Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
It (character)
Title character of Stephen King's 1986 novel From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
It, also known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown or Robert "Bob" Gray, is the titular antagonist in Stephen King's 1986 horror novel It. The character is an ancient, trans-dimensional malevolent entity who preys upon the children (and sometimes adults) of Derry, Maine, roughly every 27 years, using a variety of supernatural powers that include the abilities to shapeshift and manipulate reality. Over the course of the story, It primarily appears in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. A group of Derry children who call themselves the "Losers Club" becomes aware of Its presence after It kills Bill Denbrough's little brother, Georgie.
The character was portrayed in its Pennywise form by Tim Curry in the 1990 television adaptation and by Bill Skarsgård in the 2017 film adaptation, its 2019 sequel It Chapter Two and the upcoming HBO Max series It: Welcome to Derry.
Inspired by fairytale trolls, King conceived of a shapeshifting entity living in the sewers that could embody whatever frightened its target most. Pennywise became the central form It used to lure children — appearing to be a harmless clown. Scholars and critics have noted the effectiveness of this design as clowns are commonly viewed as uncanny.
Across the various adaptations of It, Pennywise's visual performance evolution reinforced coulrophobia. Curry's performance in the 1990 miniseries emphasized charm masking a hidden evil, while Skarsgård's version leaned into overt horror with twitchy movements and an inhuman stare. Critics praised Skarsgård's performance as sadistic and alien. Scholars also note how Its various forms channeled classic childhood fears while also reflecting deeper social issues.
Remove ads
Concept
Summarize
Perspective
King stated in a 2013 interview that he came up with the idea for Pennywise after determining that what children feared "more than anything else in the world" was clowns.[5][6] After finishing The Stand, King was walking across a bridge in Colorado when he imagined a troll like the one in the children's tale "Three Billy Goats Gruff",[7][8] though he imagined it living in a sewer system rather than under a bridge. He said the whole story "just bounced" into his head; in particular the fact that It could shapeshift.[8][9]
In the novel, the Losers believe It to be a taelus, a Himalayan creature that reads minds and assumes the shape of whatever its target fears most, similar to a boggart. It scares its victims first because it feeds on their fear, especially that of children.[10] Commentators have thus noted that It is a Lovecraftian horror dwelling beneath Derry.[11]
In the 1990 miniseries, Tim Curry's Pennywise was designed to initially look like a regular circus clown. Special effects artist Bart Mixon avoided making Pennywise look like a monster at first glance, saying "90% of the time he's suckering kids in."[12][13] He began drawing concepts for how Pennywise would look before Curry was cast, researching the looks of most other clowns for inspiration.[14] Original storyboards for Pennywise featured exaggerated cheekbones, a sharp chin, and a bulbous forehead.[15] There are no overtly inhuman features apparent in Curry's Pennywise until It attacks Its victim. Curry and his team found it most effective to let Curry's facial expressions carry the horror instead.[12]
In the 2017 and 2019 films, director Andy Muschietti chose a new interpretation of the character's look and feel. Bill Skarsgård's Pennywise is more overtly creepy, less humorous, and stands out more. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, costume designer Janie Bryant explained that Pennywise's suit was inspired by various historical eras, including the Medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, and Victorian periods.[16] Bryant said she wanted Pennywise to feel more organic, drawing on King's description of him wearing a silvery-gray clown suit.[17] Muschietti said he wanted Pennywise to look older than a typical 20th-century clown, since the creature had existed for thousands of years. He felt that modern clowns looked[18] "cheap" and were too tied to social events and circuses, saying he preferred the look of 19th-century clowns. Thus, he decided to use the 1800s as an inspiration.[19] Muschietti often kept Pennywise hidden in shadows or out of the camera's focus; a critic observed that Pennywise was a "jittering, twitching mess of a monster" whose form is constantly unsettling and unpredictable.[20] Even Pennywise's eyes have unsettling tricks to them, where one eye subtly drifts off into another direction, giving him a not-quite-human stare.[21] One analysis noted that Skarsgård's Pennywise was a "sadistic predator" who took pleasure from killing.[20]
Shapeshifting abilities
It can shapeshift and takes many forms throughout the novel, though Its most iconic form is Pennywise the Dancing Clown — described as wearing a silvery suit with orange pom-poms and red hair.[22][23] Other forms It takes include Georgie (as well as his rotting corpse),[24] a leper,[25] a mummy,[23][26] and a witch.[23][27][a] It is also seen impersonating various children and adults (both living and dead) from Derry in order to scare, taunt, or manipulate Its prey, particularly the Losers.[23][10]
Its true form, however, is unknown. It is said that the closest the human mind can come to perceiving It is the "deadlights," which are capable of hypnotizing or killing anyone who stares into them.[28][29][30] The only person to survive the ordeal is Bill's wife Audra, although she is rendered temporarily catatonic by the experience. In the films, It captures Beverly Marsh and shows her the deadlights, causing her to float and temporarily lose consciousness. In It Chapter Two, it is revealed that this experience resulted in Beverly having visions of the future. The final physical form It is seen in during the Losers' final battle is that of a monstrous giant spider that lays eggs.[29]
Remove ads
Appearances
Summarize
Perspective
Appearances in the novel
.jpg)
.jpg)
In the novel, Pennywise is described as a cross between Ronald McDonald and Bozo the Clown.
In the novel, It is a shapeshifting alien who usually takes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, originating in a void containing and surrounding the universe — a place referred to in the novel as the "macroverse". It came to Earth in an asteroid crash and settled beneath the area that would become Derry, where It first preyed on North American tribes.[30] It slept for millions of years, then woke when humans arrived. It began a year-long cycle of feeding on fear, taking the form of whatever Its victims feared most. After feeding, It would go back into hibernation for about twenty-seven years before reappearing. It prefers to feed on children because their fears are easier to understand, and adults are harder to scare when It takes physical form.[10] It can control weak-minded people, either making them ignore the horrors around them or turning them into accomplices, such as when Pennywise manipulates the school bully, Henry Bowers, to eliminate the remaining members of the Losers' Club.[10]
In the novel, It uses the name Robert "Bob" Gray, but is often referred to in the book as "It" with a capital I.[b] Throughout the book, It is generally referred to as male, usually appearing as Pennywise. The Losers come to believe It may be female after seeing Its spider form and the eggs It laid.[10][31] However, during the Ritual of Chüd, Bill briefly sees Its true form: a mass of swirling, destructive orange lights called the "deadlights."[28][29][30]
In parts of the novel, the story is told from Its perspective, where It sees Itself as superior and considering the Turtle (Its natural enemy) an equal and humans mere "toys."[30] Its hibernation periods begin and end with horrific events, such as the disappearance of 300 settlers from Derry Township from 1740–43 or the later ironworks explosion. It woke during a major storm that flooded part of Derry in 1957. Bill's younger brother Georgie was the first of many victims. The Losers eventually fought the creature, and Bill used the Ritual of Chüd to badly injure It and send It back into hibernation. Shocked by the Losers' victory, It briefly doubts Its own superiority, then dismisses the defeat as luck, blaming the Turtle for helping them.[10] It is finally killed 27 years later in a second Ritual of Chüd,[32] and an enormous storm damages the downtown part of Derry.[33]
Appearances in film and television
In the 1990 miniseries, Pennywise is portrayed by English actor Tim Curry.[34]
In the 2017 film adaptation, It, its 2019 sequel It Chapter Two, and its prequel television series It – Welcome to Derry, Pennywise is portrayed by Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård.[35][36][37] English actor Will Poulter was originally cast as Pennywise, with Curry describing the role as a "wonderful part" and wishing Poulter the best of luck, but the latter dropped out of the production due to scheduling conflicts and the first film's original director Cary Fukunaga leaving the project.[38] Skarsgård's Pennywise appears as a background character in the family friendly live-action/animated film Space Jam: A New Legacy, which is also distributed by Warner Bros.[39] In 2023, it was originally announced that Skarsgård would not be participating in the prequel series It – Welcome to Derry because he wanted to leave the character behind and focus on other roles,[40][4] but by 2025 he had changed his mind.[4][3]
Remove ads
Analysis
Summarize
Perspective
Several scholars have interpreted Pennywise as a cultural metaphor for real-world anxieties of the time the story takes place.[41] Scholar Whitney S. May argues that Pennywise’s return in the films reflects a broader resurgence of the "evil clown" figure in popular culture.[42] Another scholar similarly sees the character as an embodiment of the 1980s moral panics, resurfacing once every generation to scare adults and children.[42] Independent scholar Erin Giannini writes in an essay that Pennywise embodies the fear of stranger danger, a fear that spans generations and is not tied to a specific era. Writer Keith Currie describes Pennywise's shapeshifting into iconic horror villains as "a dark love-letter to the genre" and considers Pennywise as one of King's most memorable creations.[43][44] Some critics also interpret Pennywise as a representation of personal or historical trauma that must be confronted.[45]
Literary scholars have observed that It uses Pennywise to represent the collective evil of Derry. Anthony Magistrale argues that the novel shows how Derry "institutionalize[s] child abuse" so much that "Pennywise's actions merely reflect the town's general indifference towards its children."[46] In this sense, the clown is a mirror to the town's worst impulses. Critic Adrian Daub of the Los Angeles Review of Books notes that King does not distinguish between the supernatural horrors committed by It and the everyday evils displayed by the town's residents, such as racism.[47] These mundane cruelties are not simply caused by It, but are a replica of Its nature; the novel frequently draws direct comparisons between Derry and the creature. University of Technology Sydney associate professor Penny Crofts argues that the Derry townspeople are somewhat complicit in Pennywise's crimes through their inaction and inability to stop them. She cites the homophobic murder of Adrian Mellon at the start of the book as an example.[48] Crofts compares the case of Pennywise to real-life convicted sex offender Larry Nassar, writing that both Pennywise and Nassar were shielded by the people around them while they committed crimes "with seeming impunity".[48] Giannini writes that in Derry, there is almost no protection for the Losers or the other children in the town from either It or from Derry's less supernatural horrors of racism and abuse.[44]
One scholar argued that It was the very origin of the evil that haunted Derry every generation,[45] and another added that Pennywise and school bully Patrick Hockstetter serve as two sides of the same Stephen King trope: Hockstetter was compared to Derry's raw, human sickness, while she saw Pennywise as an abject supernatural terror.[49] According to Falakata College assistant professor Diganta Roy, Pennywise and Derry act as mirrors of the hatred and psychotic rage of the Derry townspeople.[50] Roy also contends that Pennywise's defeat caries dual meaning: it portrays the Losers as child heroes that challenge the very social norms aimed to protect them, and it marks a turning point in the Losers' transition adulthood. In this view, It is a coping mechanism to help the Losers find a sense of belonging.[50] Another scholar observes that It naturally takes the form of a child's worst fear; for example, It appears to Eddie (a germaphobe) in the form of a leper, a physical manifestation of contamination and disease, or in other words, abjection.[45]
Scholars and critics argue that Pennywise represents a turning point in how clowns are seen in popular culture, shifting their image from harmless jesters to scary villains; a 2018 study by Michelle Gompf found that It was pivotal in cementing clowns as inherently evil.[51] While the creature takes many forms, critics such as Currie note that Pennywise is the most memorable.[43] Some scholars suggest that Pennywise's shapeshifting reflects deep psychological anxieties, thus subverting the clown's traditional role as a figure of fun.[43]
Other scholars have examined the role of amnesia, noting that it was caused by the Derry townspeople denying the reality of the traumatic events they witnessed, which also created mass collective guilt; It, one of them argues, was able to feed off of the people of Derry for so long by making sure they never got to fully face their fears.[45]
Hannah Lina Schneeberger and Maria Wiegel from the University of Cologne argue that although Stephen King never cited John Wayne Gacy as an influence for Pennywise, that the two of them reflect the 1980s American ethos.[52] They point to the interconnectedness of Pennywise, Gacy, and the white middle-class suburb of Derry as a representation of broader American society. Derry is a homogeneous place that represses things which its townspeople see as undesirable using racism and bigotry; hence, according to them, It reflects the anxieties faced by Its victims. Both Pennywise and Gacy's clown personas present the illusion of a friendly, everyday clown while concealing something far more sinister.[52] They argue that Pennywise embodies not just Derry, but each of its neighborhoods and sub-communities.[52] In one scene, Bill muses to himself on the flight to Maine from London that Pennywise had been in Derry for so long that perhaps the Derry townsfolk had come to understand the creature.[52][53]
Scholars have also explored deeper themes behind Pennywise's defeat. In It Chapter Two, the Losers confront It not with physical weapons but by standing up to It and mocking It, reducing It from a monstrous figure to a withered shell. One academic essay suggests that It is ultimately about how people relate to their own fears.[54] Pennywise draws strength from fear and imagination, and is therefore weak against those who have overcome their fears.[54]
Remove ads
Reception
Summarize
Perspective
.jpg)
Tim Curry (left) and Bill Skarsgard's (right) performances as Pennywise in the 1990 miniseries and the two-part film adaptations, respectively, received widespread critical acclaim.
The Atlantic said of the character: "The scariest thing about Pennywise, though, is how he preys on children's deepest fears, manifesting the monsters they're most petrified by."[55] British scholar Mikita Brottman has also said of the miniseries version of Pennywise; "one of the most frightening of evil clowns to appear on the small screen" and that it "reflects every social and familial horror known to contemporary America".[56] Author Darren Shan cited Pennywise as an inspiration behind the character Mr. Dowling in his 12.5 book serial Zom-B.[57]
Writer James Smythe wrote that Curry's performance as Pennywise largely contributed to the character's enduring fame.[23] Critics on Rotten Tomatoes praised Curry's performance, calling his portrayal "savage, sneering malevolence." [58]
Rolling Stone praised Skarsgård's performance in 2019 as a "phobic masterpiece", adding that "onscreen, he feels like he's burrowing into your psyche".[59] Even Skarsgård and Stephen King themselves were scared by the character, with Skarsgård telling Entertainment Weekly that he started seeing the character in his dreams after filming[60][61] and King saying in a Reddit post that he would not revisit It because it was "too scary, even for me."[62] On Rotten Tomatoes, critics rated Skarsgård's performance in 2017 as his highest up until that point.[63]
A survey by the University of South Wales indicated that movie clowns such as Pennywise or the Joker contribute at least partially to some people's coulrophobia.[64] Audiences and critics reacted to the 2017 and 2019 film adaptations of It with a mix of fear and fascination; reviewer Katie Kilkenny of Pacific Standard felt that clowns "remain forever terrifying."[43] Gompf's examining of Pennywise's appeal found that a subset of viewers expressed an attraction or affinity toward Skarsgård's Pennywise. She saw this as the result of either the actor himself or a broader pop-culture trend of romanticizing charismatic anti-heroes such as Loki or Hannibal Lecter.[51] Gompf also noted that fans were debating the appeal of Pennywise's new design amongst themselves; early promotional images of Skarsgård in costume divided fans over whether the character was too frightening or not frightening enough.[51] She said that in particular, Pennywise's visual aesthetic, facial expressions, and posture helped create a sense of dread in viewers.[51]
Critics on Rotten Tomatoes lauded Skarsgård's performance for its ferocity and creativity, while still comparing it to Curry's performance in the 1990 miniseries.[65] They felt that Skarsgård leaned more into unnatural and alien-like behaviors (his posture and stillness, for example) to make the audience feel uneasy.[65] One critic, Ananya Roy, linked Pennywise to real-life killer clowns such as John Wayne Gacy as well as the concept of uncanny valleys,[44] as did Vox's Aja Romano.[66] Roy indicates that the late 2010s clown panic did not begin nor end with the It films, but that King's work accelerated the phenomenon. Clowns, she says, occupy a middle ground between joyful figures and horrifying nightmares;[44] the fictional representation of monstrous clowns reflects and amplifies real-world fears, contributing to a cycle of coulrophobia in popular culture.[44]
Association with 2016 clown sightings
"I suspect it's a kind of low-level hysteria, like Slender Man, or the so-called Bunny Man, who purportedly lurked in Fairfax County, Virginia, wearing a white hood with long ears and attacking people with a hatchet or an axe. The clown furor will pass, as these things do, but it will come back, because under the right circumstances, clowns really can be terrifying."
—Stephen King's reaction to the recurring clown scare phenomenon.[67]
The character was suggested as a possible motive for two incidents of people dressing up as clowns in Northampton, England and Staten Island, New York, US, both during 2014.[5][68]
In 2016, appearances of "evil clowns" were reported by the media, including nine people in Alabama, US arrested on suspicion of "clown-related activity".[69] Several newspaper articles suggested that the character of Pennywise was an influence, which led to King commenting that people should react less hysterically to the sightings and not take his work seriously.[68]
The first reported sighting of people dressed as evil clowns in Greenville, South Carolina, US was by a small boy who spoke to his mother about a pair of clowns that had attempted to lure him away.[70] Additional creepy clown sightings were reported in other parts of South Carolina.[71] Evil clowns were reported in several other U.S. states including North Carolina,[72] Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming.[73] Later, "clown sightings" were reported in Great Britain,[74] Australia,[75] Germany,[76] Israel,[77] and Latin America.[78]
One hypothesis for the wave of 2016 clown sightings was a viral marketing campaign for Muschietti's 2017 It film.[79][80] A spokesperson for New Line Cinema (the film's distributor) released a statement claiming that "New Line is absolutely not involved in the rash of clown sightings."[81]
Remove ads
See also
Notes
- In this form, It introduces Itself to Beverly Marsh as "Mrs. Kersh".
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads