Imagine how pissed sharks must’ve been after Jaws came out?
We wrote up a story about clowns around this time last week that actually kind of made me sad. As it turns out, professional clowns are not happy that Pennywise is coming back to give nightmares to a whole new generation in this year’s adaptation of IT; one real life clown likened widespread clown phobia to racism, while another said his phone stopped ringing in the wake of the IT trailer hitting the net. It seems that everyone is afraid of clowns these days… and that doesn’t bode well for anyone who makes a living wearing a red nose and greasepaint.
Of course, scary clowns are nothing new in the world of entertainment and, well, in the real world we live in every day. John Wayne Gacy put a dark cloud over the whole profession back in the ’70s, and Stephen King’s Pennywise originally appeared on the page back in the ’80s. So what does King himself think about clowns complaining that films like IT are ruining their business?
King took to Twitter yesterday to address the complaints:
The clowns are pissed at me. Sorry, most are great. BUT…kids have always been scared of clowns. Don’t kill the messengers for the message.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) April 10, 2017
So there you have it. Clowns are scary. And it’s King’s job to scare us!
