Circus

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

I just read that the Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey circus in the US is closing down. They had their last show yesterday. Very sad!

I always loved circuses. We had about four or five different circus companies in India in the 1960's and every year one of them would come to our town. We would know from their large light beam scanning the skies. We would then look out for posters showing the lions, tigers, horses, trapeze artists etc. What fun! Pester my dad to go for the show. Never missed it.

The circus would often perform in a ground near my school. Some of us boys would run out during lunch break and try to walk into their enclosures or at least look through the gaps in the outer enclosure. We would see the animals in their cages, the artists and clowns walking around or practicing. The colours, the smells (stink actually) and the energy. Great!

Sad that the days of circuses are over.  Even in India I think all the circuses are closed down. No animals allowed, no children allowed, Fire and safety regulations etc. have been too much for them, besides TV and the internet.

I don't know about circuses in the UK...but I always loved reading Enid Blyton's Galliano's Circus. Sitting under a tree during summer hols with a glass of orange squash and reading those Enid Blyton books....nothing better!   

Cheers.

Sriram

[Rhiannon]

We have a circus not far from me all this week. No animals (thankfully) and no clowns (ditto), more laser fx and motorcycles, although the trapeze artists and tightrope walkers are still there.

[floo]

I am not keen on circus's. On the only family holiday I ever had with my parents in 1956, when I was six we visited relatives in the UK, and we also went to Blackpool Circus. I hated the clowns, they scared me and found the rest pretty boring.

[Sebastian Toe]

I am not keen on circus's.

 

[Nearly Sane]

I can share, to an extent, Sriram's nostalgia. The thought of the circus creates a mephitic memory but even in the remembered excitement, when I had no thought of how the animals were treated, there is an ambivalence. Circuses, along with all travelling shows, need a hint of danger to exist. They are flowers of a mythology of child snatching, their impermanance a route back to the world of faeries.


 We giggle, and shiver as we enter through the canvas to this other world where marvels happen and mores are different. It is a theme of many writers and films who note that this is a veil to other ideas.

Without thinking too hard, there is obviously the emblematic Something Wicked This Way Comes:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Something_Wicked_This_Way_Comes_(novel)

But also, Freaks, The Wizard of Oz, Milroy the Magician, Carnìvale, The World of Wonders from the Deptford Trilogy and that isn't straying into the arena of the clown for all the coulrophobics amongst us. 

[Rhiannon]

I grew out of my clown phobia in childhood. Now I find them creepy rather than terrifying.

[floo]

I grew out of my clown phobia in childhood. Now I find them creepy rather than terrifying.

I am not terrified of clowns now of course, but still find them creepy.

[Rhiannon]

It wouldn't be odd to still be scared of them as an adult. I think I read somewhere that it is because the face paint means we can't read a clown's true expression.

I remember also being terrified of watching my mum putting her make-up on. She didn't look like a clown even though this was the 70's, but I suspect that there was a link between the two in some way.

[Nearly Sane]

My guess is that it'd not just that we cannot read the clown's expressuin but that we do read it and it is so often inappropriate. As the clown carries out some transgressive act, we see it smiling, or as it does something funny we see it sad. The lack of empathy particularly the happiness for the bad act, we have matched with the portrayal of psychopaths, particularly in film.

I suspect this relates to the Uncanny Valley;

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley,

In that we feel as if we should know more. I recognise that my dislike for clowns, is related to my dislike for dolls, though that is also influenced by seeing so many evil dolls in filmed at the wrong age, e.g. Barbarella.

[floo]

Although clowns are supposed to be amusing, a lot of kids are frightened by their looks and antics.

[Sriram]

Very odd!  We always found clowns to be funny and even lovable (maybe idiotic sometimes)....but never frightening!   I have never known anyone say that in India. 

[floo]

Very odd!  We always found clowns to be funny and even lovable (maybe idiotic sometimes)....but never frightening!   I have never known anyone say that in India. 

I personally know quite a number of children who are scared of them including a couple of my grandchildren.

[Aruntraveller]

You want scary clowns?

Coming soon to a cinema near you:

https://youtu.be/rnCLYoCdwyk

The book scared me. Parts of the TV miniseries scared me.

I'm going nowhere near this one.

[ippy]

Circuses, easily summed up, thanks very much I've seen one.

ippy