring to schools as “clown colleges” is meant as pejorative. In the fast food industry, Ronald McDonald helps McDonald’s sell 99 cent menus and happy meals that come with a toy, maximum calories (and toys) for minimal cost.
Toeing the line between gimmicky and terrifying, the world famous Clown Motel in Tonopah, Nevada bills itself as “America’s Scariest Motel.” Current owner Vijay Mehar was formerly a master chef in Qatar, Australia, and Canada, taking over the Clown Motel in 2019. Mehar added themed rooms based on scary pop culture references and grew the motel’s clown collection to over 3000 scary (and not so scary) clowns. Donate a clown to the Clown Motel here.
Some of the most scary clowns in popular culture come from film and television, including the Joker (the Clown Prince of Crime) in Batman, the clown doll in Poltergeist, and Pennywise in Stephen King’s It. Real life murderer and clown, John Wayne Gacy helped solidify the scary clown over the last half century in his killing spree of 33 people. Before that time, there were other “bad” clowns, such as Canio in the 1892 opera Pagliacci, who murders his wife and her lover onstage (see A Surprising History of the Creepy Clown), but today’s imagination is primarily influenced by Gacy and King. Most recently, King’s It inspired (or was blamed for) the 2016 “Clown Scare”.
Next week, we will continue exploring the popular image of clowns in healthcare, hospitals, and non-traditional settings. (Learn some of the ways that clowns and clowning can actually be good for you!)
Photo Credit: Tracy Ludgren “Clown,” 2015