Citing a study that revealed children find clown motifs in hospitals to be “frightening and unknowable,” BBC News tries to figure out why the jokers are so unsettling:
British horror writer Ramsey Campbell says the recurring theme in popular culture of the scary clown goes back at least as far as silent move star Lon Chaney Sr, who identified the spooky potential when he reportedly said: “There is nothing laughable about a clown in the moonlight.”
Dark clown imagery can also be seen in Jacques Tourneur’s cult films Night of the Demon and Berlin Express, as well as in the form of the Joker in Batman comics and film adaptations.
“It is the fear of the mask, the fact that it doesn’t change and is relentlessly comical,” says Campbell, who has explored dark clown themes in his story The Other Side and in his latest novel The Grin of the Dark.
The reader comments below the article are worth noting, too.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
It’s there an opera about a murdering clown or jester? I think Pagliacci springs to mind. Maybe Rigoletto though.
January 16th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
That was supposed to be isn’t there
January 16th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
I think clowns scare because these are people who dress up in a permanent smiles and expect people to think they are pure and happy. Which is impossible they are humans whom spend there lives acting like fools. Many would say, how do you take pride in that and expect to be respected? Thinking that could make most people better and so they project on to this inhuman face.
Then the public has the images of those old mobile rundown corrupted circuses with there gatekeeper clowns floating around in there heads (Grimm Tales). With that and the many horror stories, movies and books of kids running away to those circuses saturating any positives feeling they try to project. I think when you add all that up you get more negatives then positive.
If you try to ignore all that for many it still takes quite a bit of faith to increase the positives in that equation to get a favourable sum.
The dark clown is very much a cultural image these days.
January 16th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
Clowns are outsiders, as well. Able to say and do whatever they want, because they’re hidden behind their make-up. You’re not quite safe with a clown - and I don’t mean that in a juvenile way - and that can be scary.
Hm. Masks…Anonymity….Liberating….Dangerous.
Huh. Where have we heard that before?
(This post shamelessly cribbed from that Stewart Lee programme on Hopi clowns.)
//\Oo/\\
January 17th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Pennywise, The Joker, John Wayne Gacy. Bands that base their look on the dark clown like KISS, Insane Clown Posse, Slipknot.
Never underestimate the power of a dark clown.