A unique Halloween question is on the minds of Prince George families this year. Do you send in the clowns or send the clowns away with sad faces?
The ancient jokester character has had a rough ride lately. Some local schools have gone so far as to ban the wearing of clown costumes this year, as a reaction to local threats to schools made on the internet using sinister clown images.
It is a continental trend. Clowns have been co-opted by an ad-hoc community that seeks to do damage in society, either online or in many cases in physical form in costume.
There have been "bad clown" incidents all over North America, some of them violent.
It isn't the first time the "bad clown" concept has gotten traction, and it won't be the last, said Ashley-Paige Smith, a children's entertainer in Prince George who goes by the stage name Lollipop Swirl. She also puts together one of the most ambitious Halloween houses in the city, for the trick-or-treaters lucky enough to wander her neighbourhood. This year, she is feeling a heavy heart at Halloween. Her stock-in-trade character has been besmirched.
"It's just a different use of the clown motif," she said.
"The same occurrences happened when the original version of the movie It came out with Tim Curry as the evil clown Pennywise. There were instances of people inducing fear with the clown motif at that time too. Now there is a new It movie coming out, we have the comic book villain Harley Quinn really popular right now, and The Joker character is popular from Batman, so all that is exacerbating the issue, but we have social media now so these messages get put out there much more quickly and more widespread than anyone could imagine the first time we went through this."
An arrest made in Prince George over the online threat might help to curb the fear around this city over the clown image, she said, but the backlash has reached the Lollipop Swirl level.
"Personally, I would not want to dress up in my clown outfit and be anywhere near a school, even though mine isn't scary by any means, but I'd be afraid of the adults' reaction - afraid for my own safety, and what some overreacting adult might do," Smith said.
Almost any reaction is an overreaction, she said, citing how the Jason character in Friday The 13th horror movie franchise did not trigger panic at the hockey rink just because his trademark motif was a goalie mask.
It's too bad that some people have taken the bad clown behaviour so deeply into their consciousness, said Richard Thompson, but in his view, most people know the difference between the venerable modern jester and the delinquent cultural vandals using the clown image.
Thompson is a writer of children's books, some of them have discussed fears and the ways people feel afraid, and he has also used elements of clowning - colourful clothes, juggling, basic magic tricks, etc. - to lighten the mood in his public appearances.
"This issue is about using power inappropriately," Thompson said.
"Scary things are there. It's one thing to play vampires as a kid, but it's another to have someone leap out of the bushes with what looks like blood dripping down their neck. You rub up against scary themes, as a child, and as an adult too. One is engaging fears in your own way on your own terms, and the other is someone trying to scare the wits out of you for nothing more than their own gratification. One's your choice, the other is their choice. We watch movies where there's gun violence but that doesn't at all condone the idea of people imposing their will by using the threat of guns. We understand what is pretend, and we rub up against those feelings at our own comfort levels, our own choice."
Thompson isn't even defending the profession of clowning.
He knows that humans thrive on artistic paradox - the scary clown nightmare that woke the child in the recent animated film Inside Out, or the misbehaving Santa figure, or the granny who can rap like Snoop Dogg - but he is not personally a fan of clowns even though he has borrowed elements of their comedic behaviour.
"Oh they are very creepy," he said, laughing at the irony.
"Traditional clowns - I don't like them at all. When my daughter was little we couldn't do any dress-up stuff at all in the house, no masks, and no clowns of any kind. I fully understand that."
Smith also knows from experience that some people react badly to clowns, even the fun and fantastical ones. In her experience only a three times has the revulsion been plainly expressed to her. But overwhelming positive reaction comes her way, so she is confident in her choice of public performance art.
"When I did the fall fair this year in Burns Lake, I even had one youngster tell me she now wanted to be a clown when she grew up because it looked like such fun," Smith said.
"Now I'd have to say 'uhhhhh, wellllll, you might want to give some extra thought to that."
Smith said that the presence of the clown character in popular culture has waned in recent years, because benevolent groups like the Shriners and Elks have shrunk considerably, and they used to dress as clowns all the time. At some gigs she's done, the kids had never seen a live clown before Lollipop Swirl came to play.
But ever since the days of court jesters, mimes and harlequins, the jokester is a figure that time always renews.
"Some of the saddest people are the best clowns," she said. "When you get your personal affirmation, even an adrenaline rush, from making people happy, you can make a terrific clown but be enormously conflicted inside. The biggest example I can think of would be Robin Williams, and he even played a real clown, Patch Adams, in one of his movies."
