FEAR, COULROPHOBIA, AND HORROR.

Now that we've established that clowns aren't all that much to be afraid of, I think it's important that we address why, exactly, clowns are so closely associated with being frightening, unsettling figures. I've identified two main causes for it: basic psychology and socio-cultural conditioning.

The psychology aspect is pretty simple. As has been studied by quite a few people, clowns just seem to not 'click' with most. A lot of it has to do with their faces and behaviours, which are intentionally exaggerated. This exaggeration, whether it be through the use of dramatic makeup or slapstick physical comedy, unsettles quite a few people. Many seem to have a profound distaste for a figure that is so different from themselves. It's often related to a fear of the unknown, in a sense. We can tie this back to my original points about fool figures; people get a lot of repulsion from characters that do ridiculous acts and wear stupid costumes.

In fact, interestingly enough, this sort of innate reaction to clowns was taken advantage of during the earlier days of circuses. My Children's Entertainment tab went over the child-friendly aspect of clowning, but that certainly wasn't where things ended. To put it extremely crudely, a lot of clowns were generally just kind of nasty. Well, nasty is subjective, so take that with a grain of salt, but in comparison to the kid-friendly clowns they were forced to become… A difference is definitely present.

Clowns were used as a way to explore debauchery, obscenity, and a lot of 'shocking' taboo topics that were otherwise shunned at the time. Many clown acts were, as a result, decidedly adult-only. It wasn't until the mid 19th century that they were forced to alter their performances as a result of laws cracking down on what could and could not be put on stage. I find this to be pretty interesting, since it's an example of government censorship. Laws were not put in place to protect those being exploited by circuses and freakshows. They were not put in place to keep audiences from harming one another (since, apparently, physical violence was a thing in some of these shows). Instead, they were put in place to uphold an 'acceptable' social order. This was similar to the Hays Code, where all of the emphasis was put on being 'proper' and shutting down what was viewed as abhorrent or against traditional 'American values'.

Now that we've established all of this, we can start going into how all of these factors have created the scary clowns we know today. The concept had been explored a few times prior, but it really took off in the 70s and 80s. By then, clowns were established as these very happy, friendly figures. So subverting that concept made for something new and interesting. With the considerably horrific actions of John Wayne Gacy as a bit of fuel to the fire, writers took the idea and ran.

The release of IT in 1986 from well-known and established author Stephen King set quite a bit into motion. Soon enough, Western culture began seeing clown horror after clown horror after clown horror in written publications. And, of course, it expanded to film and television. IT was adapted into an incredibly successful film and television franchise, which helped boost the popularity of this horror subgenre. Now, we have figures like Art the Clown from Terrifier completely decimating the box office, as well as Jeffrey Hawk terrorising survivors in the video game Dead by Daylight.

Clowns have cemented their place in horror, and I don't believe they'll be losing it for quite some time. Think back to 2016 when parents were all collectively convinced that their children would be hunted down in the streets by evil, killer clowns. In all honesty, I think that Western society (or even just society as a whole) often needs a specific scapegoat figure to pin horrible things on. It's easier to create this idea of a big bad scary man who mutilates and harms people, and who takes advantage of his place in child-friendly environments (circuses, birthday parties, fun fairs) than to acknowledge the fact that most harm done to children is actually done by their close family members.

Once again, clowns are being used as a figure that people externalise their issues onto. People have, as I've explained, been more comfortable throwing all of these concepts onto one absorbent figure so they do not need to do introspection or proper reflection of the world around them. It's much easier to laugh at or make a horror show out of a comical, goofy character which has been created to be a vessel for peoples' inner turmoils.