The World Clown Association (WCA) released a press kit in anticipation of potential negative effects on the image of clowns from the release of a film version of Stephen King’s It. It features a murdering, cannibalistic clown as a key villain in the story. In this analysis, the theoretical framework of image prepare—a combination of image repair strategies and inoculation theory—is used to better understand the WCA’s rhetorical strategies. The analysis shows how pre-denial and pre-bolstering were used to prepare people for the negative portrayals of clowns, which, in a sense, attempted to inoculate people against fearing clowns.

Compton, J. (2024). Image repair, image prepare, and It: Inoculating against horror portrayals of professions. PRism, 19(1), 1-12. https://www.prismjournal.org/v19-no1.html