A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

Dec 2, 2017 1:52:58 GMT Reynard said:

Dec 1, 2017 23:34:17 GMT Toasted Cheese said:

For the director to deny what was going on, does that mean the screenwriter was playing tricks on him and he didn't understand his own film? Perhaps then, Jack Sholder was the wrong choice for director if he was easily fooled. He made a better and nifty film a couple of years later with The Hidden. Heck, John Carpenter—a far superior film-maker—was approached to direct Top Gun-86', picked up on the homoeroticism in it's script and didn't want to do it. Tony Scott made it work and look at the popularity and following that film has now, so Carpenter may be homophobic, but at least he had the insight to see and read between the lines. Otherwise, the director is just going through the mechanical motions of what the script sets out, without having any passion or thoughtful perception of what they are really making.  Pretty much like most horror film directors today.   

I think it's possible that Sholder genuinely didn't understand the subtext and just filmed the script as-it-is. None of his other works I've seen have any kind of subtext that I could find, they are all just typical genre stuff. He seems to be director-for-hire rather than an auteur like Carpenter, who obviously knows how to write themes into his own scripts and properly film them, "read" other director's work and so on. Carpenter is at least very smart if not an "intellectual", a genuine artist, even though he does compromise and is not dead serious about his themes. Oh, and I don't think that not wanting to do Top Gun or any other "gay" movie makes anyone homophobic - a word that gets far too easily thrown around these days anyway.

Carpenter understands the language of cinema, is a master of shot composition and knows how to direct his actors, rather than letting them just run full reign and open interpretation for themselves. Most of Carpenter's films are fairly simple and deep subtexts are not really a big aspect of them, but he does like the theme of evil lurking in the shadows and knows how to reflect the substance of his films into his style. Sholder, like you mentioned, would have pretty much just another hack for hire.

The video I saw of Carpenter commenting on Top Gun and it's homoerotic content, was many years after the film. If he was still making that comment then, then I assumed he did have an issue with it. I suppose it doesn't necessarily means he is homophobic and we only see edited parts of interviews and things can be taken out of context, and he may have also meant that he didn't know what to make of it himself or how to present it. Tony Scott was obviously more brazen about it and wasn't on the radar at the time. I also wonder if Carpenter may have regretted, or felt bitter about not giving it a shot, since it ended up being a massive star vehicle for Cruise and was a mega mega hit.  

I guess one has to be gay to perceive veiled\masked homophobia and most people don't like to be labelled something if it pushes a button. Being gay, is also not the same as someone being in touch with their homosexual tendencies. A bisexual guy may not wish to identify as gay and he shouldn't have too. That is an identity for those that are usually 100% in tune and attracted to the same gender. Due to the messy presentation of the gay subtext in Nightmare 2, I would also say that it was too dumb to be even considered homophobic, although it was an interesting attempt at injecting something that would have been considered quite controversial at the time it was made. Audiences were more shockable than they are today, however, when it comes to seeing 2 dudes getting it on, it can still provoke juvenile disgust, contempt and fear in many.