Allison Schulnik’s Hobo Clown clay stop-motion film is analyzed using a rhetorical triangulation of persuasion. A hybrid method alternates Schulnik, reader and an imaginary Other for three points of view providing comparisons of story perspective. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis provides an exemplary third person narrative style. A history of stop-motion animation, hobos and clowns, along with animation theory of metamorphosis contribute to a hypothetical null questioning of Schulnik’s grotesque as a constructive identity resisting expectation. Mise-en-scène of staging and music provide sensory, visual and auditory description along with primary source materials and theoretical insight for describing a reading of the film’s grotesque transformations. The argument for an in between space finds identity unresolved, yet yields features of contemporary grotesque for thinking about self(s). A singular meaning for contemporary grotesque is not determinable, however a contemporary anti-story of resistant through an anti-theory of open-ended subversion suggests perspectives for potential future research.