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Black and white photo. A man in a striped suit and top hat, his face covered in clown makeup, stands in front of a circus tent with a llama.
Brownie Silverlake with Red Light the Llama, Clark & Walters Circus, 1967. Original image held by interviewee. The Big Top Show Goes On (AFC 2011/003), Occupational Folklife Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

The Serious Business of Clowning Around

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If you happen to count yourself amongst the group of people who have a fear or aversion to clowns…this blog post may not be for you.

Black and white photo. A man in Tramp clown makeup poses in front of a circus tent.
Portrait of Burt Wells (clown). Federal Theatre Project, 1935-1939. Music Division, Library of Congress.

The statistics around just how many people suffer from coulrophobia (fear of clowns) are a little muddy. If you google “clown fear statistics” (adding that to things I never expected to type), the results say the number is anywhere from 1 in 10 to 1 in 100. According to findings from an international “Fear of Clowns Questionnaire,” 53.5% of the 987 participants reported having at least “a slight fear of clowns,” with 5.1% of them describing this fear as extreme. The resulting article from this study found that “the origins of clown fear are multi-factorial,” with “their facial appearance, their behavior, and how they have been portrayed in the media” listed as the main things that seem to unnerve people most.

A white trailer with images of a lion, a tiger, and a giant clown face, marks the entrance to a traveling circus.
Carson and Barnes circus entrance, 1968. Original image held by interviewee. The Big Top Goes On (AFC 2011/003), Occupational Folklife Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much that clowns can do about that last factor. Evil or sadistic clowns pop up in a surprising amount of the television, movies, books and comics we consume. Off the top of my head, I can think of the following: Pennywise the Dancing Clown from It (both the Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgård interpretations), that creepy clown toy from Poltergeist, the 1988 horror comedy Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and the Violator’s humanoid clown form in the Spawn horror comic book series (and 1997 film). Murderous clowns aren’t even a new concept, either, as the title character in the opera Pagliacci first murdered his wife and her lover while dressed as a commedia dell’arte clown back in the 1890s.

Most of these are not actually real clowns, I would like to point out. Pennywise is an eldritch horror that occasionally looks like a clown, but also takes other forms. The Violator is a demon in disguise (though, let’s be honest, his clown persona isn’t doing him any favors). And those Killer Klowns that shoot popcorn and weaponize balloon animals? They are aliens, as made clear in the “outer space” part of their movie’s title. Even the possessed clown toy isn’t inherently evil, despite having a creepy face that obviously unsettles little Robbie Freeling. It just happens to be one of the items in the extremely haunted Freeling house.

Black and white photo of a man in clown makeup dressed as a Keystone Cop, wearing cartoonishly large shoes.
B.K. Silverlake’s father, Raymond Duke, as a Keystone Cop, 1950s. Original image held by interviewee. The Big Top Show Goes On (AFC 2011/003), Occupational Folklife Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

One of the ways we can tell these creatures aren’t real clowns – apart from the obvious – is that they do not abide by the Clown Code of Ethics. Yes, that’s right. There is a Clown Code of Ethics. In point of fact, there are several, depending on whether you are working with a group such as Clowns Without Borders, or Clowns of America International, or are a Caring Clown with the World Clown Association. The main rules boil down to:

  • Professional application of makeup
  • Keep a clean costume
  • No food, drink, or smoking while in makeup
  • No illicit substances while in makeup
  • No lewd or criminal acts
  • DO NOT HURT OR SCARE PEOPLE

Performers who are joining up with a professional clown association or troupe are often asked to sign an agreement around these rules, but even non-professional clowns are introduced to these guidelines. For instance, I don’t remember being shown a full list when I first started doing clown ministry, but I do remember the clown couple who taught me going over the do’s and don’ts early in our first meeting.

There are three main “face types” when it comes to modern clown makeup:

  • Whiteface
  • Auguste
  • Tramp

The whiteface is the oldest of the three, with roots at least as far back as commedia dell’arte in the 17th century. Within this face type, you find further distinctions between “classic” whiteface, with it’s more delicate features, and “grotesque,” which tends to be more exaggerated and colorful. Most of the scary clowns that folks think of fall into this category of face makeup.

Black and white photo of three adult clowns and one clown child standing in front of a circus tent.
Left to Right: Brownie Silverlake, Mike Gaska, Billy Griffin, and unknown clown, Clark & Walters Circus, 1967. Original image held by interviewee. The Big Top Show Goes On (AFC 2011/003), Occupational Folklife Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

The Auguste face type also uses white face paint but does not cover the entire face. Instead, white is used to highlight the eyes and mouth, with a flesh-toned makeup applied over the rest of the performer’s skin. The “Tramp” clown likewise uses white makeup around the eyes and mouth, with the addition of a greasepaint beard for male-presenting characters. The latter is more easily identifiable by the tattered and scruffy costume. The Tramp clown is considered an American creation, with the most recognizable characters being played by Emmett Kelly and Red Skelton.

Black and white photo of a Tramp clown reclining in the middle of several wagon wheels.
Ringling Circus Clown Emmett Kelly in Sarasota, Florida. Joseph Janney Steinmetz, photographer. March 21, 1947. World Digital Library. Retrieved from the Library of Congress.

All three of these face types popped up in the Center’s collections when I went looking for images to help celebrate International Clown Week (August 1-7).

The first of these were in the form of Halloween costumes photographed for the Pinelands Folklife Project collection and the Lowell Folklife Project Collection. Here, we have two examples of the “grotesque” or “comedy” whiteface clowns from a Halloween party at Flora Lea Farms in New Jersey.

Color photo of a child in clown makeup, wearing a wig made of yarn.
Child dressed as a “comedy” whiteface clown at Halloween party at Flora Lea Farms, New Jersey. Sue Samuelson, photographer. October 22, 1983. Pinelands Folklife Project (AFC 1991/023), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.
Color photo of children dressed for a Halloween party. A clown stands at the far right of the image.
Youth dressed as a clown at the Flora Lea Farms Halloween party, New Jersey. Sue Samuelson, photographer. October 22, 1983. Pinelands Folklife Project (AFC 1991/023), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

The third Halloween costume is a little less obvious, due to the lack of actual whiteface makeup, but this little girl is dressed as a female variant of the Pierrot whiteface clown type, which originated in commedia dell’arte.

Color photo of two girls dancing at a party, one girl is dressed in a Pierrot clown costume.
Two little girls on the dance floor, one in Pierrot clown costume, at Carnaval celebration in Lowell, Massachusetts. Tom Rankin, photographer. February 13, 1988. Lowell Folklife Project Collection (AFC 1987/042), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

While looking for through the Montana Folklife Survey collection for last week’s cowboy post, I stumbled upon a couple of shots of a rodeo clown at Crow Fair Rodeo.

Closeup of a man in clown makeup, wearing a cowboy hat, at a rodeo. The man is looking at a piece of paper.
Rodeo clown verifying names of contestants at Crow Fair Rodeo, Crow Agency, Montana. Paula Johnson, photographer. August 16, 1979. Montana Folklife Survey Collection (AFC 1981/005), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Rodeo clowns have two jobs: distract enraged bulls when a rider is thrown or jumps off their back and entertain the audience in the time between bull-riding events. Occasionally, they may also be called upon to distract the audience in the event something goes wrong in the ring. Originally, rodeo clowns wore loose clothing that could be discarded easily if caught by a bull’s horns. More recently, these important rodeo roles have shifted to close-fitting athletic gear under specially protective vests and guards. In this wider shot, you can see that this unnamed rodeo clown is wearing a pair of cleats, to give better traction in the loose dirt of the arena.

Black and white photo of a rodeo clown in an arena.
Rodeo clown at Crow Fair Rodeo, Crow Agency, Montana. Paula Johnson, photographer. August 16, 1979. Montana Folklife Survey Collection (AFC 1981/005), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

The most common makeup style I’ve noticed on rodeo clowns resembles a halfway point between the Auguste and the Tramp.

The majority of AFC’s clown-centric items come, not surprisingly, from a collection titled “The Big Top Show Goes On: An Oral History of Occupations Inside and Outside the Canvas Tent.” The project – which presents sound recordings, transcripts, and photographs which document “the complex occupational culture, training, and experiences of multi-generation circus workers” – was made possible through the Archie Green Fellowship program and are presented online as part of the Center’s Occupational Folklife Project.

A man in a fedora and a brightly colored shirt printed with ears of corn on it smiles at the camera.
Thomas Sink, known as Popcorn the Circus Comic, at his home in Mead, Oklahoma. Tanya Finchum and Juliana Nykolaiszyn, photographer. July 2, 2011. The Big Top Show Goes On (AFC 2012/003), Occupational Folklife Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

One of the former circus workers that Juliana Nykolaiszyn and Tanya Finchum interviewed for their collection was a man named Thomas Sink, who performed with numerous traveling shows as Popcorn the Circus Comic. Despite “never, never, never” expecting to end up in the circus, Sink ultimately spent 37 years as a professional clown. In fact, by the time he retired, Sink preferred to be called by his clown name. “The rest of it disappeared,” he said. “I became Popcorn and if you ask anybody within six miles, they don’t know my name.”

Popcorn’s long tenure as a clown meant he had witnessed firsthand the shift in circus popularity, and the slow decline of the famous Clown Alleys:

“I was a performer, and clowns in the old days, there used to be thirty, forty clowns on some of these shows and then the shows got less. When I started, there were around a hundred and fifty shows on the road. I think now, there might be ten, fifteen at the most. And all of a sudden, you had nowhere to go. The clown alleys got less and less. In the old days, every clown had a character, like the cop and the buffoon and the pretty one. But that all disappeared. Beatty – Clyde Beatty, that doesn’t exist. It’s Cole Brothers now. They used to have a tent for the clowns called Clown Alley. Most performers didn’t want to dress with the clowns, so we had our own place.”

Three clowns and two men in plain clothes, pose with an elephant. Three children sit atop the elephant, smiling at the camera.
Mabel the Elephant in a publicity shot, with three unnamed clowns, 1960. Original image held by interviewee. The Big Top Goes On (AFC 2011/003), Occupational Folklife Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

This segregation from other performers wasn’t unique to only clowns, though. Mary Rawls, who had grown up in the circus and whose husband had worked as a clown in the 1960s, echoed the division between groups in her interview:

“There’s a caste system on a circus. You’ve got the performers and they all stay in the back yard. They have their trailers or their house cars or so forth. Then you have got the midway people that run the concessions, the cotton candy stand, the novelty stand and so forth. Then you have the working men and if you have a sideshow, you have got the sideshow people. These are groups that don’t really mingle all that much. I mean, the back yard people stay in the backyard. The midway people stay in the midway, and the sideshow people stay to themselves. Not in a mean way. That’s just that that’s what you do.”

Sepia photo of a man in Tramp clown makeup, smiling at the camera.
Mary Rawls’ husband, Harry Rawls, as a “Tramp” clown, 1960. Original image held by interviewee. The Big Top Show Goes On (AFC 2011/003), Occupational Folklife Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Later in Popcorn’s interview, Nykolaiszyn circled back around to this topic, asking him if he thought clowns get “a bad rap.” “Yes, yes, yes, yes,” he responded. “I was told, ‘You’re a necessary evil.’ Like I said for years, you couldn’t dress with the performers.”

In addition to feeling ostracized from the other performers, Popcorn pointed out the less obvious dangers in being a clown. “I’ve been shot with a blank in the hand, in the posterior,” he casually mentioned, “because you made those things out of shells, explosions, firecrackers. That’s why I don’t hear well.” He later clarified that the injuries were largely due to “stupidity or overconfidence.”

Over the course of his nearly hour-long interview, Popcorn disabused listeners of the notion that the circus was glamorous:

“They all thought it was a fantasy. I said, ‘No, it’s not a fantasy. It’s mud and rain, snow, sleet, wrecks.’ Yes. If you can survive in the circus, you can survive anywhere.”

It was an almost-wreck that ultimately signaled to Popcorn that it might be time to retire. While driving to the next town where the circus was set to perform, he fell asleep at the wheel and almost crashed. Shortly after, he hung up his oversize clown shoes (handmade by Griffin Theatrical Shoes, which no longer exists) and bought a house in Mead, Oklahoma. “Do you miss it?” Nykolaiszyn asked him. “Oh, yes. Yes. There’s nothing better than the smell, the roar of the crowd – if you can get them to roar.” When he described that smell, however, “nothing better” is not the descriptive that came to my mind:

“Cotton candy, elephant dung, thoroughly dried and cured. I gave D.R. Miller one of those for Christmas. He liked it – I don’t know why.”

D.R. Miller was the owner of the Carson and Barnes Five Ring Circus – one of the shows Popcorn had toured with during his career. When he died in 1999, Popcorn came out of retirement for one last performance, donning his makeup and costume for Miller’s funeral parade.

A circus band and a clown sit in an ornate carriage for a funeral parade. The clown is looking at the camera and doffing his hat.
Clown and circus band being pulled by horse-drawn carriage as part of D.R. Miller’s funeral parade through Hugo, Oklahoma, November 17, 1999. Original image held by interviewee. The Big Top Goes On (AFC 2012/003), Occupational Folklife Project, American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Popcorn describes it as “the best funeral I was ever at.” He admits “I felt funny posing at the funeral in clown makeup, but that was an honor and that’s the last time I put it on.”

Clowns made one other notable appearance in my search of the archives, in the form of clown dancers at the 1983 Omaha Powwow, documented in the Omaha Powwow Project Collection (AFC 1986/038).

A man in a parody of powwow regalia stands in front of the camera, his arms out to each side and holding hula hoops. His face is partially obscured by a mask.
Clown at Omaha Powwow in Macy, Nebraska. Carl Fleischhauer, photographer. August 14, 1983. Omaha Powwow Project Collection (AFC 1986/038), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Powwow clowns are not a common sight at all powwows, but the ones photographed and described in this collection are similar to others I encountered at some of the powwows of my youth. According to notes supplied by Rufus White, a member of the Omaha Powwow committee, the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska had adopted the clown contest for powwow by the early 1980s.

Fieldworker Dorothy Sara Lee wrote this about the clowns she saw:

“The clowns did not seem terribly ferocious, but their covered faces and mildly outrageous actions seemed to frighten some of the younger children. The clown dancers were apparently not intended to be taken seriously, and there was a bit of clowning between one of the dancers and one of the arena directors. Clown costumes were take-offs on powwow regalia: headpieces made of an old rug or mop; rag tails. All clown dancers wore cloths over their heads to disguise their identities. Some appeared to be serious dancers – one danced with hula hoops but finished with the drum. Others parodied the movements of fancy dancers.”

The clown dancers were called to the arena to dance a competition round first. After the competition, an arena director held a flag over the head of each dancer in turn and the audience voted on the winner by cheering. In the recording below, you can hear members of the drum circles adding their vote by beating their drums.

Black and white photo of clown dancers lined up at a powwow. A man holds a flag above one of their heads.
Judging clowns at Omaha Powwow in Macy, Nebraska. Carl Fleischhauer, photographer. August 14, 1983. Omaha Powwow Project Collection (AFC 1986/038), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Following the vote, the Emcee announced the winners and called for an exhibition song. I dearly wish there was video to accompany the recording, as you can make out laughing at the tail end of the song.

Carl Fleischhauer, who had the difficult task of photographing the fast-moving clowns in low-light, had this to say:

“One of the true disappointments of the dim light at night in the arena was the difficulty it presented in photographing the clowns. There were four clowns, who participated in a contest of their own on Saturday or Sunday, and who never danced during the daylight hours. I tried to photograph them, but somehow I could never get my act together with a flashgun and the pictures are likely to be very blurry. One clown had a breechclout marked ‘B.I.A.’ Sometimes, the clowns would violate taboos by dancing in counterclockwise direction. They also wore ‘wrong’ clothing for humorous effect; a parody, as it were, of the traditional dancer’s costume.”

A powwow clown, brandishing two hula hoops, kneels in the arena, his head bowed.
Clown with hula hoops at Omaha Powwow in Macy, Nebraska. Carl Fleischhauer, photographer. August 14, 1983. Omaha Powwow Project Collection (AFC 1986/038), American Folklife Center, Library of Congress.

Although I understood Carl’s frustration in not being able to photograph this part of the powwow, I couldn’t help but feel a bit of amusement as well. Competition powwow clown dancers are, after all, connected to a long tradition of sacred clowns found in several tribes, whose job it is to disrupt and question and push communities to examine their own behavior. Maybe that’s the real reason clowns unsettle people. Whether dressed in parodies of powwow regalia or obscuring their features with greasepaint, all the clowns featured here are designed to challenge our expectations and get us to question “What’s really going on here?”

Then again, it could really just be the makeup.

Color poster advertising a circus, featuring five clowns.
Five celebrated clowns attached to Sands, Nathans Co’s Circus. Morse, M’Kenney & Company, 1856. Prints & Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Check out this Folklife Today blog post about documenting circus life in Hugo, Oklahoma, and view the entire “The Big Top Show Goes On” collection (AFC 2011/003) on the American Folklife Center’s Occupational Folklife Project page.

Excerpts from Popcorn the Circus Comic’s interview are featured on Season 3, Episode 6 of the Center’s America Works podcast

Want to read more information about the Library’s clown-related holdings? Check out these posts from other Library of Congress blogs:

 

Comments

  1. I loved reading this! Fascinating!

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