File puptcrit/puptcrit.0911, message 311


Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:25:25 -0800
To: puptcrit-AT-puptcrit.org
From: The Independent Eye <eye-AT-independenteye.org>
Subject: Re: [Puptcrit] Puppetphobia/Fear of puppets


Seems like this would depend a lot on whether it's in performance or 
in an exhibit.  Also, the nature of the eyes.  With rare exceptions, 
a frozen puppet looks like a staring corpse.  Personally, I have a 
touch of fear when I see things that look like dead people 
- including my own puppets, sometimes - but not when I see dead 
people.

With clowns, I think it's more the nature of the energy that's 
projected, and not necessarily related to how "aggressive" it is. 
I'd walk around the block to avoid even a benign pseudo-clown like 
Ronald Macdonald, but I'm drawn with delight to a vile aggressive 
creature like Leo Bassi.  There, I guess, the repulsion or "fright" 
is about a human being encased in an artificial botox persona.

As a kid, I watched Howdy Doody and loved Claribel - not sure which 
one I saw, but definitely an aggressive anarchist.  As an adult, I 
happened to see an old video of the show's last performance, with the 
legendary final focus on Claribel's face, and Claribel speaking his 
first-ever words, "Hi kids."  I read later that the actor had played 
it for years, was enormously moved by this moment.  For me, this slow 
zoom to extreme close-up, to the point of seeing stubble under the 
whiteface, and these words disgorged up from the dark belly of 
Cthulu, was (and remains) for me a landmark of true horror, a real 
nightmare-provoker.  Not, I think, what the poor guy was trying to 
convey.  It was like some horror movie where the guy's face breaks 
off and you see what's underneath.  This was worse, like the man 
emerging from mucus.

Others, of course, may remember it utterly differently.  If I'd seen 
that as a kid, I might have loved it.  I saw Nixon's "Checkers" 
speech when I was just 11 and thought he was the next Abe Lincoln. 
How time flies - or goes phloot!

In both cases, puppets & clowns, it's probably a memory of some past 
trauma rather than what they're actually seeing at the moment.

Peace & joy-
Conrad
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