Clownophobia, and the Decline of American Culture

In My Humble Opinion
21

Well, I am older than the lot of you put together, it seems . . . I’m not afraid of clowns, but I do hate them almost as much as I hate mimes—a friend of mine from high school went to the Ringling Bros. Clown College, and I felt like a Baptist when her best friend goes Islamic.

I am, however, terrified to the point of paralysis of ventriloquist dummies. I grew up seeing them turn evil and kill people on endless episodes of Alfred Hitchcock, Twilight Zone, et al. Ghastly little things, with their jointed, painted mouths and rolling eyes [shudder] . . .

22

Ahh, yes, I saw those too. There were at least two Twilight Zone scripts with Evil Dummies, at least one Alfred Hitchcock script (“The Glass Eye”, with a very young William Shatner and Billy Barty), and I know of at least two 1950s shows in which the plot involved a midget who was the real ventriloquist while the “ventriloquist” was the dummy.

And then my parents went and got me the “Danny O’Day” do-it-yourself ventriloquist dummy (along with the instruction record, which also feaures Farfel the Dog. No ads for Nestle’s, though.). I still have it in my attic. Plenty of nightmare material there. My daughter asked about it, but she’s only 3 1/2, and I’m not bringing it down to torture her yet – she’s got enough nightmare material.
Charlie McCarthy is the AntiChrist!!!

23

I was a kid way back in the 1960s, before all this anti-clown mass culture appeared. As early as I can remember, I loathed clowns. I wasn’t so much frightened by them as I was repulsed, finding them incredibly ugly. I thought I was the only one who felt that way. I wondered how come everyone else expected clowns to be lovable and I was the only kid who hated them. Some years later when I read an article about Federico Fellini, that he had suffered from a childhood fear of clowns, I finally realized that I was not alone in this. So I am not following any current trend; I’ve felt this way for at least 37 years.

For me, the most disturbing cinematic clown image was in Born on the Fourth of July. It wasn’t frightening; it was a clown at a Memorial Day parade giving the “peace sign” to the injured Vietnam veteran. A closer look discovered that under the clown makeup was a bearded “hippie” (this was a person back in the 60s who had unconventional appearance and lifestyle based on “peace” and "love"0. Tom Cruise as the vet had just gotten back from the war and it was his first discovery that there were such things as hippies and the antiwar movement. It was the first hint that America had changed in his absence and his patriotic military worldview was about to come crashing down, leaving him painfully disoriented about the meaning of his existence. That’s why the clown image was so disturbing.

As for fear of eels, Delphica — ever since seeing that German film The Tin Drum, I have not been able to think of eels without feeling nauseated. Warning: if you hate or fear eels, do not, repeat, DO NOT see The Tin Drum.

I have read about that theory you mentioned, Delphica, about why puppets creep people out and it makes sense applied to clowns too. For me, the most extremely awful example of this syndrome was when I was a kid at Cleveland’s Euclid Beach Park (which closed down forever in 1969, thank God!). Outside the funhouse they had a lifesize jointed mannequin named Laughing Sal, a fat woman with curly red hair. She was perpetually jiggling and shaking all around, the whole time laughing loudly and maniacally. God, she terrified the living shit out of me. It was a nightmare come to life. I still haven’t gotten over the fright. Worse than any damn clown.

24

I think that the current wave of cloud-phobia might be caused by the fact that all those kids who were scared by the clowns in Poltergeist (1982) and It (1990) have finally grown up. IMDB lists The Redeemer, Son of Satan (1976) and Tales from the Quadead Zone (1987) as other movies featuring homicidal clowns. Killer Klowns from Outer Space first appeared in 1988, and in the same year the Japanese animated film Akira featured megaviolent street thugs who dressed as clowns.

Even before all of this, there’s the Joker from Batman, the Ingmar Bergman film Gycklarnas afton, and probably many other sinister clowns that my quick search didn’t turn up. So, while a phobia of clowns might be a fad now, it’s one which I think has been in the making for a while.

25

Put me in the “Scared of Dolls” column. What do we call that? Pupiphobia?

Mrs. Rastahomie keeps a doll in our bedroom. I swear, I can feel that thing staring at me when I’m in there. Gives me the [Chef]boo-hoo-heebie-jeebies[/Chef]. It’s biding its time, plotting its next move…

26

I think perhaps the fear of clowns may be a little more ingrained than we suspect.

I’m an audiologist, and one of the ways I test the hearing of a kid in a certain age range (say 9-10 months up to 3 years) is to have them in the soundproof testing suite sitting in their parent’s lap. There are two speakers in the corners, and above and below the speakers are tinted boxes that contain little animatronics that are activated by remote switch.

The test procedure is often called visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA). Play the stimulus through one of the speakers, and when the kid looks in the direction for the sound, activate the animatronic toy to reinforce the action. Do this a few times with a loud stimulus level and you’ll have the kid trained. Then drop to softer levels and see when he/she stops looking. There’s a very brief time window that you can do all of this in, before the kid loses interest.

There is a certain small percentage of kids that will be freaked out by the reinforcer toys. I remember asking my professor in graduate school about what were the best VRA reinforcers to use. His answer basically boiled down to the following:

  1. Colorful animals or cartoon figures will do just fine
  2. No matter what you use, a few kids will always freak
  3. Hi, Opal!
  4. Never, ever, ever use clowns. The percentage of freaked-out kids will increase dramatically.

I heard that there was a study that basically confirmed this approach, but I’ve been too lazy to look for it. In any case, I’ve never seen clown figures used clinically for VRA reinforcers, and if I ever do, I’m taking an ax to that equipment.

27

On the lactose intolerance thing, I can see where Lois is coming from. I think the way these things go is:

Way back, like when I was a kid, there was such a thing as L.I., but it was between you and your doctor; there weren’t any ads for L.I. treatments. If there was medication for it, it was buried on your pharmacist’s shelves.

Then the creator of Lactaid, or whatever, decides to spend money on advertising–and now it’s got a name, and a treatment, and it’s in the public consciousness.

And now that it’s Out There, anybody who gets gas after downing a milkshake says they’re L.I.

28

Except Rod and Todd Flanders. :wink:

Ewww…ewww…Tin Drum…eels…must go puke now…

That is one freaky movie…although the bit that freaked me out the most was the scene where he breaks all the glass jars in the lab… :eek:

29

I had a friend that used to clown for a resturant. Bingo the clown. When I started working at said resturant I made him promise not to talk to me while in clown. Creepy!
My children make fun of me because I don’t like clowns. They are evil.
So when the Power Puff girls came on one day and it was the one where the clown was doing a birthday party and then was spilled on by an overturned bleach truck, I had to laugh. And then I realised that it didn’t hurt him it just turned him black and white and mime looking and then he started to do bad stuff. “See!!!” I shouted to my kids who laughed hysterically “I told you they were evil!!”
I’m not really afraid of them, they just creep me out.

On another note…Why is it that most kids don’t get over the fear of being terrified by clowns, but they get over the fear of mall Santa Clause or the mall Easter Bunny?
I mean all three give out fun stuff.
Seriously, how many parents here have taken the little ones for that yearly picture on Santas lap only to have the kid get so freaked out you have to leave?

30

I’m scared of clowns, and dolls (you know those “realistic” ones that old people have that look like little children, and they make dresses and junk for them? Those especially), and ventriloquism dummies (it’s the eyes…when they’re looking side to side and stuff…it’s just so creepy). I don’t mind mimes though. And the Joker doesn’t scare me…

I don’t know WHY I’m scared of them, but I know “It” played a big part of it. I’ve still never seen the whole movie, just little snippets here and there when I worked up the guts to try to see it, and then ran away a minute or so later. My family was watching it when I was really young and it just scared the crap out of me. I don’t think I’ll ever watch the whole movie.

That idea about the dolls being non-humans, but resembling them enough to be creepy sounds about on. But then, why wasn’t I scared of a GI Joe toy, or a Barbie doll?

A creepy thing about clowns is that they CAN’T be anything but happy. Even if they’re sad, angry, what have you, they have that painted on smile…they have no CHOICE but to be “happy”. That weirds me out for some reason. They could be planning to eat you, and they’ll still be grinning.

I’ve never met a clown in real life (like for a birthday part or whatever), and I don’t recall reading any stories about clowns, so all my clown fears are based off watching TV/movies, I guess. But I don’t remember…I just know I’ve been afraid of them for long since it became a “fad”.

Oh, and Ronald McDonald never scared me, except for the relatively newer commercials (like last year), where they have some new guy playing Ronald. I swear, that guy is scary. His eyes are like, evil looking…I’ve heard other people have found this too, so I can’t just be crazy, heh.

  • Tsugumo (okay, so I could be crazy…I mean, I’m scared of CLOWNS, for crying out loud)
31

AAAUUUGGGGHHHHH!!!

32

Even worse!!!

33

That was John Wayne(?) Gacy, who was busy being a clown when he wasn’t torturing and killing teenaged boys and hiding the bodies in his crawlspace. The book I read about him had a picture of him in clown make-up, which is enough to make anyone terrified of clowns.

Matt Groening based Krusty on his childhood TV clown called Rusty Nails. He was scared of him cause he had the scariest name ever. As a child, you are taught to “avoid rusty nails.”

34

What the hell was that? Now I’m scraed of 'em, too. Well, not really.

35

I think my visceral fear and hatred of clowns comes from those horrible paintings they have in pediatric hospitals and doctors’ offices. I had some serious illnesses as a young kid, and I think the images of clowns got imprinted on fear of death (and worse, fear of medical treatment).

To generalize, though, doctors’ offices and hospitals are scary places for little kids, and ANY association created is going to be a negative one, I’m afraid. Hang clowns up on the walls in scary places, make kids hate clowns. It’s simple.

36

I wonder if Poltergeist is the movie that caused the most trama to people now currently 22-30 or so. It’s not just people here, I’ve read at least 100 posts on one of the anti-clown sites (oh yes, I’ve visited them well before now) that cite that movie as the cause for the poster’s fear. I * think * there’s a logical explaination for why so many very young children saw it though. Normally, you wouldn’t expect many people to bring preschoolers to a horror movie, right? I know my parents didn’t make a habit of letting me see scary movies when I was small. My folks said it wasn’t advertised as a horror movie! If you remember the ads for Arachophobia, you know that many of them seem to make the movie out as a comedy, not a horror film; they advertised Poltergeist the same way. Had the ads made it seem like the horror movie it was, many of us probably wouldn’t fear clowns.

As for “Wouldn’t you think it odd if the only time you ever hear butterflies mentioned in the mass culture was in the context ‘I hate butterflies. They creep me out.’?” I like bats, what sort of reactions do you think I get from others when I talk about them? Not too many positive ones! I try not to talk about how cute I think flying foxes are to people who have told me flat out that they are fearful of bats.

37

Between Poltergiest, Something Wicked This Way Comes (Not so much evil clowns as evil circuses), Ronald MacDonald, and The Joker, I’m firmly in the Clowns Are Creepy camp.

Adults wearing bright makeup and howling with forced laughter freak kids out. This is probably why so may kids also get scared of their great aunt and Santa Claus in the mall (I’m thinking A Christmas Story here).

38

I know exactly why I have a fear of clowns.
When I was six, I was staying up late waiting for my mother to come home. My little sisters were in bed, and so was my dad. I was watching “A Current Affair”, and they had a story about some woman who was murdered. A man dressed up as a clown, rang her doorbell, and when she answered it, he shot her in the face. That’s my earliest memory of clowns, but mom tells me that when I was 3, she spent an hour dressing up as a clown for Halloween while I was napping. I apparently woke up and toddled into the bathroom, and when I saw her, I started to scream. I wouldn’t stop crying until she washed the make-up off her face.
“A Current Affair” pretty much cemented it for me. IT didn’t help the fear, but it didn’t cause it.
I remember a few years ago I went to the Circus (I may have been in 9th or 10th grade) and a giant clown on stilts started walking toward me. I couldn’t get away cuz there were so many people, and I started shaking real bad, and practically started crying.
To me clowns=death.

39

I didn’t mention it in my previous post, but yeah, add me to the list of persons in that age range (I’m 27) who was scarred by the infamous clown scene in Poltergeist. It doesn’t help that I was about that kid’s age when I saw it for the first time. Every friend that I’ve talked to about Poltergeist all agree that this is the scariest scene in the movie.

40

FWIW, I’m 37. I was 18 the year it came out (1982), and that clown scene scared the bejeebers out of me. I’ve never liked clowns, even as a little kid. Never liked the circus, either. Damn clowns ruin it for me.
IMO, that scene is the scariest scene from ANY movie.