In many cases, it's normal to expect clowns - circuses, parades, mascots, such things were a clown would be ordinary, no harm caused. But thinking of any other sort of circumstance or situation to wear a creepy clown costume, there aren't many others. Frankly, clown costumes just don't have many appropriate situations to be worn, and considering the stigma tied to the image of clowns, it's not something that's commonly accepted. Dressing up as a creepy clown doesn't serve any benefit, but instead adds onto this stigma associated with them if it's done in an incorrect setting or event. Instead, dressing up as a creepy clown is simply a disturbance to the public.
The general stigma associated with creepy clowns is enough of a reason to ward off any potential people considering dressing up as one: they are tied to the ideas of mischief all the way to homicidal urges, as described by Linda Rodriguez McRobbie. Clowns have been around for a long time, and also feared for just as long as they've been around (Linda Rodriguez McRobbie, 2013). But one of the more known incidents that heavily contributed to this stigma were the 2016 clown sightings: where mass hysteria concerning creepy clowns was at an all time high.
Dressing up as a creepy clown has caused frenzy as seen by these clown sightings. Countless news reports were written on these frequent sighting events, and it was all over the media for a while. Schools have even been locked down for the fear of clown attacks. (Brean, 2016) And these sightings weren't only in one place: they were frequent in nearly every single state in the US, as well as being in nine out of thirteen provinces of Canada and 18 other countries (Said-Moorhouse, 2016). The issue at hand had worsened into a state where the Russian Embassy had to issue a warning about creepy clowns. (Glaze & Bloom, 2016)
Of course, knowing the intentions of the clowns would be necessary for understanding the heavy stigma tied with them. The first ever sightings were for marketing a horror film, at least something somewhat reasonable. (Duc, 2016) But then, many of these occurrences became clowns trying to lure children into the woods, or just flat out trying to scare people in the dark, sometimes even with a weapon. Above all that, creepy clowns then were just used as "pranks," which was highly ignorant and insensitive of the actual crisis going on (Said-Moorhouse, 2016). A lot of the time, the goal of dressing as a creepy clown was just simply being a public nuisance.
Dressing up as a creepy clown is not just something that can be normalized as a freedom of expression. Of course, it is acceptable when it comes to the intentions or the context of dressing up as one, but because of the high stigma related to dressing up as one, it's easily a disturbance to the public. But regarding the context of wearing creepy clown costumes in public, it becomes a question to what degree it can be accepted: like promoting a horror film or costume place. But in the end, dressing up as a creepy clown in public serves no benefit and can quite frankly be a low thing to do.
Works Cited
Brean, Joseph. “Latest Mass Hysteria over Clowns Stems from Baseless Reports but the Consequences Can Be Dangerous.” Https://Nationalpost.com/News/Canada/Recent-Mass-Terror-Over-Clowns-Stems-From-Baseless-Reports-But-The-Consequences-Can-Be-Dangerous, National Post, 5 Oct. 2016, nationalpost.com/news/canada/recent-mass-terror-over-clowns-stems-from-baseless-reports-but-the-consequences-can-be-dangerous. Accessed 10 May 2024.
Duc, Shelby Le. “Green Bay’s Creepy Clown Was a Marketing Ploy.” Green Bay Press-Gazette, 10 Aug. 2016, www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2016/08/10/green-bays-creepy-clown-marketing-ploy/88527696/.
Glaze, Ben, and Dan Bloom. “Russian Embassy Warns of British ‘Clowns’... While Locked in Standoff with Boris.” Mirror, 12 Oct. 2016, www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/russian-embassy-warns-citizens-british-9032895.
Linda Rodriguez McRobbie. “The History and Psychology of Clowns Being Scary.” Smithsonian, Smithsonian.com, 1 Aug. 2013, www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-history-and-psychology-of-clowns-being-scary-20394516/.
Mele, Christopher. “Creepy Clown Hoaxes Lead to 12 Arrests in Multiple States.” The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/us/creepy-clown-hoaxes-arrests.html.
Said-Moorhouse, Hilary McGann,Lauren. “Creepy Clown Craze Sweeps the Globe.” CNN, 10 Oct. 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/10/10/world/creepy-clown-sightings-global/index.html.
At first I thought this was a hilarious choice of topic, but upon further reading I understand as to why one simply should not dress as a clown in public. It's reminiscent of how we cannot bring fake weapons to school, not because they're creepy, but rather because people have abused their privileges enough, to harm others. For safety, sometimes we resort to weird solutions, such as not dressing up as clowns in public, and it makes sense.
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