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Send in the clowns?
First, make sure Shonda Purvis of Dallas isn't within screaming distance. "Evil! Evil! Oh, dear God, but I hate clowns,"
said Purvis, 36. "Despise (them). Get the shaking heebs just thinking about them."
Purvis and others suffer from coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.
They join an estimated 6.3 million Americans from ages 18 to 54 who have specific phobias, according to the Anxiety Disorders
Association of America.
You scoff? For heaven's sake, you ask, who in the world would be afraid of Bozo? How could Ronald McDonald make anyone
want to heave up her hamburger?
Ask Lisa Weihmuller of Arlington, who has feared clowns since visiting the circus at age 6 or 7.
"A clown got up right in my face, and I could see his beard stubble underneath the clown makeup," she recalls.
"He smelled bad and his eyes were weird. ... He had this smile painted on his face, but he was not smiling. He was yucky.
Scary. Freaky. Weird.
"I'm 45 now, and ever since then I stay as far away from clowns as I can."
Popular culture has long acknowledged a dark side of clowning. Its ancient roots embrace some aspects of shamanism and
the supernatural.
Clowns may have evolved as jesters and tricksters, but the dark side never vanished. Even Disney acknowledged it: Remember
those sadistic drunks who tortured Dumbo in Disney's animated classic?
Clowns in horror movies such as "Poltergeist" or "Spawn" are meant to scare the baggy pants off you.
Pennywise, the clown in Stephen King's "It," lives in the sewer, has razor-sharp claws and kills children. And don't
forget that serial murderer John Wayne Gacy dressed up as a clown and performed at parties.
Yet even innocuous-seeming clowns can make people, especially children, tremble.
Put yourself in the place of a small child visiting the circus for the first time. A stranger is suddenly bearing down
on you. His face, barely recognizable as human, is smeared with ghastly makeup. He wears outlandish clothes and skateboard-size
shoes. He has a huge red nose and flaming orange hair. He cackles wildly and makes other weird noises ... and instead of understanding
your fear, the adults you're with - these people who are supposed to love you and protect you - why, they're LAUGHING, they're
telling you it's ALL RIGHT, for Pete's sake, they're even dragging you TOWARD this horrible monster ...
Maybe it's a wonder that kids aren't terrified of clowns.
Forrest York of Mesquite, recalls being traumatized by the Town Clown on the old "Captain Kangaroo" TV show.
"I was sitting in the living room and all of a sudden the clown comes on," he said. "I'm scared, and I
know I don't like this."
York, 38, has three boys and a girl. None are afraid of clowns. But when he takes his youngest boy to McDonald's, he has
to turn over his son's box of chicken nuggets if it bears a picture of Ronald on the top.
"I'm not comfortable in any way looking at them," said York, who owns a T-shirt that reads "Can't Sleep
- Clowns Will Eat Me."
Coulrophobia has spread to the Web, where sufferers can vent on sites such as ihateclowns.com and clownz.com. A sample
posting:
"My hatred of clowns began when I was 5 years old. I was at a circus, and a clown came up to me and said, 'Would
you like to see the monkey I have in my box?' Well, of course I did, so I said yes. When I looked into the box, there was
no monkey ... only a mirror."
This fear of clowns distresses Ruth Chaddick of Cuero. Chaddick, 48, is special events manager with Feld Entertainment,
which operates the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus. A Ringling clown for five years, she also worked with Ringling's
now-defunct Clown College for 13 years. She taught clowning and makeup, among other things.
"(Ringling clowns) were trained to be sensitive," she said. "If someone was fearful, you would not push
yourself on that person."
She can understand how children can be intimidated by their first real-life encounter with a clown.
"Children are used to seeing clowns 3 inches tall on TV," she said. "But at the circus, they're seeing
this large person, all made up in strange clothes. Momma has pushed them into the clown's arms and said, 'Here, let's take
a picture.' The parents have told them all their life not to talk to strangers, and all of a sudden here's a stranger."
Ringling clowns were taught how to deal with this, Chaddick said.
"You make yourself small. You get down to their level - squat or whatever - (and) use a soft voice. We don't go around
with big honking horns. Use a small voice, and take anything away that might be fearful to (kids)."
But sometimes, even small gestures and a soft voice don't help.
"I walked into a store in Austin one time in clown makeup and costume," Chaddick said, "and a grown woman
- she really was fearful of clowns - she just freaked seeing me, and I just turned around and walked out."
It's as simple as that, Chaddick said: "If it's an out-of-control fright, you just remove yourself."
And rather than dwell on people whom clowns frighten, she'd prefer to recall people whose lives clowns brighten. Chaddick
herself got one autistic child to utter his first words in years. On another hospital visit, the staff said they had a girl
in long-term care who hadn't smiled for three months. That day, the girl was smiling.
For those who can't force themselves to smile, though, there's help.
Dr. Colin Ross, a Dallas psychiatrist, sees coulrophobia as a garden-variety phobia. It can be treated like most other
phobias, with gradually increasing exposure to the source of the fear. He sketches out the procedure after the patient finds
a therapist:
"You talk about it until you're comfortable with the subject. Then the therapist shows pictures. Then maybe you look
at a clown doll across the room, then progress to holding it. Then a video of a clown, looking at it in longer increments.
Then going to a museum or store with clown costumes. Then going to the circus, just walking in and out. Then staying for two
minutes but not for clown act," he says.
Finally, you can face the music. And, hopefully, the clown.
"If that doesn't work, then you might try some anti-anxiety medications while you're doing this work. Then you might
try a variety of medications," Ross said. If the fear still persists, "it might become a psychological puzzle -
you might want to see if something else underlies this fear."
Thanks, but no thanks, says York. He's never consulted a therapist and doesn't plan to.
"I just find it a whole lot cheaper and easier to avoid the silly people." (He's talking about clowns, we assume.)
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