Enough, Lose All the Clowns — “It’s” Pennywise, “AHS: Cult’s” Murderous Clowns, Halloween Creepy Clowns, & RepubliClowns Threatening our Health Care

“Don't you love farce?...But where are the clowns/Quick, send in the clowns/Don't bother, they're here.” — “Send in the Clowns” by songwriter Stephen Sondheim

WTF is up with all these clowns?

Okay, we get it, they’re a metaphor.

In FX television’s American Horror Story: Cult, the murderous clown that Sarah Paulson’s besieged character envisions feeds off our Trump-era insecurities. She sees the killer clown not only on her TV screen but everywhere.

Indeed, rapper Snoop Dogg’s recent video, Lavender, features a world full of clowns from a hardworking clown dad, and his family of clownettes, who is shot on his way to work by a cop in clown face. The video segues to a parody of POTUS, “Ronald Klump,” presented as the clown-in-chief. After announcing the deportation of all “doggs” at a press conference, Klump is later chained up by Snoop and his friends. Snoop, himself, says the video is about a “ a lot of clown s**t going on” from the “police, the president and just life in general.”

And, It, the R-rated movie based on Stephen King’s 1986 novel, has scared up huge box office returns, making it the highest grossing September release of all-time. Produced for a modest $35 million, It features the evil clown Pennywise terrorizing children in small-town America. Pennywise has the best set of sharp chompers since Jaws terrorized us back in 1975, and the movie’s magnificent seven-kid cast, the “Losers Club,” are terrific as the unlikely heroes battling a deadly and literal manifestation of evil in our world. BTW, SNL’s outstanding Kate McKinnon recently nailed her own killer mix of Kellyanne Conway and Pennywise called “Kellywise.”

On a less allegorical but much scarier level, remember last year’s spate of creepy clown incidents. While some clown sightings turned out to be hoaxes, others proved to be real threats, forcing some schools to close down. The first reports came in late summer in South Carolina, where people dressed as clowns tried to lure children into the woods with money. The craze also spread to universities, where students were banding together to hunt the clowns terrorizing campuses. Somehow we sent away those creepy clowns. But with the Halloween season upon us, again, let’s hope that clown attack trend doesn’t rear its head.

But killer clowns have been a staple of horror movies for decades with such classics as: Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Captain Spaulding in House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, Krampus, Zombieland, and the unforgettable and young Michael Myers in the Halloween franchise.

But clowns, even in fiction, aren’t the only monsters — many are living among us. In AHS: Cult, Ally (Paulson) and Ivy (Alison Pill) let a creepy babysitter (Billie Lourd) into their home and have even creepier neighbors who keep bees and an inordinate stash of guns — veritable neighbors from hell. Then there’s Fox News addict Kai (Evan Peters), who’s described as being obsessed with the idea of fear, and wants to release chaos to achieve his view of the world — sound like anyone in Washington?

And in the It movie, some of the humans in the lives of the Losers’ Club of outcasts include an overbearing mother, an abusive maybe rapist father, and some of the meanest schoolyard bullies seen on screen. One is the racist and psychopathic Henry Bowers who carves his name onto a “Loser’s” belly, poisons another’s dog, and breaks yet another’s arm. Scarred by a mentally ill ex-marine father, he eventually and fatally stabs his paternal monster and personal bête noire in the neck.

So, scary and thrilling entertainments notwithstanding, there are monsters all around us, including Pogo the Clown, the alter ego of real-life serial killer John Wayne Gacy, who was the feature of the 2003 biopic, Gacy.

And, let’s not forget the really scary clowns in Washington, who’re still trying to repeal Obamacare, piece by piece, a move that could end health care for millions. It just seems that some Congressional minions and the man whom the New Yorker calls a “modern” clown of his own making, just want their legislative win, by hook or by crook. The man, who Seth Meyers also calls a “bitter little clown” is just itching to sign his DJT on the dotted line!

Truth is, from increasing man-made catastrophes (Harvey, Irma, Maria) to man-made violence in our streets to legislative disasters in Washington, and verbal nuclear threats being lobbed overhead, the horrors are already amongst us. So, no need to send in the clowns because as songwriter Stephen Sondheim wrote, “Don’t bother, they’re here.”

Ashley Jude Collie’s first novel, REJEX, will be published on Pulp Hero Press in the New Year.