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May 27, 2005
Yeah, Clowns
You know, Mark Shea posted the lyrics to a song in the Clown thread below that made me think:
Who likes clowns, anyway?
I mean, doesn't almost everyone experience clowns, at some level, as kind of creepy? They make us laugh, but there's this hiddenness about them, the masking of the real identity, the makeup that, with just a flick of the wrist in one direction or the other can turn a grin into a freakish grimace. They come from nowhere and return there. Their presence and antics are tinged with menace and chaos.
Yeah, there are benign forms of masqued entertainment. Mimes, I suppose. But I think there's also this conviction, deep in the collective unconsciousness, that clowns are up to no good.
So, aside from the inherent inanity and blasphemy of the Clown Eucharist...who would fail to understand the subtley menacing implications of The Clown for many in a congregation?
Clowns, I guess.
Or do I just have John Wayne Gacy on the brain?
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Coulrophobia is the condition of being afraid of clowns. I'm not coulrophobic; I just stone-cold hate them. And their pervy cousins the Mimes, too. Naturally, Mimes can intuit my deep personal aversion to them, and have an unerring instinct for honing in on me in a crowd.
Posted by: Rod Dreher at May 27, 2005 3:15:41 PM
Fellini made a movie, actually a baroque semi-documentary shot for Italian TV, called THE CLOWNS that just exuded a kind of ... well, Felliniesque ... warmth and love for their charming grotesquerie and their charm in the grotesque. I warn that my opinion that THE CLOWNS is a great film is a minority one. You see clowns throughout his other films too. LA STRADA obviously and the ends of 8 1/2 and NIGHTS OF CABIRIA come to mind also. (GINGER AND FRED does too, though again I have a far higher opinion of that than most people do.) Throughout Fellini's films, but most pronouncedly in the later ones, his production design and makeup style were obviously clown-influenced and other styles of cartoon caricature, like Italian puppet theater.
Posted by: Victor Morton at May 27, 2005 3:21:06 PM
John Paul II liked clowns... I saw footage of him laughing it up at numerous performances of one named Japo.
Posted by: hieronymus at May 27, 2005 3:29:40 PM
But on the other hand, yes Rod. Mimes should be publicly tortured until their screaming and yelping has worn their voices out.
Posted by: Victor Morton at May 27, 2005 3:31:00 PM
Amy, you hit the nail on the head: 'Who likes clowns, anyway?'
I can assure you, I personally know NO ONE that actually LIKES them. Tolerate clowns, yes. But like them? No. And I've met enough kids that are afraid of clowns to say that clowns should stay away from children's parties.
While I'm not clown-phobic, I do dislike them with a fiery passion. Why? I dunno... it could be because they're so NOT FUNNY!! (there are a few exceptions, though, but the rule still stands)
Posted by: Veronica at May 27, 2005 3:37:50 PM
There's already a Web site:
http://www.ihateclowns.com/
And for mimes:
http://www.ihatemimes.com/
Jugglers are ok, right?
Posted by: David at May 27, 2005 3:41:57 PM
Clowns do have at least two patron saints:
http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/pst00152.htm
Posted by: David at May 27, 2005 3:44:01 PM
I don't hate clowns but I do find them repulsive and unfunny. That 1960s "Clown Christ" nonsense probably left psychic scars here, too.
Posted by: Sandra Miesel at May 27, 2005 3:47:31 PM
Can't sleep, clowns will eat me.
Posted by: Laura at May 27, 2005 3:50:26 PM
Mimes are *benign*? Since when?
Josh Whedon knew what he was doing when he hired mimes to play the absolutely scariest of his villians, the "Gentlemen," in the episode "Hush," from the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Posted by: Seamus at May 27, 2005 3:53:14 PM
Has anyone seen the short film, "The Clown of God?" It was used in a high school religious education class in the infamous seventies.
Posted by: Lynn at May 27, 2005 4:02:57 PM
Speaking of Whedon and Buffy, you can't forget the episode "Nightmares" in Season One, where the nightmare of Xander (one of the main characters in the series) is to be chased around by a maniacally cackling clown wielding a butcher knife.
Posted by: Leslie at May 27, 2005 4:04:06 PM
Clowns to the left of me
Mi-imes to the right
Here I am
Stuck at the clown mass with you
Posted by: Seamus at May 27, 2005 4:06:02 PM
John Paul II liked clowns... I saw footage of him laughing it up at numerous performances of one named Japo.
Well, I certainly hope someone brings that up with the advocate for his cause for sainthood. That's a terrible thing to learn about him.
Then again, he must love clowns, because he appointed so many of them to American sees.
Posted by: Rod Dreher at May 27, 2005 4:10:21 PM
Is the "Clown of God" the one where the clown is strung up at the end? I have dim memories of having seen that when I was in high school. I think it does shed some light on the clown Mass phenomenon.
I like clowns myself though I think you have to have a taste for the weird to appreciate them. On the other hand, one of my most treasured memories is walking through Jackson Square in New Orleans in a hurry and suddenly becoming aware that I was being mimicked by a mime. I turned and gave him a look that must have been awful as he shrank back from me like the subway thugs from Michael Caine's transvestite killer in "Dressed to Kill". If I could call up that look by will I'm sure I could rule the world.
Posted by: sj at May 27, 2005 4:12:17 PM
"Clowns do have at least two patron saints"
'Cause they need lots of help.
Posted by: Samuel J. Howard at May 27, 2005 4:26:00 PM
SJ, YESSSS! I saw that clown movie, too! He was kind of a mime-clown, wasn't he? I don't think he ever spoke.
The clown was going around brushing the feet of the kids with a whisk broom while the trapeze artists were performing. The clown was supposed to be Jesus, but I kept thinking how rude it was of this clown to be distracting the kids from those trapeze artists! I sympathized with the circus owner/Sanhedrin.
(Yet not denying that killing mime-clown/Jesus for distracting the audience was a tad harsh.)
What an idiotic movie!
Posted by: Robin at May 27, 2005 4:35:41 PM
Hmmmmmmm? Rod hates clowns? THAT explains a lot!
Clowns rule!:-)
Posted by: BenYachov(Jim Scott 4th) at May 27, 2005 4:40:08 PM
And by the way, don't anyone start up with the Juggler and the Virgin -- that's a 19th century short story; I've been looking today and can't find an actual medieval source!!
Posted by: Michael Tinkler at May 27, 2005 4:43:38 PM
Clowns: creepy pervs in makeup and drag. I've been meaning to blog the clown "mass"; thanks for stealing my thunder, Amy, because it would have gotten ugly :-)
Posted by: Bill White at May 27, 2005 4:57:24 PM
(Ticket Taker): "A crazy clown is after you? Oh, that's rich!"
(Crazy Joe DaVola): "Are you still afraid of clowns?"
(Kramer): "Uuuuuuuuh-huuuuuuuh..."
Posted by: Jason at May 27, 2005 4:59:08 PM
Victor, in Terry Pratchett's books there's a character named Lord Vetinari, who hates mimes.
From Guards! Guards!
It was said that he would tolerate absolutely anything apart from anything that threatened the city [footnote: And mime artists. It was a strange aversion, but there you are. Anyone in baggy trousers and a white face who tried to ply their art anywhere within Ankh's crumbling walls would very quickly find themselves in a scorpion pit, on one wall of which was painted the advice: Learn The Words.]
Posted by: Eileen R at May 27, 2005 5:04:45 PM
Underneath all that pancake makeup, this is what yer average clown looks like, Chester.
Posted by: Rod Dreher at May 27, 2005 5:16:06 PM
I am a priest and an admitted cuoltrophobe (or whatever the first person called it). The only negative childhood memory that I have of any priest was clown mass that my dear misguided mother dragged me to in So. Florida when I was just a little boy. I remember nothing except screamimg when I saw the pastor dressed like a para-liturgical Ronald McDonald and begging my mother to take me out of there. Now, I am the pastor of the parish down the street and can testify that every parish that my elder brother in white face was pastor has deeply effected by relativism and anti-romanism. I was never in any way shape or form abused by a clown but they give me the creeps and when I see a parish in any way shape or form encourage clowns I alwys take the opportunity to share my fear, it's real, with the people in charge.
Posted by: CBM at May 27, 2005 5:27:40 PM
Could we just call these guys the Insane Clown Posse. Oops, thats already taken.
Posted by: SiliconValleySteve at May 27, 2005 5:29:56 PM
