While the clowns are scary trope is kind of a lazy and dismissive way to look at clowning it does have a legit basis. Clowns are (some what purposefully) disconcerting. And a don’t think that’s helped by certain aspects of traditional clowning. The makeup and costuming were intended for traditional theater and circus set ups where they had to visually get the performance across over distance. Which just does not work now that it’s more often a close up, intimate experience. But more than that I think there’s a lot of staid classic clowning bits and skills. So it becomes easier for less talented, or talented but less creative performers to just rely on stock performances . I’d be willing to bet very few people these days have ever watched a talented clown perform in person. All that just highlights the base creepyness. It becomes disconcerting to children especially, and children who’ve had a bad clown experience grow up to fear clowns or be lazily dismissive of them.
I’ve a friend whose a sometime professional clown. He combats the whole thing by being a deliberately creepy and/or darkly tragic clown. But then he mostly does sketch comedy and dramatic theater. When he does perform as a more traditional clown he uses minimal make up and subdued costuming inspired by 80s hack comedians. He usually works with at least one non-clown partner and works in a lot of non- clown skills, performers in etc.
Teller is another example of this most of his persona and performance style Is derived from clown and mime. He works with a partner who speaks for him. And the creepy aspects of the trope is either played for laughs or invisible because it’s in service of something more complex or ambitious.
