theconversation.com: Are you scared of clowns? You are not alone. Coulrophobia, or the fear of clowns, is a widely acknowledged phenomenon. Studies indicate this fear is present among both adults and children in many different cultures. Yet it is not well understood due to a lack of focused research.
3 comments:
I personally am not literally afraid of clowns, I am more unsettled by them. Most of the time I am more unsettled by clowns when I see them in places that one would not expect to see a clown. If I see a clown at a fair, carnival, or a circus I am fine, and it is the same if I see a clown at a child’s birthday party or something of that sort. But if I see a clown at any other event or location then I get very unsettled by them. There is also something about me not ever being able to rewatch the one episode of Supernatural in which there is a killer clown. But I choose not to think about that one too hard. I do know a few people where they can not see clowns in any context without being scared of them. I also know one person who very much likes clowns and has quite a few clown figurines in their room so it is an interesting spectrum that this article deals with.
My (professional) opinion is that a few bad clowns ruin it for the rest of them. There are plenty of good clowns that play by the rules but of course, there is a handful that has forged their own path and unfortunately, they have become the face of clowns everywhere. There are media-created scary clowns as well as clown serial killers so there is certainly no shortage of clowns to fear. I don’t have a phobia of clowns and I wouldn’t even say a fear. I think back to 2016 when there were clowns roaming the streets, some even attacking people, where I was more unsettled than fearful. It was interesting to learn that overall fear of clowns ranks higher than a lot of other common phobias, I wasn't expecting that. It makes sense that the origins of this fear lie in the uncanny valley. So much of our brain is built around being able to recognize something human and clowns for sure are a little… off.
I totally understand the fear of clowns visually - I think it could be defined as dipping into the uncanny valley, maybe. What I also find notable is that in the reasons listed, the makeup is fearsome because it obscures emotional signals. However, clown makeup is intended to exaggerate expression, so in theory, wouldn’t that only increase the emotional signals? I think what’s more scary, which the article mentions, is the unsettling behavior, which presumably disguises those emotional cues. It’s not a secret that we, as a society, literally perpetuate this fear. Don’t you immediately associate clowns with Pennywise? And talk about how many horror movies are centered around creepy dolls, which is in the exact same vein. I found it interesting that more women were afraid of clowns than men - I’m not 100% sure how to place the cause of that statistic. When I was in elementary school, my performing arts teacher was a professional clown. She had a huge blown up photo of herself as “Sparkles the Clown.” On the first day, she did clown tricks for us. Maybe that’s why I’m not as scared of clowns??? Also weren't the clown attacks a couple years back absolutely wild???
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