A Desperate Deconstruction of Stephen King's IT

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The Book proved to me (I read it after seeing Ch1. I was too young for it when I was 7 and watching the Miniseries that came out the year I was born) Chapter 2 was always going to be a unsatisfying ending. I mean the actual battle in the book would have been just as if not more goofy than the Losers yelling insults at IT til IT "died". Also, I'm really happy they finally got a redhead to play Bevvy considering the little girl and grown actress in 1990 were not redheads, or at least not the child.
Also Grown Eddie was better cast as James Ransone (RIP) considering King describes him as Anthony Perkins.
I personally love this story for The Losers Club, Pennywise is fun too but the deep themes of friendship and love along with truama. King really cooked with these characters and I'm forever greatful that he did write this and its been adapted to screen.
Also, you should check out Welcome to Derry. Its covering three events in three seasons S1 (currently out) 1961-1962 The Blackspot. S2 (TBR 2027) 1934-1935 The Bradley Gang Massacre, and S3 (TBA) 1907-1908 The Kitchner Ironworks explosion.
Of course this prequel series is set in the Muschettis IT adaptation aka 1989-2016 of Ch1 & Ch2 so that's why they are in different times versus the book.
But I highly reccomend it and the actor for Dick Halloran is AMAZING.

King’s view of overweight people may also have been informed by the fact his large babysitter sat on him to punish him, which was for sure child abuse, that might be why there’s such stigma against them 🤷🏻

I so badly wanted Beverly to be a good character,
I needed it and King kept stealing it away.

Not much what's dike w- OHHHHHHHHH I GET IT.

The many layers of sexism present in the character writing of beverley is the most impressive thing about this book. I was going to write a longer comment about how disappointing the book was as a whole, but I'll just summarize by asking you to just imagine saying to an abused woman that she can be saved and feel empowered if she lets all of her male friends sleep with her. Stephen King basically said that to children and presented it as the correct and powerful choice that managed to save all of them. I know that didn't save them for good and that the friends eventually split up, but he still justified that decision by making it their "only way out". Its crazy how coercive that sounds and it's basically the logic the writer and most its defenders use to justify it. He even made her manipulate eddie into sex but we aren't supposed to care because he "eventually wanted it", and it "helped them grow up". Yeah, this book is creepy, but not for the reasons it should be.

3:06:05 this isn't defending any other time he uses it as a deus ex but i think in IT, it's kind of justified. Kids run on instinct and intuition

3:19:16 lol i was just talking with my son about The Haunting of Hill House show about my issues with it. King has used Hill House and Rebecca quotes a lot (he's also not adverse to using Lovecraft's sandbox whilst also acting like he's too good for it)

My favorite parts of IT are honestly the Mike Hanlon interludes of the history of Derry

Excellent video!

that city background supposedly drawn by firstangelmessage from deviantart looks extremely AI generated

I fell asleep listening to this and you were in my dreams as a teacher talking about this story 😂

1:31:12 that quote from True Detective that goes something like "goddamn you people eat your youngs and you don't even careas long as..." And then I don't remember the rest of it

"Stephen they are kids they vould have just kissed and shit if it was that important😭"

"You don't understand: pedophilia is central to the plot 🗿"

59:22 TAKE ONE FOR THE TEAM TRUNKS!!!

I liked the monologue about a story being only a story because I don't like how much control I find myself needing over a narrative, usually it leads to it being disengenuos or me dropping the project out of perfectionism, I like it much more when I write by instinct and work backwards to figure out what I'm saying about myself, instead of what I like to say about myself

It's about honesty towards oneself and I wonder how much King has

25:12 my internal monologue is always my parents when I'm down or lonely so the book is not exaggerating

Why spoil The Dark Tower though 🥲

Eddie is not Catholic. He is Methodist, and thinks that the food rules practiced by Jews and Catholics are foolish. Although he is frightened by a scary story he was told about desecrated communion turning toilet water into blood, he is not wracked by scrupulosity, specifically not Catholic guilt because the book is very clear that he is not Catholic.

Just finding your videos recently and am really enjoying your analyses of media beloved to me. Interesting, thought provoking and funny. Thank you.

i really enjoy this channel... i would never see the layers to these movies without it. Thanks!

As media is dropped my interest in IT also re appears (no 27 year gap thou)
Love this vid, would double like if I could 👍 👍
Analysing King vs his works has always been a bit of a trek as he's wrote some great stories, but certainly less cocinae and an editor would of really benefited him.
🎈

Stephen king analysis AND GRATEFUL DEAD SHIRT !! I found my people lol 🫵🔥

This is an amazing video. Your analysis and writing are so inspiring and easy to understand ☺️

Every Loser is introduced from their own POV except Beverley, who is introduced from the POV of her abusive and disgusting husband who's a complete nobody with regard to the story. Women aren't even people to King, they only exist as they pertain to men.

"a seven foot spider that can be killed with wishes" the way I cackled lmao

(Kinda spoilers for Stephen king books in general??) this is mostly my opinion but also based on a few things I’ve read. I think the reason stan kill’s himself is because he has the strongest connection to the shining or the shine or whatever you wanna call it. I think instead of the memories being drip fed back to him over time maybe they hit him all in one go or he got some overwhelming bad feeling™️ and knew he couldn’t handle going back, but now remembered too much to stay alive sanely. All the kids have a smidge of the shining, some more than others, but I think his was the strongest and it killed him in the end

nothing can describe the joy i felt like seeing old spyro models flash over the (already-had-me-giddy) thumbnail when i went to click on this video. i am so excited for the next three and a half hours of my life. (and im just coming here off your incest in elden ring video which has had me pacing around in circles for an hour!)

King's portrayl of Beverly reeks of predator fantasies over young women. It's disgusting (and ill informed) to suggest a childhood victim of SA and incest would then experience their adult sexuality as an extension of the abuse experience. It comes across as erotic fiction for those with a pdf fetish rather than an actual abuse victim's reflection. Thankyou for your brutal honesty in your critque.

He read hill house way earlier. Re read carry

Movements and certain groups are scapegoated for a reason. King did not/does not understand that. Patterns of behavior are real and it is not evil to recognize them. When someone is overweight to the degree Ben was, or that people are today, it is an indicator that something has gone terribly wrong and the individual refuses to address it. Ben became worthy because he addressed and overcame what was wrong. Not "because thin people virtuous, fat people evil". Furthermore as a homosexual I can tell you that while the gay bashing depicted is horrific, it was also instigated by antagonizing someone any gay man would know not to antagonize. To be gay back then was to be considered weak and useless. To working class people that would have cost you nearly everything should your reputation get saddled with that. The violent reactions were for self preservation not hatred, they could literally not afford to be seen as weak and I will not condemn them for it wholesale. In most working class environments no one cared so long as you pulled your weight and didn't talk about it. Most homosexuals did nothing to assuage the perception of weakness back then, leaning into useless antagonistic counterculture. Had we made ourselves indispensible to western culture, instead of fighting biting and tearing at it, the cold cruel reaction to the aids epidemic might have been somewhat warmer. I enjoy your videos very much, just disagree with your read on some of those points.

You have given me a lot to think about. My God, 3 hrs 34 mins 🙈

There is no it 2, but if you dreamcatcher pennywise is alive. The end is ambiguous. Ben isn't sure if he got all the eggs

Halfway through the video, loving it! I'll finish this today bahahhaa

Could you maybe do Fairy Tale by Stephen King? It's his latest novel, came out 2022, so it'd be interesting to compare it to older works of his.

LOVE the editing error here “FUCK”!! 1:58:58

In Shakespeare, if you don’t understand a word or phrase, it’s either a your mom joke or sexual innuendo. In Kings work, if you don’t understand a word, it’s probably a slur

Thank you for talking about the vitriolic fatphobia in this book! Genuinely it got so bad it was the only audiobook I couldn't continue because it started genuinely hurting my self image.

Child what now?? Wtf.

This book lagit sucks so bad

Well consent IS blurry because people are conflicted. Trying to simplify it is juvenile

I put the book down forever when his writing of Bev really started to make me uncomfortable
Like. Bruh. Shes a fucking child. And its so fucking gross the way people defend it

1:02:40 is crazy like fanfic writing lmao. I haven’t read the book but having a pseudo self insert character be one that makes women finish by existing or whatever is so funny to me lol

i’ve always felt a strong connection to the IT story, especially when drawing comparisons between the fight against pennywise (and the town) and real life. i never questioned why the adults didn’t care or help the kids because i knew that a lot of adults… don’t like kids. they don’t care. not even out of spite, but merely that it’s more comfortable to remain where they are while someone else gets hurt. i also think of the stranger danger epidemic of the 80s—people looked for danger where it statistically didn’t really exist, when the monster was likely right next to them the entire time, and for some, might even be enabling and contributing to the monster through their inaction. for the adults to acknowledge what’s happening is to admit guilt, and to admit guilt means that they’re also responsible in some way. and they just can’t have that.

Kind of ironic that with King’s desire to have all his monster vanquishable the only one that seems to always get away is ol Flagg, the most human appearing monster he’s ever conceived of.

Great video. I was born and raised in Bangor, Maine, King's "hometown" and his real life analog of Derry. Your pronunciation of Kenduskeag was cute

I’m currently hyperfocused on IT and this video appeared in my feed and I’m so glad it did! Fantastic video!

How did Stephen King go from writing Carrie: A story where every major character is a woman with complexity and depth...
To writing Beverly Marsh "Breasting Boobily Down the Stairs" in IT?
The man clearly knows how (or knew how) to write women.
What happened?