The following is an entry from the Salem Press Encyclopedia, written by Michael Ruth (2020). It can be found in the library's databases here. Please note the bibliography at the end for additional resources.
Clowns are entertainers who wear makeup and strange, humorous clothing and perform tricks and stunts to make people laugh. Clowns are known mostly for their appearances in circuses and carnivals, where they act foolishly to entertain both children and adults. The long history of clowns, however, shows that these costumed performers have not always been perceived so innocently. From their adult-themed antics in medieval times to the rise of frightening and even murderous clowns in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, clowns have taken on a darker side as well, inspiring what has been called clown phobia. Traditional funny or foolish clowns remain commonplace in circuses, parades, and other celebratory events in the twenty-first century.
Brief History
Clowns date to at least the 2500s B.C.E., when pygmy, or unusually short, clowns entertained the pharaohs of Egypt. In imperial China, a clown named Yu Sze ridiculed Emperor Qin Shi Huang for wanting to paint the Great Wall of China. Clowns also had places in ancient Roman and Hopi Native American societies, where they broke up serious settings by acting like comical fools.
Ancient clowns became stock characters in these cultures, employed by royal courts to make kings, queens, and their entourages laugh. These professional clowns performed this same duty centuries later, in the Middle Ages, but they were now known as court jesters. In the courts of medieval Europe, working as a jester was a way to mock the monarchs and nobles of a kingdom without suffering negative consequences.
Unlike the way clowns would become in the twentieth century, the jesters' behavior was not appropriate for child audiences. To ensure they made their spectators laugh, the jesters wore gaudy costumes, acted maniacally, and joked about food, sex, and the monarchy itself. This type of bawdy, outlandish entertainer was the lasting image of the clown in Western Europe into the nineteenth century.
The clown as it would become known in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries was invented principally by English entertainer Joseph Grimaldi in the early nineteenth century. Grimaldi, a popular theatrical performer on the stages of London, wore white face paint with red patches on his cheeks and dressed in garish, colorful costumes. His performances usually involved energetic physical comedy that involved him jumping through the air, standing on his head, and fighting himself with his own hands. Grimaldi also mocked the figures and fashions of contemporary London while singing vulgar songs.
The style of clown that Grimaldi had fashioned became the dominant type of clown in Western Europe by the mid to late nineteenth century. This era saw clowning disappear from the theater in favor of the newly popular circus. Clowns fit perfectly into these three-ringed, tent-covered entertainment shows. Circuses and clowns soon arrived in the United States, where the shows traveled to new locations by train. This is how the American hobo clowns were invented. These clowns dressed in rags and painted their faces in sad expressions. Hobo clowns were popular entertainers in the United States in the mid-twentieth century.
American clowns enjoyed a period of great popularity in the mid-1960s, thanks mostly to the success of the internationally broadcast children's television show The Bozo Show, featuring the character Bozo the Clown. Children loved the show's friendly host character, with his white makeup, red nose, wild hair, and silly costumes. In 1963, fast food company McDonald's capitalized on the popularity of the clown among American children by introducing the mascot Ronald McDonald, a hamburger-eating clown.
Into the twenty-first century, clowns remained familiar performers in circuses, parades, and parties. Clowns also became popular as charity workers, entertaining sick children in hospitals. These therapy clowns eased the children's anxiety and were shown to have generally positive effects on the children's well-being.
Fear of Clowns
Clowns have been sources of comedy and amusement since ancient times, but they have also become known for their darker nature. Until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, for example, clowns' performances were not at all appropriate for children. Grimaldi's shows were intended for adult entertainment, and Grimaldi himself led a particularly difficult life outside of his clowning. His father was overbearing, his first wife died in childbirth, and his son, also a clown, died of alcoholism at age thirty-one. As a result, Grimaldi suffered from periods of depression, a fact he made known during his shows.
In 1836, the French clown Jean-Gaspard Deburau struck and killed a boy who had taunted him about his clown character, Pierrot. The incident was well publicized, and it popularized the concept of a murderous clown. This trend found an outlet in the 1892 Italian opera Pagliacci, which tells the story of a clown who murders his unfaithful wife. Even the clowns in circuses at this time were described by critics as reminiscent of patients in insane asylums because of their seemingly psychotic behavior.
Another major contributor to the public's perception of clowns as fearsome characters was the case of American clown John Wayne Gacy, who murdered more than thirty-five young men in the Chicago area in the 1970s while sometimes dressed as his own clown creation, Pogo. In the 1986 novel It, author Stephen King epitomized the frightening clown by having a demon attack children in the form of the killer clown Pennywise. Over many years, these phenomena involving crazed or killer clowns gave rise to what was informally called coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.
Some academics have equated the fear of clowns to the fear of strangers, arguing that the mystery of clowns' true identities behind their costumes creates suspicion in the public. Adults with clown phobias have stated that they fear their inability to see emotions on the faces of clowns because of their face paint. Psychologists claim that the pervasiveness of sad or evil clowns in the media has turned the public against even the fun, safe clowns that intend only to entertain. Some circuses have responded to the public's fear of clowns by allowing audiences to witness their clown performers apply their makeup and costumes. Despite this, the fear of clowns, especially in children, has persisted.
Bibliography
Burks, Robin. "Why Are People So Scared of Clowns? History Might Have an Answer." Tech Times, 16 Oct. 2014, www.techtimes.com/articles/18025/20141016/why-are-clowns-so-freaking-scary.htm. Accessed 5 Oct. 2016.
Chan, Melissa. "Everything You Need to Know about the Clown Attack Craze." Time, 4 Oct. 2016, time.com/4518456/scary-clown-sighting-attack-craze/. Accessed 5 Oct. 2016.
Gilbert, Sophie. "How Clowns Became Terrifying" Atlantic, 9 Oct. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/how-clowns-became-terrifying/381306/. Accessed 5 Oct. 2016.
Goldhill, Olivia. "Why Are We So Scared of Clowns?" Telegraph, 7 Dec. 2015, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/halloween/11194653/Why-are-we-so-scared-of-clowns.html. Accessed 5 Oct. 2016.
"History of Clowning." Humour Foundation, www.humourfoundation.com.au/resources/history-of-clowning.html. Accessed 5 Oct. 2016.
Janik, Vicki K., editor. Fools and Jesters in Literature, Art, and History: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook. Greenwood Press, 1998.
Rodriguez McRobbie, Linda. "The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary." Smithsonian.com, 31 July 2013, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-and-psychology-of-clowns-being-scary-20394516/?no-ist. Accessed 5 Oct. 2016.
Willett, Megan. "A Brief History of Clowns, and Why They're So Darn Scary." Business Insider, 6 Aug. 2013, www.businessinsider.com/why-people-are-scared-of-clowns-2013-8?op=1/#-1892-an-italian-opera-called-pagliacci-clowns-became-extremely-popular-with-the-public-the-main-character-was-canio-a-cuckolded-clown-who-murdered-his-cheating-wife-on-stage-during-the-final-act-its-still-a-widely-staged-play-to-this-day-4. Accessed 5 Oct. 2016.
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