time warp

20 years later, do we still care that Kelly Rowland called Freddy a “f*ggot in a Christmas sweater”?

By · 39 comments · Updated on January 26, 2024
Image Credit: ‘Freddy Vs. Jason,’ Warner Home Video

Twenty years ago this week, two terrifying titans of horror went head-to-head in a bloody brawl that genre fans had been dying to see for quite some time.

Released in theaters on August 15, 2003, Freddy Vs. Jason pitted dream demon Freddy Krueger against the hockey mask-wearing Jason Voorhees. Their respective slasher series, Nightmare On Elm Street and Friday The 13th, were inescapable in the ’80s, though well past their prime at this point. Still, nostalgia was enough to fuel fervor for this battle royale.

But, two decades on, Freddy Vs. Jason isn’t so much remembered for its clash of characters or its inventive kills, as much as it is for its use of one specific word: F*ggot.

That it was uttered by none other than Kelly Rowland—of Destiny’s Child fame—makes it stand out all the more. Is it an embarrassing and offensive relic of a different time? Or, has sentiment around the word changed enough that we can now reclaim it as an iconic moment in queer cinema history? And most importantly: Can Kelly say f*g?

Wherever you stand, the divisive dialogue remains a subject of debate to this day.

In the film, a fading Freddy is trapped in Hell, unable to haunt the dreams of children who have long stopped fearing him. But he concocts a plan to bring horror back to Elm Street by resurrecting Jason Voorhees and setting him loose on the people of Springwood with his machete.

Eventually, Freddy gets jealous of Jason’s murderous rampage, and the two slashers set their sights on each other, with our group of teen “heroes” caught in the crossfire.

Among them is Kia Waterson—your standard best-friend-in-a-horror-who-almost-certainly-isn’t-going-to-survive role—played by Rowland. Destiny’s Child hadn’t officially disbanded by that point (the excellent Destiny Fulfilled was still on the way), but it’s interesting to note that Rowland’s big-screen debut came out the same summer as Beyoncé’s first record, Dangerously In Love. They were both charting new courses for their solo careers… and Rowland’s involved yelling homophobic slurs at a demon.

(Though, that’s not to denigrate Miss Rowland. The massive success of “Dilemma,” her duet with Nelly the year prior, reportedly delayed the release of Dangerously In Love—so credit where credit’s due.)

Kelly Rowland at the ‘Freddy Vs. Jason’ premiere in 2003 | Image Credits: Getty Images

Anyway, in the film, Rowland’s Kia intervenes just as Freddy is about to pounce on her friends. Unable to overpower the supernatural villain, she instead uses her words—and what words they are!

“So you’re the one everyone’s afraid of?,” she taunts. “Tell me something: What kind of f*ggot runs around in a Christmas sweater? I mean, come on, get real. You’re not even scary!”

It’s a truly shocking moment—basically out of nowhere, both in the context of the movie and the broader world of cinema at the time. Sure, you might have still heard it in a drama every once in a while, when we’re to understand the person using it was explicitly in the wrong. But the more casual, tossed-off pejorative usage had all but disappeared in movies after the ’80s.

So how, exactly, did it end up in Freddy Vs. Jason?

Well, suspect number one would of course be the script. It was penned by Damian Shannon and Mark Swift, the duo who would go on to write the 2009 reboot of Friday The 13th and the 2017 Baywatch remake. In a 2016 interview with Bloody Disgusting, the pair were vehement that they did not write that specific line:

“All we can tell you is…we didn’t write it,” Shannon and Swift shared, “and we were really shocked when we heard it in the movie. We complained about it after the first screening, but it was never changed. It’s a real stain on the movie, in our opinion.”

If not them, then who? The response almost seems to implicate Rowland, who may have improvised it herself. Or, perhaps the line was fed to her as an alternate from the director or someone else on set that day. Regardless, somehow multiple people involved in the production let it slide. So far as we can tell, Rowland’s never commented on that specific line of dialogue, and we’re left with no definitive answer.

And, hey, if you want to criticize the movie for “endorsing” use of the word, it’s worth noting that Rowland’s character does get brutally killed moments later by Jason and Freddy. Look, she was punished for it after all!

Related:

No hack jobs: 10 queer slasher movies that are good for a scare—or a laugh

Don’t pick up the phone, don’t answer the door, and—whatever you do—don’t turn off the TV… because there are plenty of queer slasher movies to watch!

Which brings us to our final question: Do we still care 20 years later?

For many of us, the word “f*g” haunted our childhoods like a… well, like Freddy Kreuger himself! It was a slur, it was derogatory, it was used by our bullies to make us feel bad about ourselves. However, times have changed, and the word’s undergone a reclamation, of sorts. Now it’s not uncommon for those within the queer community to use it socially, brandishing it as a label worn with pride, or even using it to refer to their best Judys.

Take, for example, beloved queer-inclusive comedy The Other Two. In its first season, a presumably straight, cis female character (played by Kate Berlant) uses it to tell Cary Dubek (Drew Tarver) how much she’s obsessed with him, commenting on how the word is appropriated with positive intent: “I’m gagging for you, f*ggot!” It’s a moment that’s been enjoyed, meme’d, and celebrated across the internet. Clearly something’s shifted.

And, speaking of memes, it’s become an in-joke on Gay Twitter/X to determine which celebrities can and can’t say “f*g,” typically concluding that allies—specifically women—who have supported and given back to the LGBTQ+ community should be given the freedom to.

In that case, hasn’t Rowland done enough for us? Even beyond Destiny’s Child, she’s hand-delivered plenty of bops over the years—a number of which (looking at you, “Commander“) probably get played at queer bars and nightclubs more than anywhere else. She’s also guested on ballroom competition show Legendary, released a cover of CeCe Peniston classic “Finally” for Pride 2021, and supported various AIDS awareness organizations.

In other words, Kelly Rowland loves the gays and we love her. Does that mean she can say “f*g” then, too? Well, let’s ask the audience:

Of course, we’d prefer if she uses it in the more modern, positive way moving forward—and not as an insult, like she did in Freddy Vs. Jason. But, really, she was only using “f*ggot” to comment on Freddy Kreuger’s classic red-and-green-striped sweater, and even that‘s been reclaimed by the community (see below). So maybe Rowland was ahead of her time?

Even if you prefer not to use the word yourself, hopefully you’re able to laugh at the moment 20 years on. That it’s so completely out of left-field and said by an icon like Kelly Rowland in a schlocky mainstream horror? We haven’t brushed up on the work of Susan Sontag in a while, but we’re pretty sure that falls under her definition of camp.

Freddy Vs. Jason is available for digital rental/purchase via Amazon Prime Video, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu, and YouTube TV.

Related:

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