What Is Pupaphobia? It is a physically and emotionally, and illogical fear of puppets. The person coping with this phobia may also fear marionettes and team mascots. Perhaps the pupaphobic person fears the puppet's exaggerated features or its disjointed, bizarre movements. In extreme cases of Pupaphobia, the person may avoid any situation that may involve performances for children because of their morbid fear of puppets. Pupaphobia derives from the Latin word “pupa”, meaning doll and the Greek “phobos” meaning fear.
What Makes Puppets So Scary? Horror films can ofter make a seamlessly harmless doll or puppet into
a cold blooded killer. This is the case in Child's Play where magic turns a friendly talking doll, Chucky, into a destructive murderer. The Great Gabbo, 1929, which may be the first of this genera featured a very disturbed ventriloquist with a dummy that seems to have a mind of its own. More movies followed, such as the Dead of Night, a 1949 movie about a crazy sarcastic ventriloquist, and Devil Doll, a 1965 movie with the puppet turning on its master, just to name a couple. The dummy turning on its master is also an episode in the classic show, The Twilight Zone titled, "The Dummy”, which was one of my favorites. Other movies such as Child’s Play, Shadow Puppets, and Puppet Master (1989) added to the phobia by having puppets and dolls as killers.
Another phobia that goes along with Pupaphobia is Automatonophobia. This phobia is the fear of Ventriloquist dummies, dolls, mannequins, wax statues, humanoid robots, audio animatronics and any human like inanimate objects coming to life. Only rarely does the fear become a full-blown phobia, but it is
relatively common to experience hesitation or nerves when confronting these figures.
What brings on these fears and the causes of Automatonophobia or Pupaphobia? It is currently unknown precisely what causes these phobias. Maybe it’s our own beliefs about how humans should act, so we tend to mistrust people who stare blankly, remain quiet, or act in ways that we do not consider normal behavior. Automatons are programmed to either move or to just standing still and quiet and can look surprisingly lifelike. Usually upon closer inspection it will show that they are slightly different. They have smooth perfect skin, vacant eyes, and other qualities that are typical for automatons but do not emphasis a human’s body. Automaton designers realize there are some restrictions of their work. This may involve dim lights, spotlights and other effects that could be considered unnerving adding to the frightening realistic effects that may bring on these phobias.
I don’t think I suffer from these phobias, but I didn’t want my daughter displaying her dolls on the shelves. I was creeped out by their starring vacant eyes.
What Makes Puppets So Scary? Horror films can ofter make a seamlessly harmless doll or puppet into
a cold blooded killer. This is the case in Child's Play where magic turns a friendly talking doll, Chucky, into a destructive murderer. The Great Gabbo, 1929, which may be the first of this genera featured a very disturbed ventriloquist with a dummy that seems to have a mind of its own. More movies followed, such as the Dead of Night, a 1949 movie about a crazy sarcastic ventriloquist, and Devil Doll, a 1965 movie with the puppet turning on its master, just to name a couple. The dummy turning on its master is also an episode in the classic show, The Twilight Zone titled, "The Dummy”, which was one of my favorites. Other movies such as Child’s Play, Shadow Puppets, and Puppet Master (1989) added to the phobia by having puppets and dolls as killers.Another phobia that goes along with Pupaphobia is Automatonophobia. This phobia is the fear of Ventriloquist dummies, dolls, mannequins, wax statues, humanoid robots, audio animatronics and any human like inanimate objects coming to life. Only rarely does the fear become a full-blown phobia, but it is
relatively common to experience hesitation or nerves when confronting these figures.What brings on these fears and the causes of Automatonophobia or Pupaphobia? It is currently unknown precisely what causes these phobias. Maybe it’s our own beliefs about how humans should act, so we tend to mistrust people who stare blankly, remain quiet, or act in ways that we do not consider normal behavior. Automatons are programmed to either move or to just standing still and quiet and can look surprisingly lifelike. Usually upon closer inspection it will show that they are slightly different. They have smooth perfect skin, vacant eyes, and other qualities that are typical for automatons but do not emphasis a human’s body. Automaton designers realize there are some restrictions of their work. This may involve dim lights, spotlights and other effects that could be considered unnerving adding to the frightening realistic effects that may bring on these phobias.
I don’t think I suffer from these phobias, but I didn’t want my daughter displaying her dolls on the shelves. I was creeped out by their starring vacant eyes.
