Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Coulrophobia 6: Spare the Children
I just turned on BBC Breakfast (I feel I must as I am its only viewer. I appeared on the show last year, a pointless exercise under the circumstances, but, well, I felt I owed it to them). They issue a warning that a clown in full costume is about to appear. Seemingly the hidden plague of coulrophobia is now so serious that we all have to be warned about incoming clowns, rather as epileptics have to be warned about flash photography. This blog is deeply concerned about this appalling pestilence - see here, here, here, here and here. The Breakfast story is that images of clowns in hospitals are scaring children. In fact, 'clowns are universally disliked'. This raises the question, why clowns? It raises the further disturbing question, why do people become clowns? In order to scare children? A mere warning is not enough, it is time for an outright ban or, failing that, a cull. I suggest special hammers.
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
i expected a post about Ann Coulter from the heading...
ReplyDeleteof course Ann Coulter would have a ready answer for the clown problem: a bullet in the back of the head; if it worked for Joe Stalin it must be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteThose kids should be fast tracked into good schools. Anyone who displays the presence of mind to fear something five times your size bursting a balloon in your face has a grasp of reality that some Uni' students never find. Imagine a thirty foot bloke, face painted or not, sailing into your 'space'.
ReplyDeleteWell, they are sick children after all and presumably they need comforting. Why terrify them when we could give them something calming and reassuring?
ReplyDeleteI may be quite wrong as I don't know much about this, but aren't trad clowns with their white faces, absurd wigs, baggy clothes, polka dots, totally unfunny behaviour, etc. - aren't they European imports from the commedia dell'arte and all that? Maybe a more traditional motley fool, perhaps tipsy, or a nurse-goosing old English juggler would be less disturbing? Failing that there's always Wile E. Coyote, Roadrunner, Tom and Jerry, the modern clowns who trump all others especially those sent over in some Euro-plot.
ReplyDeleteChicken or egg?
ReplyDeletehttp://tinyurl.com/29yybb
There was some reaearch published last year in japan about acceptability of robot appearance - there was a point at which their similarity to a human was just too disturbing and I suspect clowns have passed that line. They are familiar i.e. 2 arms legs head etc but then the image is subverted by the grotesque face and the brain rebels.
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