Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site decwrl.UUCP 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 Lines: 20 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.