Aren’t they supposed to be some kind of tragic, classic figure? Most clowns have a pathos about them, no? They don’t talk–which is hell. But some do–I dunno. I just don’t like them. But I didn’t like the circus, either.
I think it’s something with the distortion of facial features and behavior–kids usually do ok with people in costume (after about age 3), if they talk normally. But people dressed up in costume or as animals usually keep their normal facial features, just draw whiskers on or paint a red nose etc. The real can be seen through the artifice. Not so with clowns. I remember their eyebrows used to bother me–I could never find their “real ones”. Disturbed me no end.
There are so many clown types, in practically all peoples (didja know there’s a “Native American” tradition of clowns?) that’s it’s impossible to say that of all clowns. There are trickster clowns and hobo clowns and peacekeeper clowns and…
The sadsack clown probably derives from Pedrolino, a character from classic Comedia dell’arte, who then became Pierrot, “the French clown”. He (or, later, she) was always the youngest actor in the troop, and full of what today we’d call teen angst. Columbine, another character, was always dumping him for Harlequin and he’d moon about and write bad poetry while everyone played pranks on him for being such a young fool.
Oh, ICK! Look what I just found at the wikipedia entry for Pierrot:
I for one find these complaints to be pointless and indeed dangerous, insofar as they question the absolute necessity of clowns. As distasteful as clowns are, they are an essential feature of any healthy society. Your children are unnerved by clowns? GOOD. That’s what they’re for. Like a fire drill or a safety belt, clowns are an annoyance that ultimately save lives.
One day, your child may awaken to a world in which eerily mute figures slump and stagger through the streets, clad in tatterdemalion clothing, their faces unnaturally pale and streaked with red, hair wildly askew, features and extremities puffy and swollen. If your child can’t overcome their natural instinct to rush to a fellow human being’s aid, they are doomed.
Clowns are our collective cultural training for the day when the zombies rise. They teach us all on a fundamental level that there is a distinct category of being to which ordinary human compassion does not apply. When the time comes to drive a hatchet through the skull of that floppy, pallid, leering creature forcing its way into your home, our children must all be subconsciously primed not to hesitate.
For the Wiki Article:
On Saturday, I was just at the “Evil Clown of Middletown”, a New Jersey roadside advertisement, appears in the first few minutes of Kevin Smith’s film Clerks II (2006).
I grew up near that beasty and I still live near it.
I can also be found in the Weird NJ book.
Annie, it looks like the Can’t sleep, clown will eat me was added as the last See also.
The song “Send In The Clowns” is depressing for a reason, you know.
I may have mentioned this on the SDMB before. When I was a kid I honestly thought clowns were a separate race of beings. One day when I was 6 I went to a kid’s birthday party that featured clowns as the entertainment. On my way out of the bathroom, as the party was winding down, I passed a room in which the clowns were removing their costumes and makeup. Upon finding out that clowns were merely regular humans in disguise, I was so disappointed I started to cry.
My brother, born a year or so after this incident, was terrified of clowns for the first few years of his life. He couldn’t even stand to see a clown mask. Of course, my uncle the substance abuser had a great time putting on a cheap clown mask and wig, and chasing us down the hall one afternoon when I was 11 or 12. I gotta call my brother and ask him if he remembers this.
I never knew until recently that some people are scared of clowns. I always thought they were funny.
But then I started to remember . . . when I was a wee kid, we went to the circus, and got seats in the first row. A clown came by, and if you sqeezed his nose it honked and lit up. I, the family sissy, squeezed his nose and loved it. My older brother (straight, macho, etc.) refused to squeeze the clown’s nose, and instead, wet his pants (his own, not the clown’s).