Last Clown Standing (SA/2022)
There's a certain irony in the fact that the only soft toy to have survived from my childhood is the one I never really cared for and used to treat with astonishing violence: an 18" clown figure with a rubber painted face and a harlequin style outfit.
It wasn't that I was scared of clowns, although coulrophobia is, apparently, a fairly common fear and many people - particularly young children - find clowns disturbing.*
In fact, I was enchanted by the sad little clown (or pierrot), who turned the roller displaying captions and credits at the opening and closing of Camberwick Green and was a big fan of the Joker as played by Cesar Romero in Batman.
But, for some reason, I was never very fond of my clown companion, although I now have a new-found respect for his endurance, outliving a much-loved Teddy Bear and even a hard-bodied Action Man.
I suppose it's a case of he who laughs loudest lasts the longest.
* Note: if this phobia is mostly related to their bizarre - sometimes grotesque -
appearance, the unpredictable behaviour of clowns can also be unsettling; no one
likes to be invited to smell a flower only to have water squirted in
their face.
Tears of a clown and all that! Clowns really, I think, dissolve the distinction between our laughter and tears (for fears) - which may also have to do with why they frighten some of us.
ReplyDeleteBy way of cinematic illustration, readers may be interested to revisit this classic extract of the Joker in the above film shooting up his tormentors (one of whom has the bright idea of leading the assault with a rendition of 'Send In the Clowns') in this brilliantly disturbing subway scene:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUPJckUSdzo&t=205s