Contents:
- STEPHEN KG CHAMPNS ‘IT CHAPTER TWO’ GAY CHARACTER SURPRISE: ‘KD OF GENI’
- IT: CHAPTER TWO’S GAY-BASHG SCENE EXPLOS A REAL-LIFE KILLG FOR A CHEAP SHOCK
STEPHEN KG CHAMPNS ‘IT CHAPTER TWO’ GAY CHARACTER SURPRISE: ‘KD OF GENI’
Watch what the filmmakers had to tell about Richie the vio Chapter Two ma text what had only been subtext Stephen Kg's origal book: wise-crackg Losers' Club member Richie Tozier is a gay man, and has romantic feelgs for his fellow Loser Eddie character's sexualy had been hted at the book, and over the years many fans theorized that he had more feelgs than jt iendship for Eddie. The film's openg sequence picts a btal hate crime agast a gay uple, which sets the stage for how unwelg this Mae town is to the LGBTQ+ muny and the chillg effect such open homophobia and bigotry would have had on Richie, who cid to stay the closet even after movg away and fdg fame and fortune stand-up Har wanted the film to m fully to makg Richie gay or to not even brg up.
"Har also poted out that the perds that the book was set were very different tim for gay characters than what morn dienc would expect this film to portray. In this scene, set Derry's ar, young Richie (Fn Wolfhard) has homophobic slurs hurled at him by the bully Henry Bowers after a game of Street Fighter between Richie and Henry's . That’s bee Adrian, a gay man, is the victim of a btal hate crime.
” Kg has said that Adrian’s ath the book is closely based on the real-life killg of Charlie Howard, a gay man who was murred by three lol teenagers Bangor, ME, 1984. “Leavg bigotry and homophobia and that kd of vlence out would not only not be accurate to the tim that we’re livg , would be omtg somethg that is still happeng to this day and is horrible. Slate‘s Jefey Bloomer wr that Adrian’s ath is a “gay-bashg scene” that “explos a ghastly real-life killg for a cheap shock, livered whout ntext or any clear thematic unrpng.
IT: CHAPTER TWO’S GAY-BASHG SCENE EXPLOS A REAL-LIFE KILLG FOR A CHEAP SHOCK
Henry acc Richie of htg on his , and the immediately steps away and jos hurlg homophobic slurs at Richie. After leavg the ar as an adult, Richie aga has an enunter wh It the town square durg which It, as Pennywise, threatens to reveal Richie’s “dirty ltle secret, ” implyg that he will out him as gay. In Mchietti’s terpretatn, “Richie is gay and he’s always had a thg for Eddie.
But never flourished bee probably Eddie wasn’t gay and pecially bee Richie was never able to e out” he says. Kg’s origal novel featured the btal murr of a young gay man, which was spired by the 1984 murr of Charlie Howard Bangor, Mae. (He’s played the movie by wunrkd Québéis filmmaker and actor Xavier Dolan, well known to gay cephil and crics.
) People om Mae, pecially Bangor, Kg’s hometown, may regnize him stead as Charlie Howard, a 23-year-old asthmatic gay man who was beaten by three teenage boys the town the summer of 1984, before he was thrown off a bridge to a stream 15 feet below and drowned. The explanatns—that was part of the origal source material, and that anti-gay hate crim still happen today, so was “important” to pict this particular one—suggt a half-baked unrstandg of what lls for different kds of vlence on screen.