{"id":229469,"date":"2019-09-04T21:42:04","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T01:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=229469"},"modified":"2019-09-04T21:42:04","modified_gmt":"2019-09-05T01:42:04","slug":"new-it-film-portrays-painful-true-chapter-of-lgbt-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/09\/04\/new-it-film-portrays-painful-true-chapter-of-lgbt-history\/","title":{"rendered":"New ‘It’ film portrays painful true chapter of LGBT history"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Moviegoers from Maine who watch the film “It: Chapter Two”\u00a0this weekend might recognize a scene that draws on a painful event from the state’s history. (File Photo<\/a>: itmovieofficial\/Instagram<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

BANGOR, Maine \u2014\u00a0Moviegoers from Maine who watch the film “It: Chapter Two”\u00a0this weekend might recognize a scene that draws on a painful event from the state’s history.<\/p>\n

The scene involves a gay character named Adrian Mellon being attacked by teenagers and his subsequent encounter with Pennywise the Clown. The scene is based on real-life Bangor resident Charlie Howard, who was attacked and thrown off the city’s State Street Bridge in 1984.<\/p>\n

Stephen King tells the Bangor Daily News that the killing still had currency when he was writing the book on which the movie is based.<\/p>\n

“At the time I started writing ‘It,’ the Howard murder had just happened. It was fresh in my mind and fitted my idea of Derry as a place where terrible things happened,”\u00a0King said. “And, maybe needless to say, I was outraged. It was a hate crime.”<\/p>\n

In the book, Mellon, like Howard, is in his 20s and was walking home with a male friend when he encountered homophobic teenagers. The scenes play out in a similar fashion, except the book and movie feature an appearance by the garish clown who lives in the sewer.<\/p>\n

The scene is not included in the 1990 TV miniseries, but that changes with “It: Chapter Two,”\u00a0with the character of Mellon being portrayed by Xavier Dolan.<\/p>\n

King said in 2014 on the 30th anniversary of Howard’s killing that the Bangor community doesn’t bear responsibility for the crime.<\/p>\n

“But it’s our town. We live here,”\u00a0he said. “Which means we have to live with Charlie, and continue trying to make it right.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BANGOR, Maine \u2014\u00a0Moviegoers from Maine who watch the film “It: Chapter Two”\u00a0this weekend might recognize a scene that draws on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-entertainment","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229469"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":229472,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229469\/revisions\/229472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}