and least favorite?<\/a>) adaptation, The Shining, <\/i>are hard to achieve, but it would have been worth it for the scariness factor.<\/p>\n Even if the two birth sequences had used more tactile elements, it still would have been disappointing that the show uses birth as a horror crutch. Full disclosure, I have given birth to two children who did try and murder me like in the second episode\u2019s birth scene, where Ronnie relives her own traumatic birth, but my kids are (probably) not demons, unlike the flying monstrosity in the cold open during the first episode. However I do think birth is really scary and disgusting, with apologies to my fellow parents who find it a beautiful and natural experience.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think using birth and babies as the thing that terrorizes the preteens in It: Welcome to Derry <\/i>makes a lot of sense, though. In past It <\/i>iterations, including the book, It is usually the clown, because clowns are somewhat universally feared, or, in its \u201ctrue form\u201d more like a spider, which is another common fear.<\/p>\n
Turns out my own preteen has seen the 2017 It <\/i>film at their dad\u2019s (eyeroll) and does not think their peers\u2019 first fear fantasy would be a demon baby (it was something to do with needles, which, as a child of the pandemic who has had lots of shots, kinda makes sense).<\/p>\n\n\nMiles Ekhardt \/ Brooke Palmer\/HBO<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Kids don\u2019t fear birth and babies the way grownups do. Adults are scared of the commitment of having a demon spawn and, yes, adults are scared of childbirth. Everyone has their own or someone else\u2019s birth horror story at the ready, whispered between parents over kids\u2019 heads at birthday parties, but largely kept out of the kids\u2019 earshot.<\/p>\n
Then there\u2019s the continuity errors in storytelling. In the cold open, we\u2019re supposed to be experiencing the fear vision that kills Matty while he\u2019s hitchhiking in the backseat of a car. However, the POV of the camera bounces around, giving us a front row seat to the entire birth. After the flying demon baby is born, we switch back to Matty\u2019s POV, in which he tries to see over the backseat and then is horrified by the baby. That\u2019s <\/i>scary. But watching the thing come out is just yucky and gratuitous, since Matty wouldn\u2019t have been able to see it based on where he was in the car.<\/p>\n
The second birth scene, in the second episode, makes a little more sense, since Ronnie\u2019s mom did die in childbirth and Ronnie feels guilty about it.<\/p>\n
Once Ronnie is expelled from the giant amniotic sac and sloshes onto her floor, her mom tries to lasso her back in by the umbilical cord. The mom\u2019s gaping womb has shark-like teeth, chomping, which seems like an unrealistic fear for a girl to have. There are scary eyeballs lighting up the darkness within, but they\u2019re not even Pennywise\u2019s exophoria-style ones, like one of the kids had in the opening car ride. If you\u2019re going to have genitalia with teeth, you need to do a parable with a feminist lens, like Teeth<\/i><\/a>. <\/i>If you\u2019re going to sow fear in pregnancy and babies, you aren\u2019t going to do it better than Rosemary\u2019s Baby <\/i>(unless you\u2019re my sister who finds spending a couple days with my kids good birth control).<\/p>\n\n\nAmanda Christine \/ Brooke Palmer\/HBO<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Is all the birth symbolic because this is a Pennywise origin story? Was the kid\u2019s pacifier in the opening scene a metaphor? We know It preys on the vulnerability of children, feeding off their fear. What\u2019s more vulnerable than a baby? However we want to analyze the logic of the two birth scenes, when it comes down to it, it\u2019s body horror at its most basic: Ew, women\u2019s reproductive systems!<\/p>\n
At best, the It: Welcome to Derry <\/i>birth scenes are commenting on our puritanical obsession with demonizing women\u2019s health, but, unfortunately, it fails to clearly state that thesis. Instead, it feels like the showrunners tried to think of the most terrifying thing they could\u2026and came up with vaginas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n