Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Opinion

No, Michael Myers isn’t homophobic in Halloween Kills

The Chad Chucky versus the Homophobic Michael Myers is a meme that I quickly saw on Twitter after returning from watching Halloween Kills, the latest film in the rebooted series featuring a meaner, more disturbing Michael Myers and an incredibly traumatized Laurie Strode. It was a meme that I thought was funny, and thought nothing more of because that’s just Gay Twitter, baby – funny memes that mean very little to anyone in on the joke.

So I was vaguely surprised to see the take that Michael Myers is homophobic actually started to trend. If there’s one thing that anyone who is a fan of the Halloween series knows it’s this: Michael Myers origin is a mystery beyond him being the human form of pure evil. He kills because that’s just what he does. He is a man of blood and flesh (at least, from what we know so far in this remake) and the only thing that drives him is suffering and misfortune.

In a twisted and perverse way, Michael Myers is someone who values most people the same. As equal opportunities for him to enact his reign of terror on, whether as placeholders for whatever warped vision Michael has, or as empty canvases to paint with blood and gore. That has never been more clear than in Halloween Kills, with over 34 different deaths occuring in the small town of Haddonfield. It’s nothing short of a bloodbath.

Because Michael doesn’t discriminate his kills it feels ridiculous to spin that this psychotic serial killer is homophobic, but even moreso by pointing to the murder of the gay couple in Halloween Kills. Not to be a ‘Michael Myers sympathizer’, but the way he handles the death of the gay couple in the latest film feels no different to how he butchers Bob, Annie and Lynda in the original Halloween. In a strange way, it’s almost caring (for Michael’s standards) that Michael reflects Big John and Little John’s love for one another by putting them together in death.

This isn’t me arguing that Michael is a gay ally by any means, at least not in the supposed way evil killer doll Chucky apparently is, rather than me pointing out that out of all the people Michael murders in Halloween Kills it’s actually the gay couple that he treats with the least amount of disdain. It’s the bare minimum in all honesty, but it’s a far cry from Michael killing someone specifically because they’re gay.

If anything, Michael is like that edgy asshole you find online who tries to argue that they are allowed to treat people bad because ‘they hate everyone equally’ only, this time, it’s actually true.

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