The horrors of white male innocence in IT (2017)

This essay examines the 2017 horror film IT, exploring how it depicts notions of innocence in relationship to race and masculinity. Specifically, the adolescent white male members of the film's core protagonist group, the Losers' Club, are represented as innocent figures because of their decision to practice a supposedly "colorblind" and anti-racist/anti-sexist ideology, and also due to the innocent nature of these characters' fears that are depicted within the film. We contend that although the white male Losers are able to maintain their childlike innocence, the film denies innocence to Mike Hanlon, the only black member of the Losers' Club, by closely associating his black masculinity with modes of violence. Through an analysis of these characters, we note the particular ways in which the presumed innocence of whiteness is reified when it is embodied exclusively by young white males.