Fear of clowns
- A psychedelic British rock festival called Bestival, scheduled for September, had been encouraging attendees to dress as clowns, just for fun. But too many people protested they would be freaked out, and the festival canceled the plan, according to the Bestival Web site.
Go to original by in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
At some point in the ’90s, the word “coulrophobia” began to circulate as a technical word for “fear of clowns.” It has no real established etymology, though. The Oxford English Dictionary does not recognize it, nor do other unabridged dictionaries. It gets plenty of hits on Google, however, thanks to Internet sites like ihateclowns.com.
Coulrophobia is not a clinical term, says Dr. Barbara Rothbaum, professor of psychiatry at Emory University and director of its Trauma and Anxiety Recovery Program. She’s also never had a patient express a fear of clowns, she says, although the fear is certainly real for some.
“It’s fairly common in kids, but generally people outgrow their fear of clowns,” she says.
But there are people who believe that clowns are a stronger force than we realize.
“It’s not something that was once all sweet and now has turned cynical,” says Monica Drake, whose first novel, “Clown Girl,” is a literary treatment of life as a clown.
“Clowns have always been outsiders — outside the rules, unpredictable,” she adds. “And there’s something suspect about that outsider status.”
Drake likes the idea of clowns as archetypes. “I’d guess that a fear of clowns is related to a fear of people who are unpredictable,” she says. “It’s scary to think someone isn’t playing along, is playing his or her own game.”
