Huh? When I was a kid clowns were part of a circus act and made you laugh. And then there was Bozo. I have have never associated clowns with scary or creepy.
Me too. There used to be a former professional clown in my Church (he passed away several years ago). He's in the clown hall of fame or some such. Had a ton of memorabilia in his house. Stereotypical nice old grand-dad type guy. Quick wit, even in his advanced years. You could see how he could use that quick wit to play off the crowd instantly. Now his wife... Sweet little old lady that drank this clear stuff from Greece like it was water. I think I could use it to clean engine parts! She was scary! ;-)
"There's a natural phobia of clowns," Sgt. Joe Grubbs of the Bakersfield Police Department told ABC News today.
Huh? When I was a kid clowns were part of a circus act and made you laugh. And then there was Bozo. I have have never associated clowns with scary or creepy.
I read somewhere that the "evil/scary clown" meme is a very recent phenomenon tied to contemporary anxieties and has no roots in the past.
All I know is that when I was a little bitty kid, the man on the left in this picture was my hero:
I absolutely adored him. I would put on old aprons, even old dresses, and pretend I was him. I think he's still alive. His real name is Bev Bergeron.
John Wayne Gacy. ‘nuff said.
-— When I was a kid clowns were part of a circus act and made you laugh -—
Never liked them as a kid. That dislike turned into a creepy feeling as an adult.
I did, when I was very young, though I grew out of it fairly quickly.
The theory is something along the lines that young children, who are still learning to read faces, see a clown's exaggerated features as deformed rather than comical, and so they're frightening. Obviously a significant number of adults never grew out of that sensation, so they still find clowns creepy. Literary figures like It or the Joker play on that.
I was always scared of clowns and still am.
They are like overly-forward people, but in hyperactive mode.