Funny or frightening? For many, clowns are no laughing matter

By Lisa Gutierrez
Knight Ridder Newspapers

JULIE NOTARIANNI THE SEATTLE TIMES

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Related stories Clowns at Seafair try to keep audience's fears at bay

They comfort sick children in hospitals, entertain old folks in nursing homes, create waves of laughter under circus big tops.

But Kerina Merrell wants to know what they're hiding under all that makeup. She can't shake the image of the circus clown who ambushed her with the squirting-flower gag when she was a kid.

"I didn't want anything to do with him, but he wouldn't stop trying to get me to participate," said the 25-year-old from Kent, who works for a medical-staffing company. "He snuck up on me and scared me, so I kicked him in the shin."

The wild hair. The giant feet. The red nose.

Frightening.

"I think the fact that they are typically men in silly makeup and they usually don't say much makes them creepy," said Merrell.

Consider the two faces of the clown and why people love them or hate them.

Good clown: Call him Giggles. Appearing at your block party.

Evil clown: Call him Shivers. Appearing in your worst nightmare.

Shivers is a psychopath. Shivers carries a battle-ax.

Fear of clowns is known as coulrophobia, and professional clowns are sensitive to sufferers. Some clown watchers even note a trend away from full whiteface makeup, a la Ronald McDonald, toward European-style face painting. Less makeup, less intimidating.

According to Seattle's Miss Chievious, aka Dave Domholt, 45, the majority of clowns are sensitive to people who appear skittish and constantly scan crowds to keep a distance from those folks.

"We're very careful to avoid or stay away from that situation," said Domholt, assistant chairman for Seattle Seafair Clowns.

But Moka Pantages, 26, a public-relations specialist who lives in Belltown, said clowns scare her because she doesn't know their motives.

During a stop at a remote gas station when she was living in Maryland last year, she said a clown driving a pickup pulled up next to her. She immediately locked her car doors.

"Six clowns in a car is funny," she said. "One clown in a car is not. It's scary. I was wondering, 'Where is that weird clown going? Why is that clown away from the other clowns?' "

Clowns maligned

The very name www.ihateclowns.net says it all.

An anti-clown movement chugs along in cyberspace, spewing tales in the Clown Recovery Room and selling T-shirts with slogans like "Can't Sleep. Clowns Will Eat Me."

On the Coulrophobia Forum, a cartoon shows a clown lying dead in a desert, surrounded by buzzards. One buzzard, a piece of clown leg falling from his mouth, says: "Tastes funny."

On his Web site, Charlie the Juggling Clown pondered, "Are You a Clown or a Bogeyman?" in an essay on how to deal with the fearful. Charlie is also clown historian Bruce Johnson, who lives near Seattle.

Clowning started innocently enough, he said. "Historically clowns have been teachers in many cultures," Johnson said. "Clowning is something that began in a lot of different cultures, so that seems to indicate that there's some inherent need that clowns meet."

Though one theory holds that the word "clown" came from an Old English word that meant "clod," not all clowns were fools, Johnson said. "It took a lot of intelligence to be a court jester, because there was a fine line between providing good feedback to the ruler without going so far that you upset him," he said. "Confucius had one of his jesters beheaded for impertinence."

Now horror-movie clowns lop off heads and eat flesh.

"There are some adults who are genuinely afraid of clowns and quite often because they were afraid of clowns when they were young," Johnson said. "I know when Stephen King's 'It' first aired, that scared a lot of kids. There were a lot of adults that saw that."

Pennywise made his debut in King's 1986 book, "It," then Tim Curry brought him to lip-smacking life in a 1990 made-for-TV movie of the same name that just about everyone of a certain age seems to have seen.

Pennywise kills children.

Johnson remembers performing at a preschool the day after the movie aired. "And four of the kids wouldn't come to see my show."

A true fear of clowns, is no, ahem, laughing matter, though, said Dr. Craig Sawchuk, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington.

The most serious reaction can be a panic attack.

"Exposure-based therapy allows you to stay in their presence long enough that your fear starts to naturally decline," Sawchuk said. "You learn it's pretty safe. Clowns are weird but they're not dangerous, per se."

Filmmaker Kevin Kangas believes it's the clown's face that bedevils. A grinning, mocking skull is how one clown hater on the Internet describes classic whiteface. Some people fear anything with a covered face. The Easter Bunny. Santa Claus. Bozo.

"I think part of the fear is because people in masks make us uncomfortable, and clowns have masks that are painted on their faces," said Kangas, whose Maryland-based Marauder Productions is making a horror film titled "Fear of Clowns." "It may even be creepier because the masks can move, since it's only paint. Another thing is the smile that's painted on is artificial, and I think kids pick up on that deceit when they see a clown for the first time.

"They can't see the clown's real face. A lot of those kids will react to the deception with distrust, maybe even fear. ... Those kids take their fear into adulthood."

Clowns are people too

Just the thought of yet more bad publicity gets LuLuBell the Clown all worked up.

"That makes me really mad," said LuLuBell, aka Ramona Parker of Kansas City, Kan. "I think it's insulting to what I do."

Parker, who named her Web site www.ilikeclowns.com, said she doesn't run into many fearful folks when she's in costume.

Clowns don't like it when people push their scared child, wife or friend toward them, often to get that cute picture. They can spot the clown-o-phobes — an adult's glare is a giveaway — and won't approach them. "It's like if someone is afraid of a snake, don't dangle it in front of their face," said Rita Winter, aka Dizzy the Clown, in Lawrence, Kan.

Johnson, the clown historian, isn't convinced that all people who say they're afraid of clowns really are. Maybe, he theorizes, it's just hip to hate clowns.

"You can make anything evil if you want to," said clown fan Sharon Keeland, a retired high-school librarian who lives in Independence, Mo.

Keeland recently sold the bulk of her clown collection that she used to display in the library. Clowns and their smiling faces make her happy. Some of the students were less thrilled. "I had a few say they didn't like them," she said. "I don't really know why they didn't like them."

Even the phobic admit their fear doesn't hinder them much. They don't seek counseling. They aren't on medication. They just avoid close encounters of the clown kind.

Seattle Times staff reporter J.J. Jensen contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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