By C. Rommial Butler
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Most people will recollect Stephen King’s IT from either the TV miniseries or the more recent films. These treatments of the story each have their charm and deserve a visit if you haven’t yet taken the time; the miniseries almost solely for Tim Curry’s Pennywise the clown, and the movies because they were, for the most part, well done.
Bill Skarsgard effectively revamps Pennywise, an especially immense feat given the shoes he had to fill.
(Yes, I isolated that sentence so you could relish the layers of double entendre with the customary eyeroll, dear reader. Card-carrying dad here…)
However, I’m not here to talk about the small or big screen adaptations. Rather, I want to point out an interesting phenomenon associated with the book.
I first read King when I was around eleven years old. I cut my teeth on Cycle of the Werewolf and Eyes of the Dragon before having my consciousness permanently altered by The Gunslinger, which sits at number four on my top five novels list; but I did not read IT until I was an adult, so this phenomenon I am about to describe may to some extent be a product of what time in their lives people read the book and not a dissociative reaction to the subject matter it covers, as I generally suspect.
When the most recent movies came out, there were multiple articles covering the scene in the book where the kids find their way out of the sewer after defeating Pennywise, and why it was changed for the movies.
You know the scene I’m talking about.
Or do you?
When I recall reading the book, that scene is the first thing, unfortunately, that comes to mind.
Though it was immersed in flowery, mystical language, and presented as gently as possible, what King essentially wrote was a preteen gang-bang in a sewer.
Despite King’s insistence that it was symbolic, this was totally unnecessary to the plot or overarching theme of the story. It makes no sense whatsoever as to how this course of action results in the Losers’ Club suddenly remembering how to find their way back to the surface. It is, at best, a plot device.
Long before the movies came out, I recall talking to at least half a dozen people who also read the book. My first remark was always something to the effect of:
Can you believe he did that, you know, the scene in the sewer where all the boys have sex with Bev so they can remember their way out of the sewer?
Most of those people, all avid Stephen King fans like me, failed to remember that scene entirely. I had to get the book, open it to the page, and show them, because they literally just didn’t believe it. I only read IT once. Some of these people read it more than once.
I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide what that means.
I don’t hold it against King, nor think him a pedophile on account of writing it. He admits to being so high on so many things at the time that he didn’t remember writing most of the book; and, yes, he’s included discomfiting scenes of this nature in other stories, including Gerald’s Game, and The Library Policeman, but in those stories the scenes were integral to the plot.
I’m also not surprised that it slipped through the editing process. At that time, they could have put King’s name on bags of dung and sold each and every one at a premium.
Stephen King’s ShIT…
All jokes aside, though, I think it was a rare bad choice by King and his editors, which, at least when I read IT, took me totally out of what was otherwise an amazing story. The omission of this scene from the screen adaptations without any consequence to the story validates my point.
What did you think, dear reader?
Or did you think about IT at all?
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C. Rommial Butler is a writer, musician and philosopher from Indianapolis, IN. His works can be found online through multiple streaming services and booksellers. More original articles can be found HERE.
