Editor: Emilie Rose

Stephen King is a prolific author of horror and dark fiction, with a career spanning decades and more books under his belt than most people read in a year. Dubbed the ‘King of Horror’, his works have influenced millions between his novels and film adaptations. While revered by many, King has also faced significant criticism for issues both on and off page.

Known for feuding with Republicans on Twitter as well as his regular use of “The Magical Negro” trope, King is no stranger to controversy. 

Twitter Controversies & Feuds 

Many of whom pointed out that King’s statement conflates a lack of quality with diversity and ignores the hurdles ‘diverse’ authors face in the publishing industry. Per the Lee & Low Diversity Baseline survey, the industry is overwhelmingly white, cis, straight, and non-disabled. With a lack of diversity across the industry as a whole, it is clear that entering the publishing industry from any angle is difficult for those who are already underrepresented.   

Author Gabino Iglesias stated in a response, “Every writer of color reading this, including me, has had to work ten times harder to get the same recognition/opportunities straight white male authors get from the start. Same goes for women, LGBTQIA writers, & other underrepresented voices. Diversity matters. It matters a lot.”

In response to the backlash, King followed up with, “The most important thing we can do as artists and creative people is make sure everyone has the same fair shot, regardless of sex, color, or orientation. Right now such people are badly under-represented, and not only in the arts.”

Praise for JK Rowling

A fan since 2003, King has repeatedly praised the work of well-known anti-trans author JK Rowling. In 2016, King made a series of tweets regarding two books written under Rowling’s pen name, Robert Galbraith. Rowling, who uses her wealth and status to terrorize the trans community, previously praised King for supporting women until 2020 when King responded to a tweet stating, “Trans women are women.”

Following this tweet, Rowling removed her tweet about King and reportedly unfollowed him. That did not stop King from praising Rowling’s work yet again in 2023 stating, “[The Running Grave] is JK Rowling at her best, recalling the sheer readability of the Harry Potter books, but much darker.”

However, the two have recently interacted yet again in July of 2024 when Rowling made the following tweet.

“Amazed this still needs saying, but some don’t seem to have got the memo. If calling me ‘transphobe’ and ‘fascist’ was going to scare me out of speaking up for women’s rights, it would have happened years ago. Whatever the square root of not giving a fuck is, that’s where I am.”

King responded to Rowling’s tweet, “I think you may mean ‘not giving a fuck squared.’ The square root, I believe, would mean a *smaller* amount of giving a fuck.”

Criticism of Politicians

Online arguments are nothing new for King, who has been known to heavily criticize politicians on Twitter including Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Ted Cruz. 

• In April of 2024, King called Trump a ‘dimbulb’ over his comments regarding Gettysburg. King has been critical of Trump since 2016.
• In April of 2024, the author dubbed Marjorie Taylor Greene ‘Moscow Marjorie’ after she slammed members of her own party after the House passed a Ukraine aid bill. King previously criticized Greene in January.
• In February 2021, he responded to a post from Texas senator Ted Cruz warning of a migrant ‘invasion’ at the southern border stating, “You’ve also spent a lot of time in Cancun. That’s pretty south, right?”​ The tweet references Cruz leaving for Cancun while the state of Texas faced a winter severe weather storm that killed those unable to stay warm during freezing temperatures that caused a power outage.
• In August 2021, King criticized Florida governor Ron DeSantis on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Later in July 2022, he was forced to apologize for sharing a misleading headline about the governor. 

Problematic Content in Books

King’s body of work is extensive, making analysis of the issues cited within his books an arduous task. Reviews of his books have shown that the author has some consistent issues that will be covered here. However, this is by no means comprehensive. Please be aware that the following contains spoilers for some of King’s books.

The Magical NEgro Trope

The topic of King’s excessive use of the ‘Magical Negro’ trope has been spoken of regularly since film director Spike Lee spoke of it in 2001. Since then, the author’s usage of the trope has been dissected many times, notably in Nnedi Okorafor’s 2005 essay Stephen King’s Super-Duper Magical Negroes. In the essay, Okorafor included five points/attributes of the trope which have been included (unedited) below:

1. He or she is a person of color, typically black, often Native American, in a story about predominantly white characters.
2. He or she seems to have nothing better to do than help the white protagonist, who is often a stranger to the Magical Negro at first.
3. He or she disappears, dies, or sacrifices something of great value after or while helping the white protagonist.
4. He or she is uneducated, mentally handicapped, at a low position in life, or all of the above.
5. He or she is wise, patient, and spiritually in touch. Closer to the earth, one might say. He or she often literally has magical powers.

The focus of this character, who is often solely utilized as a plot device, is to help the white character(s) succeed to the detriment of themselves. As their only purpose is to help the white characters, this makes them palatable to audiences who have anxiety, fear, or even hatred towards Blackness. If taken at face value, it may seem as though this character is empowered, however, the role of this character is one of subordination and inherently places the value of the white character above the Black (or other minority) character. 

John Coffey of The Green Mile is perhaps King’s most notable usage of this trope with Coffey written as a near childlike character who heals, afflicts, predicts, and resurrects through his specialness. Ultimately, Coffey dies in place of those who are truly guilty and his role is one with little depth beyond his position of the ‘helper’. 

Other usage of this trope may include Mother Abigail in The Stand, Dick Hollarann in The Shining, Jack Sawyer in The Talisman, and Mike Hanlon in IT. 

Accompanied by King’s usage of the trope are excessive uses of racist descriptions, racial slurs, and poor character development of his Black characters. For example, the characters of Mike and Will Hanlon in IT regularly use racial slurs to describe themselves in third person when they’re writing about themselves. A video analysis of the book states that in a single chapter there are 30+ instances of this. 

King also falls into the habit of writing his Black characters as caricatures, such as the case of Jerome Robinson in Mr. Mercedes. Jerome, a smart and nerdy type whose intelligence is used to aid Bill Hodges, writes a letter to Hodges that is so wildly out of character in its language.

“Dear Masa Hodges,

I has mowed yo grass and put de mower back in yo cah-pote. I hopes you didn’t run over it, suh! If you has any mo chos for dis heah black boy, hit me on mah honker..”

A few other instances of racist descriptions/depictions include:

• In Carrie, King describes a character’s swollen lips as ‘negr**d’.
• In The Stand, Mother Abigail is described as ‘black coal’ and an ‘old black everglades alligator’.
• In The Green Mile, John Coffey is described as a monkey, big mutt, and big boy.

King discussed his problem with portraying Black characters during a 1983 Playboy interview, when questioned about the critique of his portrayals of women. King acknowledges that it is a very justified criticism of his work and goes on to state, “I think it is probably the most justifiable of all those leveled at me. In fact, I’d extend her criticism to include my handling of black characters. Both Hallorann, the cook in The Shining, and Mother Abigail in The Stand are cardboard caricatures of super-black heroes, viewed through rose-tinted glasses of white-liberal guilt.”

“King hates fat people.”

King has garnered a reputation for poor representation across the board and this reputation continues to hold in regard to his fat characters. These characters are often written with specific descriptions and storylines that emphasize that the reader should absolutely be disgusted with the character’s fatness. It is not enough that they are perhaps abusive, criminal, or dangerous- they must also be fat and shamed for it.

Meg Ellison’s 2021 essay All the King’s Women: The Fats outlines the myriad of ways in which King uses fatness as a horror device in his work. Like many authors, King writes fatness as something to overcome, to fear, to disgust, and to punish. Being overweight is commonly linked to negative traits, and if it’s not, as in Ben Hascom’s situation (where he becomes thin), it’s considered a pity until resolved.

“They feel perfectly entitled to use it as a joke, or as the site of horror and degradation, or a proof of failure, or a metaphor for avarice, sexlessness, and/or evil.”

A few examples of this include:

• Sonia Kaspbrak in IT whose body is described with disgust and whose death is used as a spectacle due to her fatness.
• Myra Kaspbrak in IT who is written to be self-hating and described in dehumanizing terms such as ‘hog’.
• Harold Emery Lauder in The Stand who is also written with dehumanizing terms and whose weight is used to display his negative characteristics. 

Misogyny and Breast Obsessions

As previously mentioned, King has been criticized for his depictions of women in his work regularly throughout his career. King’s work often focuses on physical descriptions for women, while describing men in ways that serve the plot and character development. King’s obsession with women’s breasts is so well known that the subreddit r/menwritingwomen once had a post request a moratorium on Stephen King posts that received 13k+ upvotes and nearly 800 comments. The Stand, which mentions breasts roughly 32 times, even contains a scene where a character cannot resist but to imagine whether or not a dead woman’s breasts are flaccid or hard. 

When asked about this issue in his Playboy interview, King offered the following, “And when I think I’m free of the charge that most male American writers depict women as either nebbishes or bitch-goddess destroyers, I create someone like Carrie—who starts out as a nebbish victim and then becomes a bitch goddess, destroying an entire town in an explosion of hormonal rage. I recognize the problems but can’t yet rectify them.”

The character of Beverly in IT is written to enjoy the domestic violence she experiences at the hands of her husband. King prepares us to accept that she enjoys the abuse from her husband by making implications that eventually tie her memories of her father to the abuse she receives from her husband. Her character is heavily tied to sexuality in ways that the male characters are not. She is written to find it comfortable and natural that she is thought of or recognized in sexual ways by her peers with scenes focusing on her newly developed breasts.

Sexualization of Children

Beverly’s sexualization as a child is not an isolated event, nor are the examples provided the sole issue with her sexualization. IT is infamous for a sewer scene involving Beverly and her male friends that leads many to question just what the hell King was thinking. IT was written in the 80s when King was reportedly struggling with alcohol and substance abuse, though that doesn’t necessarily reason away this strange choice.

King’s descriptions often center around young girls, emphasizing their beauty and blossoming bosoms, using questionable language when writing them. Narratively, these descriptions of children’s breasts or lack thereof rarely contribute much of anything to the story.

Further Criticisms

Additional criticisms cited by reviewers include:

• Utilization of the Indian Burial Ground trope (It, Pet Sematary) as a horror device. When discussing this issue, a Redditor explained, “It situates Indigeniety as dead and in the past, it sets the westerners as victims, and it also gives them the fantasy of being able to beat the ghost, and return to living their wholesome lives.”
• Ableism, such as the case of Zelda from Pet Sematary. Her disability is written to position her as a demanding, unpleasant monster to be rid of. 
• Using racist terms such as the ‘j*ps” and likening the sound of a doorbell to a Chinese name.
• Describing a girl’s nose as ‘Jew long’ in IT. 

Where does this leave readers?

It is no secret that King himself is critical of his own work and acknowledged that he has done harmful things in his writing. While many of his fans defend King by pointing out that he uses things like racial slurs and misogyny to showcase the repulsiveness of certain characters, that reasoning falls flat for many. Primarily due to the fact that these issues are consistent across his work regardless of character perspective and ultimately becomes lazy writing at best. One can easily portray a character as a bad person without consistently relying on misogyny or bigotry to drive the point home.

King represents to many the typical white liberal man: someone who is progressive in some ways, but fails to completely reconcile with his own biases and therefore perpetuates harm. While readers have cited growth from King, he still has a ways to go. As Scott Woods states in Stephen King’s Magical Negroes : A Lecture, “He commits the sin that all well-meaning white people do: they think knowing is doing.”

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