Pennywise's costume not only plays on the things that used to scare us as kids, but it also plays on It's own focus on nostalgia, particularly how nostalgia charms us, much like Pennywise himself, into believing things that aren't actually true. Namely, what frightened us as children - weird dolls like Annabelle or Chucky, and clowns that look like Pennywise - still have a deep hold on our psyches today. One of the biggest horror themes is how nostalgia plays a part in what terrorizes us. These dolls, of course, became extremely scary looking when the lights go out. The reason his costume alone can incite fear is because it's a definite reminder of the types of porcelain dolls in curio cabinets that we might have seen as kids. It's definitely something he uses to his advantage throughout the film, particularly when Pennywise hides among other clown dolls while he's on the hunt for the Losers. The fact that Pennywise does look like an old dusty doll makes him even scarier. Bryant utilized the styles of several different eras, including the Medieval, Renaissance, Elizabethan, and Victorian styles, to create a timeless, antique creepy doll look for Pennywise. "The costume definitely incorporates all these otherworldly past lives, if you will," said costume designer Janie Bryant to Entertainment Weekly. But when we put Pennywise in today's time, we can see that the character, through his makeup and costume, also says a lot about how our lives currently are being exploited by the strong pull of nostalgia's lies. Characters like Pennywise play on this strong connection and exploit it. We closely identify with these fears because they came to us during a time when we felt the most protected and secure. But looking deeper, you can see that these fears only still retain their power because of how connected they are to our nostalgia for our childhoods. On the surface, Pennywise's popularity comes from an almost universal fear of clowns, fears that stem from childhood.
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It would seem that for all of our technological advancements, the 21st century is still full of confusion and fear about the future. But this Pennywise has definitely been reinvented to match today's times and our struggles, chief of which being our struggle to get over the past.
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Pennywise has been a horror staple for years, thanks both to Stephen King's original novel and Tim Curry's performance as the character in the 1990 TV miniseries.