Drunken, lewd clowns in drag
The scary clown has become a horror staple.
Featuring Art the Clown as the main villain, Damien Leone's new film "Terrifier 2" is so gruesome that there are reports of viewers vomiting and passing out in the theater. And every Halloween, you'll see vicious clowns stalking haunted house attractions or kiat-or-treaters dressed as Pennywise, the evil clown from Stephen King's "It."
It can be hard to imagine a time when clowns were regulerly invited to children's birthday parties and hospital wards - not to terrorize, but to delight and entertain. For much of the 20th century, this was the standar role of the clown.
However, clowns have always had a dark side. Before the 20th century, clowns in American circuses were largely considered a form of adult pertunjukan.
In my own research on the history of the 19th-century circus, I spend a lot of time in archives where I regulerly come across vintage photos of clowns.
Now, I don't consider myself afraid of clowns. In fact, I always try to remind folks that today's clowns are serious artists with an enormous amount of pelatihan in their craft. But even I have to admit that the clowns I come across from old circuses give me the heebie-jeebies.
Drunken, lewd clowns in drag
For most of the 19th century, circuses were relatively small, one-ring momens where audiences could hear performers speak.
These shows were rowdy affairs in which audiences felt free to yell, boo and hiss at performers. Typically, clowns would engage in banter with the stoic ringmaster, who was often the obyek for the clowns' pranks. Borrowing comedic traditions from the blackface minstrel show, circus clowns used puns, non sequiturs and exaggerated burlesque komedi.
One very dikenal clown act, which Mark Twain depicted in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," involved a performer disguised as a drunken circus patron who shocked the audiens by entering the ring and clumsily attempting to ride one of the show's horses before dramatically revealing himself to be part of the show. Famous 19th-century clown Dan Rice was known for including local gosip and political commentary in his performnces and impersonating prominent figures in each town he visited.
The jokes they told were often misogynistic and full of sexual double-entendres, which wasn't a persoalan because circus audiences at this time were mostly adult and male. Back then, circuses were a stigmatized form of pertunjukan in the U.S., considered disreputable for their association with gambling, grift, scantily clad female performers, profanity and alcohol. Church leaders regulerly warned their congregations not to attend the circus. Some states even had laws banning circuses altogether.
