As far as I remember, it has always been an acceptable and popular choice to dress up as a clown for Halloween.
The same really can’t be said for this year.
The past few months have made the public seriously afraid of clowns. Typically, with a fear like this, people would say that it’s irrational and unfounded. But in this case, I think the fear is fairly justified. There have been numerous reported sightings of ‘creepy clowns’ all over North America and the UK. There have even been some eerie sightings locally, in the Greater Vancouver area.
Of course, part of the public fear is grounded in the fact that these individuals have displayed threatening behaviour. However, the question is, what is it about the sheer idea of a clown that frightens us?
There are several plausible psychological reasons behind why clowns often trigger a fear response in us. In my opinion, the most significant aspect of this phenomenon may be the fact that clown make-up or masks conceal facial expressions. Humans rely on the interpretation of facial expressions to gauge intentions. When this is lost, an individual naturally becomes scary to us, because we can’t tell who they are or what they want.
This leads me to my next point. Clowns are unpredictable. This is meant to be a part of their amusing demeanour–after all, it is the unpredictability of humour that makes us laugh. However, this trait of clowns can also be taken in a negative light, because it can be scary to not know what someone might do.
Both of these psychological reasons have touched on the theme of the human desire to gain familiarity with other individuals. We often find that the more familiar and similar someone is, the more we may like them. We also find the opposite to be true, where we may not feel warmth for people who are different or foreign to us (which is why some North Americans easily reject foreign refugees–but that’s another matter).
This could be another element of our fear of clowns. The clown character is constructed to be very different than the average person, with the goal of amusing people through surprisingly strange and quirky behaviours. However, this difference from human norm can be so large that it makes people entirely unable to relate to clowns, thus making them scary.
It appears that these psychological ideas are something that filmmakers have long understood. There have been many movies where the villain is a clown. The success of these movies often partially relies on the ability of the portrayed villain to scare the audience.
With all that being said, there are some really nice people in the clown profession.
It is unfortunate that their professions may be harmed because of the spread of this fear. However, this phenomenon poses intriguing questions about the line between what we find amusing and scary.
Uzair Ahmed
