The Mayor of Elm Street: The Life and Times of Mark Patton

"I liked to spy on Madonna and I liked to go to dinners at Merv Griffin's house."

Outfest in Los Angeles is always a mixed bag.  By that, I mean I hate it.  It's a schlep from Santa Monica.  The people border on pretentious and I hate pretension.  I don't like crowds. I don't like running into ex-boyfriends.  I don't like feeling like I'm being sized up... I could go on.  However, this year Outfest was worth the effort because they programmed a documentary that was made just for us:

Scream, Queen! is a documentary about Mark Patton, America’s sweetheart and final boy from A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (the only movie poster gay enough to adorn my bathroom wall).  

For those of you who don't know all about A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge, I forgive you (but catch up).

Freddy's Revenge is a gay movie about a gay boy in high school who is coming to terms with the fact that he's gay and, as he gets a handle on all that being gay entails, he manifests Freddy Krueger from his basement to vanquish his enemies.  

An external manifestation of his internal psychosis, when the going gets tough, there’s Freddy - whether that's in gym class or when he’s trying to have a sleepover with his hot best friend and not get wood or when he's with his gorgeous girlfriend and she wants to have sex with him and he can't get wood or when he go to a neighborhood kegger and finally realizes that straight people are mostly trash and deserve to be murdered.  Freddy's always there.  I think this is a sweet story about how it’s good to let your inner demon run wild sometimes.  

Point being!  

This super-gay movie exists, and people pretended it wasn’t a gay movie and then they started making fun of it for being a gay movie and now it’s revered as one of our great queer films and studied in colleges.  

You live long enough…

When I started this blog ten years ago, it came out of a place of anger.

I was angry about the way people talked about gays in horror.  I was angry about having to fight for a seat at the table of something that I loved my whole life when other folks were welcomed in just for wearing a black t-shirt.  

I was angry that a horror film could have everything but anal prolapse and still not be considered "queer" by the masses.

It made me crazy when people would laugh at me when I suggested horror films had queer subtext.  

Interview with a Vampire is a film about two men who adopt a daughter. 

Fright Night is a movie about 2 queer kids negotiating their relationship with a doofy straight kid who becomes obsessed with his gay vampire neighbors because he doesn't know how to negotiate his own sexuality.  Facts are facts, America!

Ten years ago, the only time the populous discussed gays in horrors was when they were calling Mark Patton a "faggot" or recognizing how "fucked up" Trans people were because they were only ever presented to them as psychopathic killers (yes, I love Dressed to Kill and Sleepaway Camp, but also fuck Dressed to Kill and Sleepaway Camp). 

Gay people were seldom acknowledged in horror and when we were, it was as a punchline or used as part of a morality parable on how, by make bad choices (ie: being gay), we deserve to die.  

The villain in the Lauren Bacall epic musical-horror-fantasia, The Fan, sets a guy on fire for giving him a blow job.  Cruising opens with a gay man stabbed to death for having gay sex (complete with a "dilated anus").  

The audience is meant to root against the queers.  We get what we have coming to us.  Elm Street 2 dared to be different.  

Freddy's Revenge dared to have a queer kid front and center and, as a result of the way people responded to that queer kid, he had to leave Hollywood altogether.  That's deeply fucked and the system that allowed that to happen is exactly the same all these years later. 

The older I get, the more respect I have for boys who can't pass.  Mark Patton doesn't pass.  He reads as queer in Freddy's Revenge and that's gorgeous.  But, much like Elizabeth Berkley after Showgirls, he took a bullet.  Everyone who made the film continued to work, but not Mark - because he was gay.  The powers that be blamed him for any of the shortcomings of the film and he stopped booking roles and moved to Mexico.

I wish things had changed in the past 35 years, but nothing has.  If anything, it's worse.  The same straight bros are in charge.  Hacks are still given the keys to franchise films.  The common thread underneath everything is still homophobia and misogyny and that all comes up in this documentary.

Watching Scream Queen!, I became angry all over again.  I was angry that the director and writer of Freddy’s Revenge refused to acknowledge the queerness of their movie.  Only when it became cult and popular - only when the rumblings of queer horror fandom presented themselves in mainstream outlets like Buzzfeed and at ComicCon did they start to take credit for the film.  
Mark was left behind.

Scream, Queen! is a very good.  I wasn't expecting an Outfest movie to draw up so many emotions.  I wasn't expecting this film to be so layered and mature.  It doesn’t shy away from presenting Mark Patton as a complicated and messy figure.  As a result, it only makes him all the more admirable.  A true activist. 

Mark Patton, like Jesse, is a survivor of a lost generation.  I'm forty this year.  The entire generation of queer men that came before me, of which Mark is a part of, is dead and they died of AIDS.  That's a horror and a tragedy that no one can make sense of and it still resonates.   My generation had no mentors.  We had no one there to show us how to get older - how to end a shitty relationship or remain friends with an ex or how bad exfoliating scrubs actually are for our faces.  But Mark is still here.  He's still fighting and his story is far from over.

"I take the bricks that people throw at me and I make a firm foundation." -Mark Patton

I went to this film with no expectations and wound up an emotional mess by the end.  It hits hard.  

I didn't realize how much baggage we all carry around.  I wasn't expecting to see the director and screenwriter of Freddy's Revenge actively gaslighting Mark, thirty-five years later.  The casual homophobia in those moments is something I grapple with every single day in my job (working for a TV network) and I wasn't prepared for how viscerally I would react to seeing Mark Patton, someone I grew up admiring, put in that situation. 

This movie made me angry all over again, but it also made me hopeful for the future because there's strength in our solidarity as horror queers.  I never realized how being queer horror fans binds us all (you and me and Mark Patton).  This movie is about community and, even at my age and being the jaded queen, I am, I've never felt more seen or heard or represented.

Ten years ago, gay horror fans weren't a thing as far as Fangoria and Blumhouse were concerned, but thanks to folks like Brian Juergens and his Campblood.org and John&Lance at Kindertrauma.com and present day icons like Michael Varrati and his Dead for Filth podcast,  we're not in the shadows anymore.  

This movie made me feel like the last ten years have all been worth it.  
We're not alone.  We're not crazy.

FaggotyAss Shout-out to Robert Rusler who has an absolutely electric moment in the documentary as he comes to Mark Patton's defense when the shady director, once again, pretends he had no idea the movie was gay.  As if Vamp weren't enough!?  Talk about an ally.  

Your grapefruit basket is in the mail, Robert.

Secondary Shout-Out to Mark Patton bringing his purse out on stage with him for the Nightmare 2 reunion like Aretha Franklin.  Icon.

passion for life

This morning, I was fixing my morning coffee when I noticed that there were TWO roaches in my kitchen.  Horrors.  I feel violated.  Will this nightmare called Summer ever end?!  After bleaching every surface and scouring the internet for a new apartment, I remembered that one of history's most important figures had a similar problem.  A calm washed over me.  Things could always be worse.  I could be living in the Empire of the Ants!

Before she reigned supreme as the Queen of Television, Joan Collins was struggling.  Down on her luck and married to Anthony Newley, Joan spent most of the 1970s selling timeshares South of the Florida Coast.  Her days were spent schilling Swedish meatballs to white trash tourists who were inevitably more interested in a free boat ride than than they were in buying communal vacation property.

“Have you ever taken a good close look at what the ant is all about?”

Joan made the most of a bad situation, using the experience as practice for interacting with aggressive Hollywood moguls and undignified starlets.  These were the years where Joan was refining her signature style - layering turbans over her wig, full face and lashes coupled with ostentatious earrings.  You'd be hard-pressed to find a more elegant realtor.

Then there was this one trip where all her potential buyers were attacked and killed by giant, mutated ants.

"I'm still in charge here."

In what would become her trademark, Joan turned tragedy into triumph.   She came back to the states - dumped Limpdick Newley and never looked back.  Gone were the days of living in her sister's shadow.  Like the Phoenix from the ashes, Alexis Carrington was born - and all thanks to monstrous, genetically-mutated ants.

Let Empire of the Ants serve as a reminder that our best years are still to come.  We will make it through August and live happily in Autumn.  Speaking of...there are only two months to Halloween.  Whether she's in Monaco or St Tropez, Joan Collins does not let the seasons interfere with her yachting schedule.  Stock up on cottage cheese and celery, dolls, because it's time to start our regimes.  I think I'll be a slutty real estate agent this year.

bake a casserole and chill some white wine...

It looks like Heaven gained another angel today.  Pour some on the floor for Karen Black - she's landing the plane herself!!  In all seriousness, Karen was a true gem who added legitimacy to dozens of schlocky horror films in a career that spanned six decades.

I think we should all spend some time this weekend paying her the tribute she deserves. 

We can start by watching  Trilogy of Terror - in which she plays not one, but FOUR roles - then Tobe Hooper's underrated Invaders from Mars remake in which she battles Stan Winston monsters and Louise Fletcher - then Burnt Offerings, the feature debut from Dark Shadows creator Dan Curtis that features Karen living with a belligerently drunk Oliver Reed and Ms. Bette Davis in a haunted house - then we'll watch Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses - I even have a V/H/S copy of Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean where she plays a Transexual who used to be Mark Patton... I could go on and on.  When we get tired of watching TV, we can play all her songs from the Nashville soundtrack. We may have to clear an entire week.  You guys can stay on the couch.  

Karen was an artist.  Versatile and prolific.  

Rest in Peace, doll.

come back to the five and dime...

“David would just blame me any time it came up alluding to something along the lines of, ‘Well, he’s a big old fag and he chose to play the part in a big old fag way.’”

-Mark Patton

There's a pretty major cover story on everyone's favorite Cher-adjacent gay horror icon, Nightmare on Elm Street 2's Mark Patton, over at HIV+ Magazine.  I didn't know that was a thing before today, but it's well worth a read nonetheless.

This is class-act behavior on the part of Mark to use his niche celebrity to try and break down some stigmas and discuss Hollywood's perpetual discomfort with the gays.

Congratulations, Mark.  Your grapefruit basket is in the mail!

Inside Amy Steel

“Keep clean during your menstrual cycle.”

Today I was on the elliptical listening to this months' best gym mixtape (Duel of the Fates and the Lea Michele/Melissa Benoist cover of NewYork State of Mind on repeat for an hour).  I was clicking through the cable channels when I happened upon Sandra Lee wearing a buttercream and yellow Stepford Wives apron.  She was fixing some Costco spinach and tomato wraps into tortilla chips to go with her shitty edamame guacamole dip (why she didn't just buy the Costco tortilla chips is beyond me) and it all got me thinking about feminism.

Gays can have a complicated relationship with feminism. One minute, they're watching Real Housewives, the next they're not holding the door for ladies and grabbing at their behinds without consent while using the B-word. Tricky. I don't think this exists so much in the horror community. We worship our heroines.

Last week I touched upon how, in my mind, horror movies have always been pro-women and gays.  Even though the real world is unforgiving, women always manage to come out on top in the end of a horror movie.  That’s why I love them! And there’s no better Final Woman to kick us off than Miss Amy Steel from Friday the 13th Part 2. 

There’s a reason that this is the scary movie they watch on Halloween in Mean Girls - it’s amazing!

I can’t pinpoint why Friday the 13th Part 2 works so well.  It doesn't have the tightest story in the series; it's not the most phantasmagorical nor does it bother to abide by any of the rules of space/time continuum.  Yet, there’s something special about it - a movie brazen enough to feature a Shih Tzu called "Muffin" as a protagonist. 

It certainly doesn't hurt that Friday the 13th Part 2 has the highest gay to straight ration of any of the Fridays (be it the hot gay in the wheelchair or the hot gay with the slingshot who was on Million Dollar Listing last year or the blonde maybe-gay with the clipboard…). 

Maybe it’s the fact that it opens with a twelve minute art film prologue starring Adrienne King and a cat; or maybe it’s the comedy stylings of sexy beanpole Stu Charno playing scenes in a loincloth – or it could be the fact that the entire cast seems to genuinely enjoy one another.  Whatever the cause, this movie is magical.

While there’s genuine power in objectification (just ask Matthew Bomer), Amy Steele is not a feminist in the Showgirls/Megan Fox sense of the word.  She's the kind of feminist who wears flats and refuses to brush her hair; the type who only owns sports bras. 

Amy (an unabashed ginger) is a developmental psychologist tomboy who decided to work at a camp for the summer.  You know, to practice.  

Arriving late to her first day of Counselor Training in her vintage red bug and sporting a clashing pink peasant skirt to show off her field hockey physique, Amy knows how to make an entrance.  She's self-assured and bold. Despite her ethereal demeanor, within two hours Ms. Steel manages to exert her charms at every turn and has all the boys eating out of her hand. Feminism.

Like all strong and independent women, Amy knows the importance of taking a minute to enjoy a good drink.  Accordingly, she hauls half the counselors far away from the cabins of Camp Crystal Lake and to the safety of the local pub where she proceeds to get hammered and talk about the psychological shortcomings of men.  A girl after my own heart! 

She waxes poetic about Jason's emotional well being.  Preparing to enter her last semester of grad school, Amy intuits that Jason must have survived his drowning and must still be living in the woods like a feral animal all these years.  Then she calls him the R-word. Tough love. I like it. A good final girl always thinks on her feet.

Like all stars who refuse to be confined to gender-stereotypes, Amy certainly knows how to make good TV.  When she’s in her final showdown with Jason (in one of the tightest ten minute sequences in the entire franchise), she pulls out every stop.  I’m talking costume changes. She falls out windows, she trudges through streams, she wields chainsaws, she communes with rats, she even pees her pants - a Stunt Queen through and through! 

Amy Steel is the only Final Girl who commands Jason to kneel at her feet before killing him - and he complies! Who says horror movies aren't feminist?  I don't recall Amy Adams getting General Zod to bow down in that Superman movie and that cost a lot more than Friday the 13th Part 2!!

Let us sleep tight knowing that for every disposable movie where women are treated like props to service reductive straight male wish fulfillment, there is a Friday the 13th Part 2 out there. Thirty years have gone by and we're still talking about it.  Who's on top and who's on bottom now?

FaggotyAss Drinking Game - shooters any time you see a closeup of someone's hands or feet (just make sure you don't have any place to be the rest of the evening).

every gay deserves a lesbian bestie...

...and mine is going to be Amber Heard!

We've been following your progress for quite some time, Amber.  But going to the GLAAD awards with your girlfriend has officially earned you the crown.  You are the greatest Scream Queen of our generation!  Congratulations, babydoll.  You have made us all proud and your grapefruit basket is in the mail.

Now hurry up and come over, I need you to drive me to the Home Depot and show me how to use a belt sander.

Don't Fuck with the Babysitter.

"Get the fuck out of the water, now!"

-Elizabeth Shue 

Piranha 3 (2010)

The Good.

1. Piranha 3 cast Elizabeth Shue and Adam Scott as its heroes.  Get out of my head!

2.  At one point, Adam Scott wears metal, Terry Richardson style frames and I actually gasped.

3.  The Back to the Future 2 reunion of Elizabeth and Christopher Lloyd made me feel warm and fuzzy all over (even though I'm certain that Christopher Lloyd would have no recollection of ever having worked with Elizabeth prior).

4.  Elizabeth Shue.  Congratulations, Mamma - you're back in the game and better than ever!

The Bad.

1.  This is not a movie in 3D.  Take off the glasses, you'll see.

2.  Eli Roth and cloyingly precocious child actors nearly ruin the delicate balance of tone Piranha 3 was going for.  Eli, do us all a favor, doll, and stay behind the camera.  xoxo

The Exquisite.

Move over Katie Cassidy.  Back off, Amber Heard. There's a new Scream Queen in town and she's British!  Kelly Brook.  Now and forever.  I love her hair.  I love her kind eyes.  I love Kelly Brook.