Portrayal of Hegemonic Masculinity in Stephen King’s It
Some colleagues just happened to talk about It (again) and it provoked some heated discussion. And well, there you go.
I think it’s a given fact that there are so many ways or tools in which we may use in approaching or analyzing horror fiction. Here I would try to reinforce the idea that horror, or to be precise the element of horror within fictional works deeply rooted in what often be referred to as the uncanny, the ordinary, which makes them all the more scary. Simply put, the more it resembles particular reality in which we live in, the more fear-inducing the horror fiction will be. This is particularly true especially within Stephen King’s works, where its fear-inducing aspect of his fictions are a close resemblance of our reality; quoting Heidi Strengell, she mentioned that while of course there are a lot of uses of monsters, supernatural entities or some sort, they cannot be treated as an excess but also an agent of fear in which King may discuss many aspects, such as psychological fears as well as social, economic, and political reality. (Strengell, 2007) Those who have read Stephen King’s novel before (and also to some extent who have familiarized themselves through films adaptations) know all too well on this matter.
While keeping that in mind, let us try to trace the fear element within It by exploring possibilities exist within the sublime — call it the external to the novel, if you may. While there are many aspects which we may analyse from the novel, let’s focus on exploring these two aspects; the notion of “white male” innocence, as well as hegemonic white male normative patriarchal society; which, arguably, are the most prevalent notions in critics of Stephen Kings novel It. These two notions, white male innocence and normative patriarchal society, in retrospect creates and preserves the predominant ideology of hegemonic masculinity; even more so apparent after we try to look at the portrayal of the atomic Losers club (then Lucky seven) within the novel. So one now may ask a question, an important one: how could the children from the Losers club — which you are already aware of the name it embeds — the ostracized group of people, treated as the-other, subjected to constant act of violence, from bullying, sexist and racial violence, be the exact embodiment of masculinity? First, let’s take a look on the notion of hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity, according to Raewyn Connell, is to be understood as the pattern of practice which allows men’s dominance to continue and embodies the currently most honored way of being a man. (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005) Elaborating more on this, he also mentions that most men have establish connection with hegemonic project although don’t necessarily embody aspects of hegemonic masculinity. Basically, hegemonic masculinity doesn’t really need to visibly embody its common characteristics known to signify masculinity. There is also an interesting notion proposed by Lori Kendall when analyzing the movie Revenge of the Nerds in which she shows that the nerds, often associated with meekness or being weak or being a subject to subordination, are indeed previously defined as liminal masculine identity. (Kendall, 1999) But there has been major change in that it now gets to be incorporated into the whole idea on the embodiment of hegemonic masculinity. Even more interesting, especially within fictional works, there are common use of other — mainly female and black characters — to assert the existence of hegemonic masculinity within a group of nerdy characters; something that is, coincidentally, also apparent within The Losers Club with the addition of Beverly Marsh and Mike Hanlon.
So then, why don’t we just see or analyze characters which are clearly the embodiment as well as active agents of hegemonic masculinity — such as Al Marsh or both Butch and Henry Bowers the bully? This is where the notion on white male innocence comes into play. The idea of innocence is often associated with lack of knowledge as well as lack of guilt — which then would give white (male) privilege to adopt what sociologist Charles Wright Mills calls as epistemology of ignorance. This epistemology of ignorance carries a significant tendency in preserving hegemonic masculinity through subordination on sexual and racial identity outside the predominant one. It allows (white) male to assume innocence when faced with such accusation. We all know that sexism, misogyny, and racism stems from a complex ideological works permeating our society, and therefore we should always take the notion of power relation in regards to this matter. But epistemology of ignorance lets the predominant one, particularly white males, to shift the blame to something else; especially to sexism and racism as individualistic product in a vacuum; sidelining it into a mere matter of ‘it’s only them who do that’ or ‘not all males are like that’ instead of seeing it as product of ideology. Hence why there is a need of a distinction: visible hegemonic masculinity of Bowers or Al Marsh, the bad one; and the innocent, redeemable, hegemonic masculinity of the atomic Losers Club. The inclusiveness of the Losers Club, the addition of female Beverly and black Mike is the proof of desire to undermine to complex problem of masculine, patriarchal society into a mere excess of misguided moral trajectory. Even worse, Beverly and Mike own problems which are more pressed matter; subjected to constant abusive act, the problems of sexism and racism are often left out and considered over when they are with the Losers club. While the actual idea is that they are both being used to grant the Losers club, or BASICALLY the crime of ignorance, a pardon. Even worse, Beverly and Mike’ own problems which are more pressed matter — problems of sexism and racism, subjected to constant abusive act — are often left out and considered trivial. Beverly, in particular, is even more unfortunate since she is being used as means to establish hegemonic masculinity by being the object of sexual captivation of the Losers club; later as signifier of the losers or nerds being able to transcend their liminal into full-fledged masculine identity — shown in the gangbang scene and romantic involvement with Ben the fatty in the end.
As the final verdict, this isn’t to say I am trying to accuse Stephen King as promoting the idea of hegemonic masculinity. but rather, I would like to see it as the representation of our current patriarchal society and that the desire to reinstate impunity over hegemonic masculinity is real — ascendancy of Trump into president, or legitimization on the act of state violence on Papuans by us Indonesians are the outcome as this — and we should start taking it seriously.
Further Reading
Connell, R. W., & Messerschmidt, J. W. (2005). Hegemonic Masculinity. Gender & Society, 19(6), 829–859. doi:10.1177/0891243205278639
Kendall, L. (1999). Nerd nation. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 2(2), 260–283. doi:10.1177/136787799900200206
Mills, C. W. (2007). White Ignorance. In S. Sullivan & N. Tuana (Eds.), Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Strengell, H. (2007). Stephen King: Monsters Live in Ordinary People. London: Duckworth.
