The Clerk of the Board of Placer County Supervisors received a letter dated Oct. 26, 2019, from an attorney representing Clown Ministries International requesting that the “Creepy Clown Challenge” at the Placer County Museum be canceled. The letter noted that “The Scary Clown images have done more lasting damage to a group of individuals than any other phenomenon…Promoting the scary clown images is a form of bullying for thousands of clown volunteers across this country.”
The clowns that were on display in the Placer County Museum as part of a kid’s scavenger hunt for Halloween candy were just regular clown figurines. However, some of the museums’ staff and volunteers felt some of them were unsettling to look at. Was this because of horror movies and media?
In a 2023 Scientific American article entitled “This is Why We’re Afraid of Clowns” the authors noted that “…the strongest factor we identified was hidden emotional signals, suggesting that for many people, a fear of clowns stems from not being able to see their facial expressions due to their make-up. We cannot see their “true” faces and therefore cannot understand their emotional intent.”
Coulrophobia, the fear of clowns, is a widely acknowledged phenomenon and there is one treatment that is highly effective: immersion therapy. The best way to cure your fear of clowns is to expose yourself to more clowns.
So bring on the clowns!
From our collection: Clown figurine, c. 1960
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