Ethnic Avenue – The Street That Crosses All the Others

One of my favorite horror-movie characters of all-time is Freddy Krueger. Now, I’m not a huge fan of horror movies in general–since shit’s scary enough already–but as horror characters go, Freddy’s the one, hands down. And I don’t think I’m alone. Actually, I think he’s quite popular among ethnic people. Even the Fresh Prince made a song about him once upon a time.

I think there’s a couple of reasons for this.

First of all, we like that Freddy Krueger is ambiguously ethnic—or at least blue collar. How do we know that? Because he was always chasing white girls–and look at his name. I know what you’re going to say: “c’mon dude, Krueger is obviously a European surname.” But doesn’t that first name make you feel like he might be half-something? I’ve never known anyone named “Freddy” who wasn’t actually an Alfredo or Francisco on his birth certificate. And, you know Freddy didn’t come from means. Before he got burned by the neighborhood parents, he was the poor kid on the block. Krueger is the underdog-getting-his-sweet-revenge in all of us.

Then there’s the way that Freddy Krueger does his thing. As Tommy Davidson hilariously pointed out back in the day, Freddy knew how to make grisly over-kills funny, at least for himself. He got into it. He had a good time.

But like all good things, there’s always someone there ready to fuck it up. And, like with many things these days, the way to do that is to try to squeeze a few more shekels out of it by remaking it. Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) opens tonight and already the reviews are in. The first one I read gave it a half-star out of four. Half.

Freddy Krueger used to be such a fun guy.

Sure, he wore a ratty sweater, had a complexion like a blister-covered relief map, repeatedly invaded people’s dreams, then shoved his deadly finger knives into their torsos. But he had such a sense of humor about the whole thing.

Unfortunately, in the remake…good ol’ Fred loses any sense of playful shock he once possessed and turns into a generic figure meticulously manufactured to simultaneously gross and freak us out. It doesn’t work.

That sucks. The one thing that made Freddy different was his gusto, his style. Next thing you know, they’re going to make him not ethnic anymore—and wealthy.