We Need to Talk About Beverly

This is not a review of IT. If you’re looking for a review of IT, well, the internet is your oyster. This is a rant about IT. Specifically, a long rant about how the movie treats Beverly that segues into a rant about how bad the third act is (partly because of how it treats Beverly) and concludes as a rant about how the movie treats Mike.

There are spoilers in this, minor character stuff in the first part, then major plot spoilers about the third act in the second part. I warn when the major spoilers are about to begin, but if you haven’t seen the movie, you will be spoiled. Yes, even if you’ve read the book, because most of what I’m spoiling here isn’t in the book.

Before I get to the rant, I’d just like to say none of my problems with this movie had anything to do with the cast. The problems I have with the characters of Beverly, Mike and Pennywise are entirely separate from the performances, which were excellent.

Now, to the rant.

I love IT. One of my favourite books. My copy, which I bought new maybe 20 years ago, is so worn out that it’s held together with tape. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the movie all that much, though, because I knew that the parts of the book I love most, the interludes about the strange, evil history of the strange, evil town of Derry and the eldritch nature of IT itself probably weren’t going to make it to the screen.

But hey, still one of my favourite books. So I got my ticket, saw IT on opening night. And I cannot express enough how insanely disappointed I was with the way movie sexualizes the only main female character, a 14 year old girl named Beverly Marsh.

Beverly is a problematic character in the book too (I’m looking at you, sewer sex scene) but the book has the benefit of being written thirty years ago by a single person. Three men are credited with writing this script. Then there’s the director, and all the producers. It takes a village to make a movie. The fact that at no point did anyone in a position of power recognize that it’s not okay for a movie to sexualize a 14 year old girl the way IT does is a massive issue. That a movie written in this decade would treat an underage female character like this is insane. And the fact that no review I’ve read has even mentioned it is almost worse. Beverly’s arc is described as a “heartfelt coming of age story” instead of “a disturbing example of the male gaze trained on a child.”

What do I mean when I say the movie sexualizes Beverly? I mean that for the first half of the movie, in every scene where she is interacting with male characters, she is in some way objectified. Every male does it. The heroes and the villains alike. Pretty much the only thing every male character in IT (with the exception of Mike, who doesn’t meet her until the plot picks up and starts focusing on other things) has in common is that they all at some point lust after Beverly. There’s literally a scene of five boys, her friends, ogling her while she sunbathes. And at no point is this portrayed as anything other than innocent fun. Boys will be boys, right? It’s harmless, right? I mean, it’s clearly not okay when Henry, a villain, leers at her and grabs his crotch, but it’s totally adorable for all her male friends to do it. After all, they’re the good guys.

Then there’s the scene where Beverly distracts a middle-aged male pharmacist by flirting with him. Again, just to reiterate, she’s a 14 year old girl. She’s a child. This scene would be bad enough if she were a 20 year old woman, because a woman solving her problems by flirting is hackneyed, but when the distraction flirt is utilized by a 14 year old, the scene becomes something far more sinister. Had this scene been presented as unequivocally sinister, I wouldn’t have as much as a problem with it. But it isn’t. People in the audience laughed. It’s humorous! A 14 year old girl flirts with a 50 year old man, and he flirts back! Ha! What fun!

I honestly, truly cannot understand what the scene of Beverly flirting with the pharmacist was supposed to achieve. Was it meant to show us that the town of Derry is rotten and it’s adults corrupt? If so, why have HER initiate the flirting? Why not have her try to distract him by asking him a question about sunscreen, and then he becomes creepy with her? Was it to show us how Beverly, oversexualized by her father, resorts to sexualized behaviour with men? That would be at odds with the scene that happens later where she makes it clear she’s sexually innocent (more on this a little further on). So we’re left with the impression that she’s, what, a tease? Why on earth would they choose to portray a 14 year old girl, the only female character, this way? Like I say, I just do not understand the point of this scene. Pretty much anything they might have been trying to achieve with it could have been achieved in a better, WAY less creepy way.

You might notice that I’m harping on the fact that Beverly is the only female main character. That’s because she didn’t have to be. She was the only girl in the book, but the movie is not the book. They changed the period, they changed the attributes of some of the characters, they changed the plot. They could’ve just as easily made one or two of the male members of the Losers Club into girls. They chose not to. There is absolutely nothing about a story of a supernatural clown hunting children that precludes having more than one female character. But because Beverly is the only female main, everything she does, how she is portrayed has an outsized importance. Movie makers, take note: if you don’t want me focusing so heavily on how you’re portraying a single female character, maybe have more than one of them.

So this brings me to the slut shaming. The whole town thinks Beverly’s promiscuous and treats her like shit. But Bill makes it clear he doesn’t believe the rumors, and is happy when Beverly tells him the rumors are indeed false. And this is important because if the rumors were true… what? Beverly wouldn’t be worthy of his affection? This in a movie that is not only at pains to point out that Beverly is an object of sexual desire, but revels in her attractiveness. It’s a fucking THEME. But had she at any point had her own desires and acted on them, well, that would be bad. That would make her an unworthy person. She’s there to be looked at, not touched. She can be sexy as long as she’s demure. And no, I’m not saying it would be a good thing for this abused 14 year old girl to be sexually active. I’m saying the way this movie treats Beverly’s sexuality is deeply, deeply hypocritical. And fucking creepy.

I’m not saying movie’s can’t address how teenage girls are sexualized. That’s actually a really interesting topic, especially for a horror movie. But this movie doesn’t address it. It leans into it. Underage Beverly is a sexual object in IT. That’s taken as a given. It’s never explored, and the only time it’s truly condemned is when it’s her dad doing it. Her friends can do it all they want with no judgement from the movie. Hell, the movie thinks that’s cute.

So that’s my problem with Beverly the sex object. Now, there are MAJOR SPOILERS ahead for the movie’s third act, so if you want to be surprised by some terrible storytelling choices, stop here.

Now is the part of the rant where I’m talk about Beverly the MacGuffin. A MacGuffin is a plot device, an object that is being pursued. In the third act of IT, Beverly becomes the MacGuffin when Pennywise kidnaps her. I have two problems with this. First of all, the only female character being kidnapped? Really? Second of all, it makes no sense, plot wise.

Beverly is never kidnapped in the book. This is solely a plot point of the movie. And I will admit, Pennywise grabbing her is shocking and scary. Along with him stalking Ben in the library and scene with the projector, Pennywise looming over her was one of the most frightening moments in the movie. But that doesn’t change the fact that it fucking sucks. If you, as a storyteller, can’t get your male characters from point A to B without resorting to a villain kidnapping your only female character, you need to massively upgrade your storytelling abilities. There was absolutely no reason to make Beverly into a damsel the boys need to rescue. Hell, it would’ve made more sense for Pennywise to take Bill, deprive the Losers Club of their leader. But, let’s be honest here, it makes no sense for Pennywise to take any of them.

Pennywise tries to kill them all of the kids separately, and they each escape. Ok. Fair enough. When he tries to kill them all when they’re together, they not only escape but beat him back. They’re clearly stronger together. So Pennywise’s brilliant endgame is to… bring them all together again by kidnapping one of them. What? How is that a plan? If he’d immediately killed her, that would’ve been an okay plan. But he didn’t, because… it wouldn’t have fed him because she’s not afraid. Sure. But he still could’ve killed her, depriving the group of one of its members. Even if there was some sort of “rule” that Pennywise can’t kill children who aren’t afraid of him, he could’ve lifted her to a great height and dropped her. Instead, he’s apparently beholden to an unspoken First Law of Monsters, where he can neither kill a human who doesn’t fear him or through inaction let a human who doesn’t fear him die.

The whole climax is terrible. Pennywise becomes a laughably inept villain, and turning Beverly into a fairytale damsel who has to be rescued by boys who literally wake her up with a kiss was a really really shitty thing to do to her character.

Oh, and let’s talk about the fairytale “true love’s kiss” trope for a second. Say what you will about the sewer scene in the book, but it was not only consensual, it was Beverly’s idea. The “true love’s kiss” moment in the movie relies on a fairytale trope that precludes consent. Beverly is okay with it AFTER, but that’s not how consent works, is it? And you might be thinking, hey, these are kids in the 80s, what do they know about consent? But this scene was written by ADULTS, NOW. And they fucking should know about consent.

Oh, then there’s the fact that the movie completely ignores the idea in the book that the children are able to defeat IT because of the awesome power of a child’s imagination and the connection they share as friends. In the movie, they… beat the monster with blunt objects. In other words, a Little League team lost in Derry’s sewers had just as much chance of killing IT as our heroes.

I’m gonna conclude this rant by talking about Mike. The movie guts the character of Mike, the only black member of the Losers Club. In the book, Mike’s homelife is the only one that’s unequivocally positive. Yes, he lives in a racist town but he copes because he has wonderful, loving parents. His dad is awesome. He’s thoughtful and smart, and he passes on his love of history to Mike. In Derry, a terrible town full of abusive and apathetic parents, the Hanlons are a bright spot.

The movie kills them off before it even starts. Mike is being raised by his grandpa who makes Mike kill sheep with a bolt gun. Why did they give Mike this new, sheep killer backstory? Because the movie gives Mike’s role as historian to Ben, a white character. So, summing up, the movie takes Mike, the thoughtful historian raised by a wonderful father, and turns him into a kid who’s forced by to kill animals by his hardass grandpa. WTF! Why did they do this? Why did they gut this character? Why was is so important to give one of the FIVE white boys more to do at the expense of the ONLY black character? And why on earth did they structure this story so that the only one of the children to bring a weapon to the final confrontation was the black boy? Again, WTF. In the book, Beverly is the one who’s armed, with a slingshot and silver BBs. In the movie, Mike brings his sheep killing bolt gun. So, they took away the girl’s agency, and armed the black kid instead. Does Mike end up saving the day with his bolt gun? Not really. Bill uses it. They go to all the trouble of giving Mike this weird slaughterhouse backstory… so a white character can get closure. What was the point? What did these changes to Mike achieve, other than to piss me off?

So that’s my IT rant. What did I think of the movie other than these aspects of it that drove me so crazy I had to write a 2000 word essay about how much I hate them? It was fine. But goddamn, it could’ve been so much better.