Special Report: The Gay 90's |

Contents:

• IT: CHAPTER TWO’S GAY-BASHG SCENE EXPLOS A REAL-LIFE KILLG FOR A CHEAP SHOCK
• IS RICHIE FROM IT GAY IN THE BOOK?
• EDDIE GAY
• SPECIAL REPORT: THE GAY 90'S
• BLACKS, GAYS AND THE CHURCH: A COMPLEX RELATNSHIP

IT: CHAPTER TWO’S GAY-BASHG SCENE EXPLOS A REAL-LIFE KILLG FOR A CHEAP SHOCK

Richie beg nonilly gay (though I hate to assign a specific label to him, sce the book he’s had ser relatnships wh women while still havg subtextual feelgs for Eddie, while the film seems to imply he’s gay rather than bisexual) is not a cisn thrown to appease or panr to the “Tumblr crowd” as some Reddors have already dismissively said.

The film also opens wh a btal homophobic attack on a gay man, so to kill off two out of three openly gay characters might have drawn ire, and rightfully so. It’s also worth notg that prejudice and bigotry are very much villas the world of IT, and homophobia is clud that.

The darkns of the human ndn and the pa we flict on others is jt as much a monster as Pennywise, and that clus the homophobia that Richie and Adrian Mellon face. The disurse around the film will probably center on extrem, on whether Richie is qualy reprentatn or if the film is eply homophobic.

IS RICHIE FROM IT GAY IN THE BOOK?

The film do veer to buryg your gays terrory as stands now wh Adrian Mellon’s ath, Eddie’s ath, and Richie’s somewhat unhappy endg.

” You might fd the Richie/Eddie story to be another example of buryg your gays, pecially upled wh the Adrian Mellon scene, and a terrible moment of reprentatn, or you uld feel ’s a big step forward for blockbter films engagg wh queer text. ) 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.

The murr the book tak place the summer of 1985, one year after the event that spired , and the novel clus an extend scriptn of the victims, the teens, their motiv, and the police vtigatn that follows (“The guy was a u, but he wasn’t hurtg anyone, ” says a sympathetic district attorney), along wh a brief but evotive read of the town’s gay i. In fact, some enterprisg fans of the novel have long surmised that Eddie is gay and love wh Richie (a dynamic played up the 1990 It miseri, which notably exclus the hate crime). In this versn, Richie has grown up to be a stand-up ic who mak sexist jok, but seems he is gay and love wh Eddie, a suggtn that grows somewhat lour the movie’s epilogue.

EDDIE GAY

Regardls, what do say about this movie that feels fortable pictg every cshg blow and sperate cry for help om gay men as they’re beg bludgeoned but then reli on a retro, d treatment of s only apparently gay prcipal character, who never even gets the digny of sayg who he is? IT Chapter Two's twist about Richie Tozier beg gay was surprisg bee not only did not happen the book, but also wasn't hted at the first film. Throughout IT Chapter Two, Pennywise's method of tormentg Richie centered on a "secret" that he was keepg: that he's gay.

That secret is revealed a flashback featurg the homophobic Henry Bowers and then more overtly towards IT Chapter Two's endg. After all, the 1980s, while beg a far cry om the origal 1950s settg of the book, was still an pecially difficult time to be gay.

SPECIAL REPORT: THE GAY 90'S

As such, ncludg the film wh one of the hero who ultimately helped feat the evils of the town beg revealed as beg gay certaly adds a level of thematic jtice and tharsis.

BLACKS, GAYS AND THE CHURCH: A COMPLEX RELATNSHIP

Regardls, the treatment of Richie beg gay has ntued to be mixed, and fans will, of urse, have their own thoughts on how succsfully everythg flowed and played out. Even though Richie om IT isn't gay the books, which were wrten durg a time which beg LGTBQ+ was ls permissible, ultimately don't matter, and the horror film handled this aspect of the character wh aplomb.

Up until 1973, homosexualy was listed as a mental disorr the Diagnostic and Statistil Manual of Mental Disorrs.