In an amusingly Onionesque news story, the president of the World Clown Association, Pam Moody, believes that Stephen King’s It is responsible for giving real life clowns a bad reputation, and is even costing them jobs.
"It all started with the original It," Moody stated. "That introduced the concept of this character. It's a science-fiction character. It's not a clown and has nothing to do with pro clowning."
Last year saw the bizarre “Creepy Clown” epidemic, where several sightings of threatening strangers wearing clown costumes were reported across America. The trend was mocked and feared online, and the epidemic spread to the rest of the world, as pranksters and copycats were seemingly inspired, and the paranoid public contributed to the hysteria.
That peculiar period of history is over, but the fear hasn’t gone away; distrust of the leering, white-faced entertainers is negatively affecting the clowning industry, which is apparently still a thing. "People had school shows and library shows that were canceled," says Moody. "That’s very unfortunate. The very public we're trying to deliver positive and important messages to aren't getting them."
Moody goes on to describe an incident with a member of the WCA, who arrived early to a child’s birthday party, and waited in the car. "She looks up and there are four police officers surrounding her," Moody says. "Someone in the neighborhood called in a clown sighting."
Maybe it’s not very nice to mock members of a struggling industry, but one can’t escape the conclusion that perhaps clowns are just inherently terrifying, and that they’ve never actually been an enjoyable accompaniment to a child’s birthday party.
Coulrophobia (fear of clowns) was around long before we watched Tim Curry’s terrifying depiction of Pennywise, and before Stephen King’s infamous novel. Fear of clowns was even a thing before John Wayne Gacy, and that guy really hurt the industry.
I have a childhood memory of a clown appearing at a friend’s party, and most of my friends breaking down in tears at the very sight of the inhuman, grinning madman. I certainly didn’t want to approach the thing; we all wondered why on earth the adults had let such a ghoulish creature in the building. I still wonder, really. I’m pretty sure members of the public living outside of the 18th century have always found them hugely unsettling.
The fact that King created a shape-shifting demon that feeds on literal fear, and gave it the form of a clown, is a pretty strong indication that people don’t like them. But Moody is insistent that Pennywise is the problem, not the terrifying face of clowning itself, and has staunchly prepared for the upcoming release of the It reboot: "We've since created a press kit to prepare clowns for the movie coming out."
You can read the press kit, WCA STAND ON SCARY CLOWNS, right here. It contains several words of wisdom, such as: “Just because someone wears a rubber Halloween mask, that does not make one a clown! The horror movie character, “Jason,” wears a hockey goalie mask. But, people would be mistaken if they actually thought he was a hockey player!”
Perhaps we’ll soon be seeing headlines claiming that “Millennials killed the clowning industry,” along with all the other industries we supposedly drove into the grave. Like clowns, millennials aren’t quite the mass-murderers we’re made out to be, but on behalf of the teary, frightened children around the country, we’ll happily take credit for this one.
