A Crisis In Clowning

Reporting from an industry convention in Chicago, Leigh Cowart notes that the future for red noses doesn’t look so rosy:

[One] seminar, called “Posing for Pictures and Working with the Media,” is for the most part a simmering rally for strategy and solidarity in the face of the current clown PR crisis. Of course, there’s the usual scary-clown trope to deal with, like the recent separate attempts by filmmakers to drum up some publicity by donning clown garb and standing ominously along roadsides and construction sites, last year in Northampton, U.K., and more recently in Staten Island.

But there’s an additional tension this year: Just weeks prior, the New York Daily News reported that America might be facing a clown shortage. Citing decreased membership rates in the country’s largest trade organizations– Clowns of America International (CAI) and the World Clown Association (WCA) – the article painted clowning as the loser in a war of attrition, but nonetheless steadily committed to the fight. CAI President Glen Kohlberger claimed membership numbers are dropping because “[t]he older clowns are passing away.” Compounding this, the reasoning goes, is that interest in clowning is waning: Kids just aren’t joining up like they used to.

(Photo by Flickr user downing.amanda)