Cohens theses assignment

The monster that I chose to write about for the previous assignment was Stephen King's IT, because it was the movie that I remember being most frightened of as a child. In my opinion the monster IT represents Cohen's third thesis, "The Monster Is the Harbinger of Category Crisis" very well. IT is a monster that can be perceived in many ways, like for example in the movie IT appears as a spider, a werewolf, a mummy and most commonly a creepy clown named Pennywise. For this reason, IT is generally thought of as a shape-shifter, shifting into whatever it thinks people are most afraid of. So when Cohen explains that "the monster is dangerous, a form suspended between forms that threatens to smash distinctions" I thought of IT and how it changes between forms to scare people. Expanding on this, and not really knowing IT's general form or what IT actually is, shows how monsters refuse to participate into classification. While IT and many monsters cannot be classified they can be feared, and I also believe that IT fits in with Cohens sixth thesis, "Fear of the Monster Is Really a Kind of Desire." With IT and many other monsters they are feared, this is a common trait of most monsters, but what is also apparent in many monster stories is people desire the monster, or they want to know more about it. This is true in many monster stories because of the monster's mysteriousness that really draws people into desiring the monster, even though it freaks them out. This can be seen in IT throughout the movie you see flashbacks of the characters as children and how even in their adulthood they are scared, but in the end they are drawn into IT's dwelling, and face the mystery even though they are fearsome.