Clown Culture: Comedy and Horror from Farce to Film

Adam Geczy · Indiana University Press · Coming Soon · June 2027

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Clown Culture takes a serious look at the phenomenon of clowns in media across history from antiquity to contemporary film, comics, and popular culture. Clowns may delight, but they also horrify. To what extent are they embodied extensions of ourselves? More than just slapstick comedy, the clown serves as an avatar to help us make sense of our everyday lives.

In this multidisciplinary study, Adam Geczy combines anthropology, psychology, material culture, literature, film, and art to understand clowns in relation to power, imagination, and affective excess. By diving into the history and psychology of clowns, Geczy demonstrates that clowns, buffoons, and fools are an essential alias to the so-called well-adjusted individual. The figure acts as a proxy, an archetype of role-play in which the audience, as socialized beings, navigate and negotiate their relationship with others while dealing with a fragmented self-image and curtailed (and sometimes unruly) desires.

From ancient dolls, Shakespearean fools, and Charlie Chaplin to Poltergeist, the Terrifier franchise, and the tragicomic television series Baskets, Clown Culture demonstrates the important roles clowns can take as we try to fit in as messy, desire-driven individuals.