Clowns teach an unwitting lesson

No, my fears run a little deeper.

I’m happy to have a chuckle at the news reports and some of the videos are funny in an idiotic way (I diligently preserve a 12-year-old’s sense of humour), but my favourite clowns are Le Pétomane, Buster Keaton, Harpo Marx, Peter Sellers and Jacques Tati and their genius has not been surpassed. Nor would that seem likely to be about to happen here.

But people are getting spooked and that’s not good, although the gods know there are plenty of other things we’d be better off being spooked about. And we don’t want what remains of clowndom ruined for the kids of today, who should be free to enjoy the spectacle of dozens of people getting out of one small car with the same – um, what was that? – wide-eyed bemusement we had when we were young and unterrified.

Clowns have historically always served important functions, of course: the court jester was a way of keeping the royal ego in check as well as a line of communication to the monarch for truths that no one would dare tell in the usual ways.

And fear is good, let’s not forget. It survives, along with anxiety, because it serves an important function. We’re a fairly coddled lot these days, all things considered, so a bit of good old-fashioned bogey-man type fear of the kind I remember from childhood might not be a bad thing. Might even be a necessary thing, as it turns out. Those circuits switch on in our brains to keep us on our toes in real life.

Throughout history the clown has been unbridled Id, a reminder of what lurks below the surface should our self-control crack or our deepest desires be realised. So it’s good to be a little nervous.

But just a little.

The big disappointment with the clown game is that it’s really just about putting the wind up people for a minute and then scurrying back into the dark. It would be better if there was a point to it other than just scaring people, the laughs notwithstanding. 

Ask anyone and they’ll tell you they have enough to be scared of as it is given the state of things these days. It starts to look selfish.

Police were rightly quick to point out that possession of a disguise is not a crime unless you’re doing a crime, then it is. But the subject of what one may or may not wear in public is not a clowning matter for millions of women worldwide who are told what they can wear by a variety of authorities. It may be a stretch, but if clowns make me think of that, they may have a PR problem.

Things could be worse, though. I await the Trump sightings, where people dress up as Donald Trump and emerge from the shadows at night moaning “Kiss me” and tying to grab things they shouldn’t.

Now that would take the terror to a whole new level.

No one should think for a minute that the City is Bunbury is some heartless monster for playing a Peter Allen loop to shoo people away from a sound shell, regardless of how the site might be dedicated. The city was trying to protect ratepayer property and if it does this in a less than pleasant way, it is not by order of the Department of Unpleasantness, signed by some smirking bureaucrat.

But it doesn’t seem a very Bunbury thing to do. I’ve taken shelter under municipal facilities in all kinds of weather on my youthful wanderings and had I encountered something like that, I would have considered it unwelcoming to say the least.

I should confess though that I’ve done the same thing myself. Many years ago, in a densely crowded living situation, a neighbour would dribble a basketball on the road right outside my window. Courts were a short walk away, and I hate that sound.

The Kronos Quartet recording of Shostakovich’s String Quartet Number 8 was very effective. – Jeremy Hedley