Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
More On:
Bill Hader
This article contains It Chapter Two spoilers. Read at your own risk!
If you’re in the mood for a horror movie this weekend, I have good news: It Chapter Two is airing on HBO tonight at 8 p.m. ET. And if you’re in the mood for some LGBTQ romance this weekend, I also have good news: It Chapter 2 is airing on HBO tonight at 8 p.m.
Stephen King’s 1986 classic novel It featured a gay character, Adrian Mellon, who was killed by Pennywise after he and his boyfriend were brutally beaten by Derry’s finest homophobes. But fans who read between the lines saw another queer storyline throughout, though one that was no less tragic: Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak.
No, neither Eddie nor Richie were out as gay in the book. But the two were particularly close within the Losers Club. As kids, Richie has a nickname for Eddie, “Eds,” that Eddie secretly loved, and he liked to tell Eddie that he was cute. As adults, Richie takes Eddie’s death the hardest and kisses Eddie’s cold cheek before he leaves the body. Whether or not it was King’s intention (and the author has said it was not) it’s not exactly hard to infer that one or both of the characters might have been a little bit in love with the other.
It Chapter Two—the second half of the two-part film adaptation from director Andy Muschietti—took that homoerotic subtext and made it canon. Sort of. Pennywise the monster clown is forcing the now-adult Losers to relive their traumatic memories, and Richie, played by Bill Hader, remembers a time as a child (played by Finn Wolfhard in a flashback) that he was teased for having a crush on a boy. Richie’s terrified reaction—and Pennywise taunting him that he “knows his secret”—makes pretty clear that Richie is gay. But it’s a shot at the very end of the film, that shows a young Richie carving “R + E” into a tree, that makes it clear that, at least in this interpretation of the story, Richie was in love with Eddie. It’s not clear whether Eddie loved him back.
As Louis Peitzman outlined in his essay for Them, a carving on a tree may feel like a minuscule step in the grand scheme of modern-day LGBTQ representation. But for certain fans, it means everything. Richie and Eddie were the fourth most popular relationship pairing in 2019, according to Tumblr’s Fandometrics year-end review, which is based on searches, reblogs, likes, and original posts. There are nearly 13,000 It stories on the fanfiction website Archive of Our Own for the Muschietti movies alone. Bill Hader, with a little help from his HBO series Barry, has been declared hot by the internet, while James Ransone and Jack Dylan Grazer, who play Eddie as an adult and as a child respectively, have growing fanbases of their own. In the world of fandom, a little LGBTQ representation can go a long way.
