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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decwrl!lasher@via.DEC (Lew Lasher - DTN 381-2651)
From: lasher@via.DEC (Lew Lasher - DTN 381-2651)
Newsgroups: net.motss
Subject: Anti-gay theme of \"Fright Night\"
Message-ID: <3738@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Aug-85 08:30:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.3738
Posted: Mon Aug 19 08:30:33 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 22:36:06 EDT
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
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Recently I saw the film "Fright Night", a comic-horror movie aimed primarily
at a teenage market.  Overall I enjoyed the movie; it succeeded as light
entertainment by being both a horror movie and a parody of a horror movie.

I was disturbed, however, by the film's sub-textual anti-gay message.
The "new neighbors" who move in to renovate the old, charming, haunted
house next door are a gay couple.  (One of the two appears to be bisexual.)
It is not unknown for vampire movies to suggest sexuality, and it is even
quite common for contemporary teenage horror movies to be anti-sex (Woman
goes out alone seeking sex; woman gets brutally murdered "getting what she
deserves").  (Incidentally, the only roles played by women in "Fright Night"
are as mother, girlfriend, or murder victim.)  The message of "Fright Night"
seems to be:  Beware those attractive gentrifying gay men; benign by day,
at night they purvey mayhem, recruiting adolescent boys to their ranks and
killing innocent women.  With all the blood spilling around in this movie,
I was half-expecting an explicit reference to AIDS.

Nonetheless, the gay man who saw the movie with me did not share my view.
I was curious whether others in net-land agreed with me, or whether I am
just super-sensitive to this sort of garbage.