In a world where clowns are the top celebrities, an up-and-comer in an identity crisis struggles to hide his Asian heritage after gaining success when mistaken for white.

SYNOPSIS:

OPTIONED

Quarterfinalist, Big Break

Stage 32 Double Recommend

Semifinalist, Filmmatic Comedy Screenplay Awards Season 7

Quarterfinalist, WeScreenplay - Diverse Voices Spring 2

Quarterfinalist, Screenwriters Network - SWN Screenplay Competition TV Pilot

FORMAT: Half-Hour Single-Cam [Episodic] TV | Dark Comedy/Satire | Cable

COMPS: The clowning of BASKETS meets the neurotic delusions of DAVE.

ABOUT THE SERIES: The series is a sarcastic, absurd, and irreverent commentary on pop culture, celebrity, identity, and race relations. In a world like ours, except clowns are also celebrities, the series is a mockumentary that follows Ronnie and his clown friends living in the “Fun House” for the show “The Dream Life of a Clown.” Each clown represents a different facet of society and its stereotypes but centers around Ronnie, a clown that is hiding in clownface 24/7 because he's dealing with an identity crisis being Asian and fears not getting work in entertainment.

WORLD: In this world, clowning and clown personas are an exploration of self. As such, clowns are revered as the most authentic stars in Hollywood. Clowns gain their antic (a unique logic-defying ability) by exploring their inner vulnerabilities and overcoming their fears (i.e., an overweight clown becomes prouder and gains the ability to become three times their size). However, just having an antic doesn’t make you famous—it just gives you a better chance of breaking into the mainstream. Even though most clowns are covered in makeup that should render prejudice irrelevant, stereotypes, sexism, and discrimination persist despite an industry emphasis on diversity.

ABOUT ME: Growing up as an artistic gay kid in a Chinese Southern Baptist family of scientists, I never quite fit in. At age 22, I moved to NYC to act and model but quit after agents told me there are no roles for Asian men. Then my professional clown friend told me crazy stories of clowning and its history of speaking truth to kings through satire. This is my sarcastic take on Hollywood, race relations, and how stereotypes still affect the industry today—even those with good intentions still push stereotypes, particularly that Asian men are unsexual, ugly, and ignored by society.

SERIES REGULARS (I hope you aren’t scared of clowns…)

Adopted by a Jewish family in Kansas, RONNIE WU GOLDMAN (22) has never met another Asian. He actively avoids speaking the truth, like telling his parents he flunked out of medical school—it turns out he’s really bad at math…and science. Ronnie’s “color-blind” mother tried to show him that race didn’t matter by not teaching him anything about his heritage, which only made Ronnie feel like being Asian was bad and left him woefully ill-prepared for how the world would judge him. Unable to understand why Ronnie doesn’t feel like he belongs, she pesters him to find a nice Jewish girl to date.

But Ronnie is too insecure to make a move on his crush, model-turned-clown FOO FOO SPARKLES (22; Puerto Rican). Foo Foo’s antic is hitting disrespectful men with a giant hammer (gained from overcoming her insecurity around men). A sultry and sophisticated MIT graduate, Foo Foo hides her Bronx accent because she’s been told it makes her “less sexy.”

Ronnie’s clown schoolmate LUTHER “LUCKY” TINDALL III (22; Black) is a blue-blooded Brit whose gangster rapping/contortionist break-dancing antic was gained from his self-consciousness about “not being Black enough.” A distant heir to the British throne, Lucky wants to date a woman who doesn’t just want to be one of his break-dancing “Ho Clowns.”

Ronnie’s on-again/off-again girlfriend MICHELE CHIN (22; Asian) is a social media manager with a clown fetish (aka a clown banger). Struggling with her own Asian identity issues and “not attracted to Asian guys,” Michele has no idea what Ronnie looks like under his clown makeup.

Paparazzo for the Red Nose Inquisitor, VICTOR KRUMBLE (22) is on a mission to destroy Ronnie— blaming him for stealing his dream job and his girl (Michele). Always feeling invisible, his antic is a master of disguises, and he hides as everything from a bush to a trash can wearing a disheveled clown uniform underneath—he is a killer clown, jealously trying to take down other clowns.

PILOT SYNOPSIS:

His parents think he’s going off to medical school…

But RONNIE’s really in Hollywood, studying at the School of Humor and Buffoonery with his new friend LUCKY. On the last day of class, Ronnie (who at age 5 became skilled at making balloon animals) confesses his fear of people judging him only by his race, not by his skills, and finally gains his antic—tying balloon animals into impossible-to-ignore shapes and sizes. While Hollywood and the rest of America are obsessed with white clowns, Ronnie finds it’s not quite the same for an Asian guy.

Living in a tiny apartment—it might be a closet with a window—Ronnie meets and is enamored by aspiring Latina clown FOO FOO, who lives in the same building. He connects with Foo Foo by helping her regain her hammer antic when he helps her realize she lost it because she let her boyfriend’s manipulative behavior play on her insecurity around men. Meanwhile, Ronnie has it tough—he falls for a clown casting scam, almost gets recruited into gay clown porn, and hops from clown agency to clown agency offering stereotypical and borderline offensive roles with no interest in casting an Asian guy in a sensible role.

Unwilling to sell his conscience, Ronnie is now broke, living in his van, and desperate. Then Ronnie bumps into MICHELE, the most beautiful Asian girl he's ever seen. With his own racial identity hidden behind his clown makeup, Ronnie instantly hits it off with Michele, who “isn’t attracted to Asian guys” but has a clown fetish. After a round of oinky boinky clown sex, Michele connects Ronnie with an audition for the “Bubbles for Men” cologne campaign—and lands the campaign when mistaken as a “cute cornbread white boy from Kansas.” Unbeknown to him, this bumps off struggling hobo clown VICTOR, who’s also in love with Michele and is now out to destroy Ronnie.

Desperate for his first break, Ronnie is now trapped in his secret. Ronnie’s new paycheck lands him in the Fun House, a home for up-and-coming clowns, where Foo Foo and Lucky live. But Michele feels threatened by Foo Foo as Ronnie’s self-confidence is boosted. After struggling and facing every form of humiliation, Ronnie buries his self-respect by living as a clown 24/7 in hopes of success. Then Victor starts a tabloid magazine and frames Ronnie with an indecent photoshopped photo of him. Ronnie’s mother calls, realizing he is not at medical school…

THE SERIES

When a reporter discovers Ronnie’s secret, she makes him the star of a docuseries that will reveal he’s Asian. Victor vows to out him before the premiere by joining the Million Moms Against Clowns’ new “Clowns Are Scary” campaign. Nonstop protests at the Fun House cause trouble as Victor records the clowns in compromising acts—Foo Foo hammers a protester and is labeled a diva; Lucky is outed as English royalty; Michele cheats on Ronnie by playing hide-the-red-nose with another man. Even so, his insecurity about being Asian and her unconscious bias against “nice guys” prevent Ronnie from making a move on Foo Foo.

When the docuseries is a hit, and his Asianness is accepted, the success goes to Ronnie’s head. He alienates Lucky and Foo Foo, who move out of the Fun House. Realizing his new life is still not authentic, Ronnie tries to make up with his old friends and confess his love to Foo Foo—only to find she’s now dating Lucky. Meanwhile, Michele agrees to make it official with Ronnie, the first Asian man she’s been with, but she can’t get over her clown fetish.

Will Ronnie ever become his true self and get his dream life of a clown?

THE DREAM LIFE OF A CLOWN explores themes of self-acceptance, race, and stereotypes. Serious and thought-provoking—or maybe it’s deadpan and farcical—the absurdity of this world reflects the absurdity of our own. After all, Asians can be just as stupid and fucked up as anyone else.