Dark Fantasy (2)? Clowns

 

            Then there are the clowns.

           

            All over the United States there are reports of sinister clown sightings. Clown sightings seem to come in waves:  one rolled through in the 1980s, another in the 1990s.

            Shira Chess, a folklorist at the University of Georgia, writing in the New York Times (14 October 2016) argues that the current crop of clowns originally emerged from the internet. She believes they started out as stories that, cut and pasted until their authors no longer recognize them, take on a life of their own. "These stories are written, shared, reshared and rewritten to express the things that all horror (online or offline) is meant to express: fear of the uncanny, and universal existential anxieties."

            As near as I can tell, the first offline clown sighting in this wave in the U.S. was in Greenville, South Carolina during the dog days of August. According to a report written by Matthew Teague in The Guardian (U.S. edition), a little boy saw the clowns near a low income apartment complex where he lived.  The child described "two clowns in the woods, both brightly dressed and made up. One with a red fright wig and the other with a black star painted on his face." His mother reported they were trying to lure him away.

            No clowns were found in the environs, but the mother remained convinced that clowns had threatened her child, even attacked the door to her home.

            The clowns rapidly multiplied. From Greenville, reports of sightings spread out to other parts of South Carolina, then to other states. By October 6, Atlas Obscura could publish a map of reported sightings that showed activity from Orono, Maine to Los Angeles, California. Yet rarely were actual clowns found.

            Canada experienced clown sightings, as did the UK. Indeed, across the pond, according to the Mirror, concern about the clowns was expressed by the Russian embassy in London. Britain's foreign minister, Boris Johnson, in a stare-down with Russia over the situation in Syria, had called for Brits to protest outside the Russian embassy, in itself somewhat surreal.  The Russian embassy then issued a warning to Russia's citizens in the UK to beware the "antics" of "killer clowns," which were intended to cause "fear and bewilderment."

            University of Georgia's Chess sets aside the reality of the clowns. She writes, "The question, 'Are the clowns real?' is beside the point. The question we should be asking ourselves is, 'What are we really afraid of?'"

            A campaign advertisement in support of the GOP presidential candidate  doesn't mention clowns. It does offer dire predictions of the future before asserting: "Donald Trump will protect you. He is the only one who can."

           Still, I can't help but note that many of  the clowns described seem to sport a mop of red hair... .