The article is devoted to the research of the clown image in the modern culture. Representing one of the jester figure incarnations, this image is endowed with ambivalence which is already shown at the Archaic stage. The Pueblo Indians (Zuni)'s Koyemsi ritual clowns images combine elements of the humour culture with the sacred horror, danger and sexual aggression. The original ambivalence is determined by the clown image ability to move throughout the coordinate axis Own - Different - Alien - Enemy - Monster . It can be represented as an image of Own / Different (as a kind Soviet circus clown) and Alien / Monster , into which it had transformed in the modern culture (the clown of modern cinema). The demonization of the clown image is determined by the worldview transformation in the second half of the twentieth century. With the help of the postmodern worldview platform it is possible to change traditional patterns, especially those cultural phenomena that are initially ambivalent. In recent years this has led to the prominence of the terrible clown image in the media and the acts of intimidation of people in the image of a clown, which leads to the emergence of new phobias.
