Coulrophobia: Fear of Clowns
The Ambivalent Power – tales of X-Ray Vision and More by Mulder142
the little girl's face wordlessly expresses sympathy. she is flanked on the the midway by her father, hands in his pockets, and the clown who, on bended knee, comforts her. the clown's hat is small, his wig, curly, his expression, beneath the greasepaint, neutral. the painted-on teardrop that drips from his eye doesn't make him a sad clown, he explains. "it means I killed a man in prison."
Illustrator Paul Noth's 2007 New Yorker cartoon, described above, captures the predisposed notion in our pop-collective consciousness that, even if clowns aren't scary, the men beneath the greasepaint (and they're invariably men) are considered, unfairly or not, creepy.
Coulrophobia, plainly put, is the fear of clowns, but the term is also an etymologically clumsy neologism with a maddeningly obscure origin; a slippery word that describes a fear so new and mysterious that someone simply named it. Indeed, the concept more resembles urban legend than it does a medical condition—it's a word not (yet) embraced by the psychological community. however, there is a curious 2008 study by University of Sheffield researchers who gleaned, through interviewing 250 children, that decorating a children's hospital in clown wallpaper might not be such a good idea.
the Constant Reminder by Mulder142
so why are these men—and increasingly, women—so capable of striking fear in the hearts of not only children, but well-adjusted adults? Don't they, through their mastery of pratfalls and pantomime, bring us joy as they spill endlessly forth from tiny cars? or is there something unsettling in the anonymity afforded the by the greasepaint and the frizzy wig? shall we fault Hollywood? Do our parents play some role? Do we simply like the attention we get from fearing clowns?
whatever it is, there are plenty of Portlanders who fear—and, in some cases, hate—clowns. what follows is an unscientific sampling of their coulrophobia and its origins, as well as some insight from the Portlanders who only wish to make you laugh.
rush to fire by Mulder142
one theory suggests that this fear can be traced to two clowns: Pogo and Pennywise. Pogo is better known as John Wayne Gacy, Jr., the serial killer who occasionally clowned for the children in his neighborhood. it didn't help coulrophobes that Gacy remained unrepentant for his crimes, nor that he painted pictures of clowns which he then sold from prison.
Pennywise was also a murderous clown, but a fictional one, manifested through a child's coulrophobia in Stephen King's novel it. But it was probably Tim Curry's turn as Pennywise in the novel's 1990 made-for-TV adaptation that, even more so than Gacy, truly scared a generation of children.
"it was supposed to be scary, but for many it was truly traumatic," says Jolly Molly, who, in addition to clowning, has been an actor, a secretary and singer with the Portland Opera. "Kids should not be allowed to watch horror films. They stay with them forever."
Portland's Dana Staskerz, a thirtysomething marketing director pinpoints her coulrophobia from a high-school movie night screening of it, and she's been terrified of, and avoiding, clowns ever since. "I don’t look directly at the clown, and am sure to keep it in my peripheral vision to make sure it does not sneak up on me!"
last Chance Powerplay of the Epic Defender by Mulder142
Luisa Adrianzen Guyer, the associate director of development at the Portland Art Museum, also looks away when clowns are present. "If possible, I get the hell out of the room."
her fear stems from a trip to the circus when she was five years old. An animal lover, she was horrified to tears at the sight, and thought, of elephants forced to perform tricks. when the clowns came out, it went quickly downhill.
"I flipped out, and my crying made two of my cousins go nuts, too," she says, "it was Pandemonium! there is something tragic about the need to make people laugh. to me, the circus is the saddest place around."
But Portland's pink-haired Bubbles says coulrophobia's not just a kid's game, describing a birthday party she once worked for a two-year-old boy.
"[His] father was so phobic he wouldn't come downstairs," she says. "Part of me felt bad for him being so scared he would miss the party, part of me was thinking, 'Umm, who thought it would be a good idea to hire a clown?' and part of me was like, 'Dude. come on. I am just a mom in a pink wig and pajama pants who is good at making kids laugh.'"
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Tater A. Peal retired from clowning three years ago (he's now a cop), but he was a natural performer, juggler and unicyclist by age 13, attending Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey's Clown College, before touring with "the Greatest show on Earth."
"Kids dig attention from mom and dad," he says. when children fear the unknowable, their parents comfort and protect them, which he believes can legitimize a fear rather than calm it. "same idea with teenage girls," he says. "They're all afraid of clowns—when there's a teenage boy around. It's human nature, we react and people give us attention, and we like that."
"They just respond with fake fear to garner attention for themselves," says Extremo the Clown, whose path Portland's pedestrians have most likely crossed at some point. He's hard to miss, rolling up to four-ways stops in his tricked-out van, cackling wildly while toying with his stuffed monkey.
Clowns make a Party by Mulder142
But he's quick to add that coulrophobics can also suffer from "massive panic attacks" when a clown is present, and sometime not even then. He says all it takes is something that triggers in the phobic an "unconscious engram,"of "a clown in some form, be it an image, as in a book, poster or film."
He says he's helped people overcome their fear of him, but admits, "I have probably created a few coulrophobes as well."
A recent graduate of the University of Portland's psychology program, Allison Badell theorizes that many fears can manifest through "modeling," in the same way we learn religious or political beliefs from our parents, even though no explicit "teaching" is involved.
the father who refused to leave his room as long as Bubbles performed at his son's party? Badell thinks it's possible that he can unintentionally pass along his fear to his son.
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Bubbles has a rather holistic approach. each year, she preforms for pre-schoolers, but she shows up in street clothes and shows them how she transforms from a mom into a clown, and wonders whether this tack might work for adults.
Tater suggests coulrophobes seek therapy for very real and possible repressed past abuses. "start being afraid of the real dangers in life, like drunk drivers, wars on drugs, lying politicians and corrupt banks and big businesses."
and like Bubbles, Jolly Molly tries putting to rest all fears, presenting on her website methods to teach parents not only how to react when their children respond to clowns with fear, but how they can best react to their children's reactions.
and if people still persist to be afraid?
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"Here's a little scenario," she says. she needs dog food and stops at a convenience store, in costume, after performing five hours for 50-60 "cranky children in 100-degree heat.
"I walk in the door and the cashier shrieks 'Oh my God! I'm scared of clowns!' Then she makes a big fuss and runs to get someone else to cover her register. meanwhile everyone else in the store now knows I'm there and come up to get free balloons."
sometimes, she says, people simply want to be afraid of clowns. when presented with an obvious psuedo-coulrophobic, Jolly Molly throws up her hands and opts instead for another method.
"I scare the shit out of them."
Are you afraid of clowns? Sound off and leave us a comment below.
the accompanying art was painted by John Mulder (Mulder142) for his series "the Secret Lives of Clowns." A production of Elroy Artspace, the series can seen online, or up close and in person beginning Thursday, Nov. 4, at the Original. why clowns? Read the artist's statement.
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