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A Nightmare on Elm Street: a Cultural Nightmare Difficult to Escape

2016; Autonomous University of Barcelona; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5565/rev/brumal.220

2014-7910

Erika Tiburcio Moreno,

Media Influence and Health

The aim of this article is to analyze A Nightmare on Elm Street from a Cultural Studies perspective, understanding it as a historical source which offers a deeper knowledge of the eighties. In the United States, those years were marked by a conservative discourse that permeated many products of the popular culture, such as horror movies. Nonetheless, A Nightmare is different from these other movies. The boundaries between fantasy and reality boundaries were blurred to create confusion in order to make it impossible to differentiate between the two worlds. Indeed, this was the same thing that happened in the real world with the serial killer, who was simplified, turned into an evil being without any human traits. Likewise, the protagonist Freddy Krueger displays several attributes that turn him in a frightening monster, a representation directly influenced by the historical tensions and events in the country at that time.