A reminder that vice and excess is fun – really fun.
When it comes to films, there’s cult, there’s mainstream, there’s popular and then there’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The 1975 adaptation of Richard O’Brien’s rock-musical, itself inspired by the drive-in movies of the 50s is proof that initial reaction and box office mean very little. When Rocky Horror first debuted in cinemas it was met with dismal box office.
Maybe it was poor timing, maybe people just didn’t “get it” it had been fifteen odd years since the old horror films the musical was lampooning had gone out of fashion. Gone were the It Came from Outer Space or I Was a Teenage Werewolf style movies, and instead horror had matured into works like Rosemary’s Baby or The Exorcist. It would be like making a film parodying torture porn films when people are more interested in the A24 films.
It’s hard to pin point just what it is about Rocky Horror that has captured imaginations quite so vividly over the past fifty years. It’s not a star-studded cast – in fact it’s fronted by a bunch of nobodies really, based on a cult stage show that also tanked when it came to America. It’s fairly cheap, at times hilariously so. Yet, the film has spawned merchandise, a remake, a Glee episode tribute, has never been out of cinemas and the stage show not only tours but pulls in huge names to be in it.
Cult films cannot be designed
Veteran critic Mark Kermode has often stated his theory that cult films cannot be designed. They have to be films that wanted to be mainstream but for some reason didn’t and a rabid fanbase found the film and embraced it. It’s why the likes of Sharknado or Croctopus or Shark Exorcist (yep, real movie that exists) just don’t fit the bill. They want to be cult, and so will never be cult. No, Rocky Horror wanted to be a big musical hit. It has the backing of producer savant Lou Adler, it had 20th Century Fox money.
The reason it’s endured is, like it’s characters, it’s so aggressively, unapologetically itself. From it’s come-as-you-are attitude to sexuality, it’s hit-after-hit music, to it’s slow morphing from anarchic parody to soulful meditation of belonging, it’s singular. It might be that last point that really solidified why it’s endured so long.
A rite-of-passage
Yes, of course it’s a rite-of-passage for any queer kid looking to understand themself. You’ll never feel more at home than in Frank-n-Furter’s castle of curiosities where buff muscle men and schlubby delivery boys dry hump scenery. But for all the bombast of ‘Time Warp’ replete with chocolate eclair eating Christopher Biggins, it’s a film that searches the souls of it’s characters. It asks questions on sexuality, admittedly to some of the catchiest tunes of all time.
You dance to ‘Hot Patootie’, and there’s few ways better to welcome in bisexual awakenings that Susan Sarandon’s rendition of ‘Touch-a Touch Me’, but as the film progresses we see the effect excess has on people. Writer Richard O’Brien (who also plays put upon handyman Riff-Raff) loads the front half of the show with belters before allowing the finale of the musical to be altogether more contemplative.
This is probably where the film holds it’s power. Yes, it’s fun to see Tim Curry bite his fist at Rocky’s sweat dropped abs, and yes it’s very fun to see Patricia Quinn straddle everything she can in a maid outfit, but the film’s slow dissection of hedonism as empty is perhaps what people are latching onto.
It’s also true that while Rocky Horror is an unabashedly queer film, featuring crossdressing, bisexuality, pansexuality and fetish gear, it’s a film about being an outsider. You may not be someone who longs to dress in clothes of the opposite gender but don’t we all face a crisis within ourselves in how we present? So, is it too hard to admit that Tim Curry’s soulfully lamenting “Whatever happened to Fay Wray?/ That delicate satin draped frame / as it clung her thigh, how I started to cry / cause I wanted to be dressed just the same” can touch the souls of any outsider?
Here’s the rub, Rocky Horror is undoubtably a party, and a party people have been attending in their millions year on year for half a century. But like any party after the drinks have flowed, after the dances had, the dark room hook ups finished, we have to reckon with the fact that maybe we over did it. Frank has the same realisation.
A fundamental truth of the human condition
His final lament ‘I’m Going Home’ isn’t just accepting what you’ve done, but who you are. O’Brien’s lyrics have, for decades now, touched the souls of everyone who hears it, and it’s because it’s a fundamental truth of the human condition. We cannot be accepted in any society until we are accepted in our own hearts. That means coming out whatever closet you put yourself in. “Everywhere it’s been the same / like I’m outside in the rain” is a lyric about just that. If you go through life hiding who you are to be accepted, you’ll never be truly welcomed into any community. There is community for everyone – queer, of colour, disabled, nerdy, lonely, fat, thin, whatever you are, there is a space for you but if, and only if, you can come to terms with that.
For all it’s bombast, for all it’s camp joy, it’s dressing up, it’s Susan Sarandon and Tim Curry at peak hotness, O’Brien and director Jim Sharman instead opt to peel back layers of acceptance and to leave the audience with something to think on. In fact, for a film that is so often hailed as a joyous celebration of queer identity and not giving a fuck it’s interesting that Charles Gray as the enigmatic Criminologist narrator sternly informs the audience that “crawling on the planet’s face / some insects called the human race / lost in time, and lost in space / and meaning”.
It could be that the secret to The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s enduring legacy is neither it’s catchy tunes nor frankly legendary cast but instead in it’s slow peeling back of layers, and it’s reminder that vice and excess is fun – really fun in fact – but we only have limited time alive, and it’s worthless if we aren’t ourselves, our true, authentic selves. Otherwise yes, we all end up lost in time, lost in space and sadly, lost in meaning.
