Entertainment

Scholar: Stephen King’s ‘It’ Is Bad Because It’s Full Of ‘White, Straight, Able-Bodied’ Males

(Photo: KENZO TRIBOUILLARD/AFP/Getty Images)

Ian Miles Cheong Contributor
Font Size:

For all the virtue signaling Stephen King does on Twitter, not even his work is free from progressive scrutiny. A Boston University scholar claims that his classic horror novel, “It,” and the upcoming movie adaptation, are problematic because its protagonists are “white, straight, and able-bodied.”

Based on King’s 1986 horror novel, the upcoming movie features a group of boys who go up against a supernatural terror in the form of a child-killing clown. With all things nostalgic (the movie’s set in the ‘80s) being in vogue, the movie is expected to do well.

But just as filmgoers are gearing up to enjoy the movie, a Boston University scholar, Regina Hansen, is doing her best to spoil everyone’s fun.

The College Fix reported Monday that the “Master Lecturer of Rhetoric” Hansen claims that the movie and the novel it’s based on suffer from underlying problems in the form of toxic (or hegemonic) masculinity—a common refrain among intersectional feminist scholars who believe that masculinity is a pervasive force that exists to oppress women.

Writing in the summer issue of the journal Science Fiction Film and Television, Hansen says that King’s “nostalgia for underdog boyhood” in some ways challenges “traditional concepts of hegemonic masculinity,” but adds that the protagonists themselves assume “hegemonic masculinity” by standing up to their bullies.

“While this heroic underdog character is in some ways a challenge to traditional concepts of hegemonic masculinity, the challenge is incomplete, in that he remains white, straight and able-bodied,” she writes, adding that they’re only capable of becoming heroes through the “marginalization of female characters, black characters, gay characters and characters with disabilities.”

The scholar claims that characters like Henry Bowers “police the heterosexuality (and thus masculinity) of the males with terms such as ‘sissy,’ ‘baby’, and ‘girly boy’” until the bully gets his due. Of course, the whole point of the character is that he’s a bully—so it’s unclear why Hansen would expect for him to behave any other way.

Hansen goes on to state that there’s a lot to admire in King’s kinship with awkward nerds, but the makeup of the mostly white, straight boys “can be vexing, especially for non-white, female or queer readers”—a claim unsupported by King’s many readers who don’t necessarily identify with his characters based on their race and gender. After all, identity comes in many forms.

Ian Miles Cheong is a journalist and outspoken media critic. You can reach him through social media at @stillgray on Twitter and on Facebook.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel