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realsmileyclown · 6 years

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Will Clowns Ever be viewed Favorably again?

I should start off by saying this is only regarding how clowns are viewed by the public in the United States as in other countries the art may/is viewed differently. I have experience where I live so that will be the focus here. Now I know there are lots of people who like clowns but anyone here can tell you those people are the minority and vocal minority as well. Thats not to say the majority dislike clowns but the vocal majority definitly does. Id rather say the actual majority kind of avoids clowns and only if it gets brought up usually just say they dont really like them. This wasn’t always the case though as back when circuses were very popular and a part of american entertainment, nearly on par with sports like baseball, clowns had to be at least in the positive view of the people. This is because clowns have always been the mascot of these circuses from the height of popularity until the recent closing of ringling. We can see both old and modern examples or clowns always being used in PR stunts or on advertisements.

Here we see and old style poster advertising the circus and we see Julia who has ben in many pictures promoting Ringling Brothers. We see that both use clowns. These are important details because if people viewed clowns how they do now back then we wouldn’t expect to see much interest in the circus with those types of promotions. Clearly the circus kept trying to use clowns for PR even after the clowns decline but that clearly didnt work anymore as circus attendance lowered and other reasons led to closings.

There are lots of reasons why clown popularity decreased and i dont want to make this post about that but in short basically media depictions of clowns started to use them as horror symbols to play off the fact that a few people actually had phobias of them.

The point here though is do I think clowns will ever be back to their status of public favor when the circuses were in their prime as well as how could they get there.

First off I do think they have a chance to get back to their old level. I think this because I dont think there is really that much standing in their way. The main difference I see is that back then clowns were part of the circus package and people thought their job was to look weird and act silly to make people laugh. People didnt necessarily like clowns but didnt dislike them. Probably if you asked someone at the circus if they liked them they’d just say yeah are funny but thats it. Now people think they are people whose job is to look strange and act stupid to try and get people to laugh. The difference may seem small but essentially im claiming that the experiences that caused clowns to be viewed unfavorably shifted the people’s perspective to go from thinking clowns had a weird look which made them look funny to instead a strange bizarre look which makes them look off putting or creepy. The same is true for their actions. We know that this is a subtle difference but explains the shift from a slight positive to a slightly more negative view. We also know that this is only a shift in how they view clowns and not the clowns faults due to the fact that clowns havent changed those two things about themselves. If anything on average their makeup got less weird. See the pictures below with an old clown and a new clown and try to tell me the new one looks more creepy than the old one.

Clearly it had everything to do with public perception and not to do with them. Now public views constantly change so i see no reason they cant change back to how they were but it will take the work of lots of clowns to make it happen. This time clowns will also have to work harder as they no longer have ringling brothers to help keep them working and in the public eye.

One of my first suggestions is to stop worrying and complaining about scary media depictions worsening the image and instead focus on ways to improve the image of clowns. Everytime people who like those movies hear clowns complain about movies like “It” they just think worse about clowns and wonder why they cant just let them enjoy their movie. Clowns should take hollywood using their image as a compliment and find a way to make it positive. Clowns should do what they do best and laugh when they see those movies because it really is funny that someone thought they’d take a clown, which is funny and makes people laugh in real life, and make a movie where they are scary instead. Its quite a funny contrast to be scared of something that is funny. Having a positive attitude like this instantly changes its dynamic and now whenever a thing like this comes out clowns can claim it as part of their culture so all the people looking into it are reminded that real clowns are the opposite instead of sore losers who cant have any fun. Clowns have to take jokes not just dish them out. For one i love the joker and harley quinn. I dont think they are bad for clowning as i appreciate seeing clowns become such iconic comic and movie characters.

Now im not saying just let the media get filled with scary clowns. We need to let them have their fun and make fools out of us cause clowns are fools. But we need to make sure for every 1 scary clown picture there are 10 nice ones to counter it. Currently the internet probably has got as much creepy clowns as it has real clowns. Even just typing clown gets mostly scary results it seems. We need people to see a higher ratio of good clowns to bad ones. This is why I like sharing pictures and why i like taking more of me to help contribute to these numbers. I am waiting to get a nice set up ready for the next time I’m in full makeup so I can do a photoshoot and get tons of pictures to spread of myself to help but for now heres another of me.

Thats only the easy fixes we can make but even with those fixes I feel a significant improvement could be accomplished. The real task now is to get people watching clown performances and laughing. If they enjoy watching clowns then they enjoy clowns. Without the circus we need a new avenue for this as I personally dont think Birthday parties are reliable and parades dont allow for real performances. I dont know who or how this part will be improved but I can almost garentee it will be on the internet. Over the last 2 decades we saw the internet grow from almost nothing into the powerhouse of entertainment. Things like netflix have almost replaced cable. Youtube created whole new careers for film with categories never possible on tv or in theatres. As far as I have seen no clown has truly utilized the internet yet. Most either just make a post on their regular socials of them in makeup, others use it to promote their in person business for parties, or others sell their costumes to other clowns. These are great but what we need is someone to figure out how to revolutionize clowning online as so many other markets did. Using the internet to boost offline business is great but true progress is when the business is online as well.

I wish I knew what it will be that revolutionizes clowning online so I could share it with you. Mainly I wish I knew what it will be so I could do it, ha ha! Until that day comes however we can keep spreading positivity, nice images and trying new things online.

Keep on smiling and keep on clowning!

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