Page 29 - BCALA Winter 2018

information and knowledge to the Losers as they battled IT/Pennywise, the same way highly-decorated actor Tim Reid did when he starred as Mike in the made-for-television miniseries 28 years ago. With the first chapter of the film making over $700 million at the box office and becoming a smash hit in 2017, I was nearly salivating at the idea of audiences seeing a Black male librarian doing big things in a big movie next year.
My excitement has officially been quelled, however, as I guess the developers of the new adaptations of “IT” thought the progressive idea of the Black character being educated and using knowledge and information as power wasn’t cliché enough. So, they’ve resorted to a common trope for fictional Black characters and reimagined Mike – the story’s most prominent Black character – in the film adaptation... as a drug addict.
Andy Muschietti, director of the
new film adaptations of King’s work, revealed to “Entertainment Weekly” that in the 2019 continuation of the story, Mike will be “a librarian junkie.” Mike will apparently still grow up to be a librarian just as he does in the novel and the 1990 miniseries, but while the rest of The Losers’ Club will still become successful as adults, Mike will struggle with drug addiction. I presume this will mean he will not come across as being as successful as his white counterparts in The Losers’ Club, and it also likely means his addiction will play a large role in how the story unfolds, while his occupation as town librarian will play a smaller role in the story’s unfolding.
Kudos, Mr. Muschietti. Kudos. In the
miniseries at least, there was nothing to not like about Mike. He was an all-around positive character. He was successful, intelligent, and lived a clean life. He was the one who brought The Losers’ Club back together to hold them to their promise to defeat the fear and flesh-gobbling monster. And he was something exceptionally rare in American fiction AND REALITY: a Black male librarian.
And now Mike will be a fictional Black male junkie. Did we really need any more of those? Has this not been done to death already?
As I mentioned in my author’s note above, I have not read the novel, so what I am sharing in this paragraph is based on summaries of the novel and second-hand information from friends and acquaintances that have read the novel. But it is my understanding that Mike’s intellectual side was already downplayed in the 2017 film. Mike was apparently well-versed in the local history of Derry even as a child in the novel; in the 1990 miniseries, the child version of Mike does have a strong grasp on local Derry history and even delivers a presentation on the history of Derry in school one day. However, in the 2017 film, Mike’s character
does not flash his intellectual side very much, and fellow Loser’s Club member Ben Hanscom becomes the resident local history expert for The Losers’ Club.
Also clearly downplayed in the 2017 film adaptation of “IT” is the racial element to the bullying that Mike endures at the hands of the deranged juvenile degenerate Henry Bowers and his friends. In the 1990 miniseries, Henry and his friends direct racial
BCALA NEWS | Volume 45, Issue 1 | 29 slurs toward Mike during an
encounter with him, and it is explicitly conveyed that Henry’s hatred of Mike is racially motivated. In the 2017 film, audiences can likely infer that Henry’s hatred of Mike is racially-based, but it is not blatantly obvious.
Given that I am lamenting the loss of uniqueness in Mike’s character in this column, I could normally forgive the downplaying of the racial elements
of the conflict between Mike and Henry. After all, depictions of racial conflict in American fiction certainly are not hard to find elsewhere.
But what was striking in the 1990 miniseries was that Mike overcame the struggles and strife of being hated as one of the lone Black residents of
a nearly all-white New England town and that his strength and resolve
– versus geekiness, nerdiness or social awkwardness – paved his path toward becoming the town librarian. It seemed like the novel and 1990 miniseries versions of Mike Hanlon defied every trope typically tacked on to librarians in fiction.
And now, Mike will simply join the legions of fictional Black characters who abuse drugs and show an inability to cope with the realities they face in life.
Please allow me to clarify that I’m not calling for fiction writers to cease and desist with creating Black characters who struggle with drugs. Drug abuse among Black Americans – as well as Americans of all races
– is unfortunately a real issue and I have no desire to pretend that this real issue does not exist and does not complicate the lives of many great families in our nation. However,