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[rivkat]

I’ve been rereading Stephen King for comfort reasons, and I have a couple of observations. First, The Dead Zone—which posits political assassination as an actual solution to a potential presidential madman—hits a bit different these days. Second (and not unrelatedly), while I am happy enough to get the expanded version of The Stand, it was a huge mistake for King to try to change the setting from 1980 to 1990; random updated pop culture references can’t disguise the fact that America changed substantially in that decade, such that characters and settings that made sense in 1980 were no longer plausible in 1990. The teenaged, white Nick Andros would almost certainly not have used the word “Negro” to describe an old woman in 1990. The singer Larry Underwood would have different beliefs about music from the 70s, when he was a young child rather than a teen/early adult. From attitudes towards single mothers to how racism was expressed to the dumping practices of fabric mills, the revised version still reads like 1980, but with a mention of rap on the radio, and it’s not good.

Comments

[chloes_mom]

The expanded version of "The Stand", is that the directors cut that put back in a lot of what was edited out? I had that version and the replaced scenes made a lot of the story make much more sense. I don't remember the story being brought into the 90's though. Although it's been YEARS since I read that version so I could be wrong.

[rivkat]

Yes, that's the director's cut--Wikipedia says the shift to 1990 happened at the same time. You could have missed it precisely because everyone behaves like it's 1980. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stand

[chloes_mom]

OK. Thanks!

[marcelo]

That's an interesting point.King was/is [I don't think I've read anything anything from him newer than The Dark Tower] quite good capturing a very specific place and culture, and extrapolations thereof, so I guess it makes sense you can't move the setting in time or space without weakening the story. (I guess that can be part of what's going on with the 2025 remake of The Running Manbut to be honest I think there's a *lot* else going on there...).

BTW, that icon definitely brought back memories...

[rachelmanija]

I totally agree. I like a lot of the added scenes, but I literally always forget the updated time frame because it makes no sense.