24 Hours Toronto interviewed Ernest Mathijs and Stephen Heatley from UBC’s theatre and film department about the recent phenomenon of clowns in the media.
“Somebody sees it, goes ‘Oh that looks like fun, that looks hilarious, that looks like I could get a rise out of somebody!’ Heatley said. “They seem harmless when in fact traditionally … some of the clowns are terribly coarse and vulgar and violent.”
Mathijs said this type of clown coverage in the media is unprecedented.
“It’s gotten to a degree of intensity that’s unseen before, and has gotten a kind of media attention which was unseen before. But there’s actually a precedent,” he said. In 2013, there was a number of clown sightings in Northampton in the U.K.”
