Freddy’s Revenge: Gay Masterpiece or Homophobic Nightmare On Elm Street? - QBurgh

Contents:

• THE NIGHTMARE BEHD THE GAYT HORROR FILM EVER MA
• HOW A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 BEME AN INIC GAY HORROR FILM (AFTER YEARS OF BEG HATED)
• WAS THE SEND NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ABOUT GAY RIGHTS?
• 'A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2' AT 35: ROBERT ENGLUND ADDRS HOMOEROTIC SUBTEXT OF 'THE GAYT HORROR MOVIE EVER MA'
• “HE’S SI ME, AND HE WANTS TO TAKE ME AGA!” HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY FANDOM A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: FREDDY’S REVENGE
• FATE THE WX SAGA: IS FREDDIE THORP GAY OR DO HE HAVE A GIRLIEND? FAY AND NET WORTH
• QUEEN GUARIST BRIAN MAY: 'I DIDN'T KNOW' FREDDIE MERCURY WAS GAY
• BGRAPHY OF FREDDIE MERCURY – HOW DID HE DIE, WAS HE GAY?
• FREDDY’S REVENGE: GAY MASTERPIECE OR HOMOPHOBIC NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET?
• INSI FREDDIE DENNIS GAY’S GAY RUMORS AND HIS DATG LIFE

THE NIGHTMARE BEHD THE GAYT HORROR FILM EVER MA

Freddy and Jse were timate — they seemed to share a secret — and the subtext of that relatnship gave Freddy’s Revenge a homoerotic unrcurrent that eventually ma a cult classic. ”However much Englund held back, the damage was done: That scene helps tablish the lible imprsn of Freddy’s Revenge as the gayt slasher film ever ma.

Screenwrer David Chask spent years refg to acknowledge any tentnal subtext his script — a posn he has sce reversed — and director Jack Sholr claimed not to have noticed the movie’s gayns durg filmg. Watchg Freddy’s Revenge now, ’s hard to prehend that there was ever a bate over the film’s subtext, which be jt pla text the more blatantly homoerotic scen.

His sexual ambiguy ma him the perfect choice for Jse, but gave the homophobic tractors of Freddy’s Revenge somethg to latch on to.

HOW A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 BEME AN INIC GAY HORROR FILM (AFTER YEARS OF BEG HATED)

And even though Patton has embraced his “scream queen” stat — he had jt e om signg tographs and panel appearanc at San Diego Comic-Con this July afternoon — he remas driven by a need to set the rerd straight about the film that has hnted him for the past 30 Patton, whose only major film role before he played Jse was as a gay teenager later revealed to be a trans woman (played by Karen Black) Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean, the persistent cricism of Freddy’s Revenge was s own kd of nightmare: His sexual inty was exriated for g the film — and wh , his reer. As the actor tells , he beme pigeonholed as gay long before beg an out leadg man was a possibily. At the same time, even as the AIDS crisis cimated the gay muny, Patton was forced to stay the closet, rtricted by a bs he eventually chose to leave the stigmatizatn of queer reprentatn over the last 30 years, perceptn of Freddy’s Revenge has shifted: The heavily d queerns that was once a mark agast has bee a charmgly dated relic of another time, and a sellg pot for cult nnoissrs.

Inial reviews, though largely negative, did not pot out the film’s homoerotic slant, although Variety lled Patton’s Jse “strange enough to nstute an outsir prence, ” a scriptor that certaly signifi is some bate over where the first direct mentn of the film’s gay subtext appeared.

Patton and Sholr ce the Village Voice, while Chask believ was actually the gay publitn The Advote. The article qutn lled Freddy’s Revenge, by Sholr’s rellectn, “the gayt horror film ever ma. While there’s no doubtg the opprsive homophobia of 1980s Hollywood, the specific circumstanc surroundg the film are often a matter of "he said, he said.

WAS THE SEND NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET ABOUT GAY RIGHTS?

”By ntrast, Patton sists that Chask, stead of merely stayg quiet, repeatedly placed the blame for the queer terpretatn of the film on Patton’s “too gay” performance, rather than on the script.

“I don’t rell any terview where I would have ed the words ‘too gay’ but if I implied somethg like that and/or said anythg to e Mark grief, I certaly apologize, ” he wrote.

Deliberately or otherwise, Patton’s associatn wh what me to be known as the “gayt horror film ever ma” — while he was beg told to keep his sexualy a secret — left lastg srs. ”“She gave me two pi of After Dark, which was a gay theater magaze om New York, ” he relled. It had always been a fe le to walk: While gog to gay bars wasn’t somethg you had to hi 1970s New York, “you didn’t go to an dn and talk to the stg director about beg gay, ” he Patton ma his 1982 Broadway but Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean — playg the same queer character he would play the film adaptatn later that year — The Advote requted an terview wh him.

'A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2' AT 35: ROBERT ENGLUND ADDRS HOMOEROTIC SUBTEXT OF 'THE GAYT HORROR MOVIE EVER MA'

Chask nied that any of the chang ma durg productn had anythg to do wh s gay ntent.

But Chask went on to note that terms of the gay them, “very few people on the productn ‘got .

’” It’s possible that some of the addns to the film that Patton terpreted as homoerotic — and that the movie’s large queer fanbase has e to accept as such — were not directly tend to be.

“HE’S SI ME, AND HE WANTS TO TAKE ME AGA!” HOMOSEXUALY AND GAY FANDOM A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET: FREDDY’S REVENGE

”“I mean, clearly [there’s] the gay S&M bar, and the ass-whippg and all of the other stuff, and some of the l that people have picked up on, like, ‘He’s si me, ’” Sholr said. “This is all kd of hdsight, but may be that the fact Mark was a closeted gay at that pot, or at least as far as the film bs went, that that was part of what was g through there, ” Sholr suggted of why Freddy’s Revenge read as queer. “It never even occurred to me that he was gay — although he wasn’t too great the makeout scen, so I should have picked up on .

FATE THE WX SAGA: IS FREDDIE THORP GAY OR DO HE HAVE A GIRLIEND? FAY AND NET WORTH

When asked directly if he believ stg Patton ntributed to the gay subtext of the movie, Chask wrote, “Of urse. Now that the ti has turned toward wispread acceptance of gay reprentatn, Chask is upont about the queer unrton he liberately wrote to his script. As far as his motivatn for “queerg” A Nightmare on Elm Street, he said he was rpondg to the social and polil climate for gay people the 1980s.

Whout directly brgg up the issu of homophobia and the AIDS epimic, he wanted to explore and rpond to the gay panic that was grippg the natn. “Homophobia was skyrocketg and I began to thk about our re dience — adolcent boys — and how all of this stuff might be tricklg down to their psych at an age when ragg hormon often produce dreams and urg that make them (if only unnscly) beg to qutn their own sexualy, ” Chask wrote.

QUEEN GUARIST BRIAN MAY: 'I DIDN'T KNOW' FREDDIE MERCURY WAS GAY

In a follow-up email to BuzzFeed News, Patton said, “David apologized to me the most general way about offendg me the prs and on film, but nnot rell ever havg said I was too gay. “When he was backed to a rner about beg a gay movie, he [claimed he] wanted to liberate his gay iends, ” Patton said.

BGRAPHY OF FREDDIE MERCURY – HOW DID HE DIE, WAS HE GAY?

It wasn’t that he wasn’t beg offered parts, he said, but that he was emotnally draed by what happened wh A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 and fed up wh the homophobic culture of 1980s Hollywood. ”The real turng pot me 1987 when he was offered the role of a gay character on a TV pilot. “I was stg at a table wh 14 gay men who were tellg me thgs like, ‘Will your girliend feel OK about this?

It was through nventns and the horror muny at large that Patton realized the posive effect Freddy’s Revenge had on so many fans, particularly queer people who so rarely see themselv reprented sce Patton had purposely extrited himself om Hollywood — and distanced himself om any discsn of Freddy’s Revenge — he was surprised to learn that the movie had transned om disappotg failure the ey of Nightmare fans to a cult gay classic. And he was even more surprised to fd out that he’d bee an unr-the-radar gay in — after all, his other major role was as a queer teenager a movie -starrg Cher. Patton scribed fan teractns wh gay men who tell him, “You were the first person I ever saw onscreen that I felt would love me back.

When asked specifilly, per Patton’s claim, that he had exploed the homophobic atmosphere at the time for the film, Chask wrote, “When you put that way, sounds almost diabolil.

FREDDY’S REVENGE: GAY MASTERPIECE OR HOMOPHOBIC NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET?

In addn to takg a new narrative directn, Freddy’s Revenge is also chock-full of homoerotic subtext. There was a Cracked article that named Freddy’s Revenge the most untentnally gay horror movie ever ma. And then there was the Never Sleep Aga documentary which wrer David Chask fally admted— a somewhat awkward way, when put on the spot—that the homoerotic unr/overton had been tentnal after took A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 thirty-one years to e out of the closet, but fally has and serv your support.

As fans have poted out, the gay subtext throughout the send film the anchise is absolutely unniable!

INSI FREDDIE DENNIS GAY’S GAY RUMORS AND HIS DATG LIFE

Obvly this has left many fans wonrg…did the creators of the send Nightmare On Elm Street movie purposely lace the script and movie wh gay subtext to help bat or explo the wispread homophobia of the era? There is no qutn that the send Nightmare On Elm Street movie is filled wh gay subtext.

Here are some of the most well known gay clns that created the most “homoerotic” horror movie of all time!