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Fear Of Clowns

Fear of Clowns

Why do some people have a fear of Clowns if they are just people with makeup?

Image from Wikimedia public domain.

Clowns Fear

From my research into the subject (I have an aversion/anxiety of clowns myself), although the fear of clowns is known as coulrophobia, or literally "stilt fear" (named after the clowns on stilts), for the most part, we are afraid not of people on stilts, but we have what I prefer to think of as a variation of automatonophobia, which is a fear of life-like, person-like "things" that are not actually human. This would include things like dolls, dummies, jack-in-the-boxes, and cymbal-monkeys, as well as what I feel is a variation, humans dressed in exaggerations of humans, which then make them seem inhuman - garish and feature/nature obscuring costumes and mascots: Santa Clause, Mickey Mouse, etc.

Clowns, because of their makeup, have freakishly exaggerated facial features as well as ambiguous body shapes, which are impossible to read or predict as we are used to being able to do with people, so we are unable to formulate a solid "base" of expectation for what these people will do, and then on top of that, we associate clowns with being obnoxious and spectacles, being the center of attention - those of us who are introverted, have stage fright and social anxiety and similar conditions will doubly fear or loathe clowns because of the aura and danger of "exposure" and ridicule (real or imagined) their mere presence brings. Happily, *some* clowns are aware of the very real fear of clowns, and do what they can to tone down their chaos around kids who they can tell are uncomfortable around clowns, and some clowns only use minimal face painting, such as on the nose and cheeks, but do not do "whiteface", which allows us to read their features - this actually helps most coulrophobics.

Edited: jpatt on 23rd May, 2008 - 2:37am

Fear Of Clowns Health & Special Psychology

Thanks for sharing your actual experience with this? What would initially bring on such a phobia? Is it like other phobias where you had a negative experience as a child with a clown or similar? Or was it just something that you simply discovered one day after seeing a clown?

Clowns Fear

It's different with different people, obviously. I am a moderator on the IHateClowns forum, and have had quite a few, and read even more, discussions from various members, with their own stories and feelings on the subject, and you get the full spread, from people who apparently got their phobia from books/movies like "It", "Poltergeist" and "Killer Clowns", to personal traumatic experiences with unstable clowns, to unidentifiable causes, like myself.

I seem to recall a dream from a very young age, like perhaps in my crib, of a nightmarish clown face hovering above me and I recall a sense of impending dread, and my father died a year or so later, and so for some reason I guess I have a mental/emotional association of clowns to world-changingly tragic feelings, and while I don't experience exactly *that* kind of reaction when viewing or being around clowns, my already limiting social anxiety becomes near-panic in any sort of situations where I am the focus, and doubly so for anything having to do with clowns.

I have read that mimes and clowns are outgrowths of early drama theatre where the actors painted their faces in vividly contrasting colors and exaggerations so people not sitting near the stage could still get the gist of the act or scene. During the Inquisition, some torturers would actually apply similar but more grotesque styled facepaint to both disguise themselves and to aid in their intimidation as they went about their jobs. I read an article either from early this year or late last year about a hospital ward that is completely redoing their entire children's wing after some casual questions by staff lead to a more serious study which found that 100% of their FORTY young patients DID NOT like clowns, which were spread all over the wallpaper and could be found as lamps and nightlights and such.

Clowns Fear

Some people fear the unknown, it is all mental of course. The idea of someone wearing a mask can be seen the same as someone wearing a hose as in a bank robbery. They may see the laughter and smiles as being AT them and not a general joke or merry time as in a party. Personally, riot gear looks way more frightening.

Fear Of Clowns

Schools frown on clown costumes this Halloween

Schools across the country are banning clown costumes from dress-up celebrations following creepy clown sightings that have stirred fear and pranks. Meadowbrook Middle School in Poway and Lewis Middle School in Allied Gardens have banned the garb. Ref. Source 3a.

Fear Clowns

It has little to do with the costume and more to do with the silly antics of immature persons capitalizing on people's fear by conducting pranks against those who deserved to be left alone.