More Laughter Hating

This was brought to my attention by my buddy, Jonathan Taylor.

www.ihateclowns.com

You know, it's not so much this guy who runs this site: Rodney Blackwell (email him if you'd like at rodney@ihateclowns.net). He's obviously got some chronic, latent, sexual attraction to clowns that he feels he needs to mask at all cost. But it's the people that subscribe to and have fun fueling this saddening trend.

Clowns seem to be getting the bad rap mimes have been enduring for the past few decades, another dying art form thanks to dimwitted knee-jerk reactions. But at least clowns have been portrayed as terrifying monsters in movies and such, even this Blackwell idiot attributes his hatred for clowns to the killer clown scene in The Wiz. (Really?) And sure, John Wayne Gacy doesn't help the situation any. But where does the mime stigma come from?

I brought all this up on SoulPancake.com a while back, hoping for a mature, maybe even spiritual, point of view. This from one commenter:

"Comedians are not the same as clowns. Silent film stars were mimes, of a sort. But when clowns in clown make-up are floating around anything outside a circus ring - even outside on the periphery, working the circus crowd, they are just plain creepy. Hospital Clowns = creepy. Birthday Party Clowns = creepy. As in serial killer-creepy. Masks are fine. Clown make-up is creepy. It's ruined, I tell you. So no, there is no way to redeem it. I defy you to try. I dare you. You know what people will say? 'Creepy.'"

So there it is. Creepy as a fact. It's not this person's opinion, it's a fact of life. Someone told me just yesterday that all TV was a waste of time. Again, just something to say to sound interesting. Full House is maybe a waste of time, but Mad Men itself is worth the price of cable. In the same vein, the clown from Stephen King's "It": creepy; Avner the Eccentric: genius.

Maybe just think twice before you give your opinion on clowns and mimes. If nothing else, my future may depend on it.