'The Rocky Horror Picture Show,' the ahead-of-its-time queer musical, turns 50.
There are many ways to enjoy a film, ranging from the reverent contemplation of a film buff at a film library to the wild and festive attitude exhibited by fans of a work as atypical and stimulating as The Rocky Horror Picture Show . Often dressed as the film's characters, they stand in front of the screen to imitate their choreography (or watch a group of live actors in charge of fulfilling this role), and they also intervene at various moments during the screening using props such as balloons, water pistols, party poppers, confetti, or toilet paper.
Curiously, this cult film, shown thousands of times in special screenings around the world, was met with a very poor reception upon its release. Everything changed when the 20th Century Fox publicists in charge of promoting it, Lou Adler and Tim Deegan, discovered that there were some fans in Los Angeles who had seen the film numerous times. This led them to seek out less conventional audiences.
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In 1976, they tried their hand at naughty sessions and hit the nail on the head. At the Waverly Cinema in New York's Greenwich Village, they achieved an impressive record for midnight showings, running for ninety-five weeks. Legend has it that a professor named Louis Farese Jr., upon seeing Janet's character , played by a newcomer Susan Sarandon, covering her head with a newspaper to protect herself from the rain, uninhibitedly shouted, "Get an umbrella, you cheap whore!" This was the origin of so-called "counterpoint dialogue," whereby fans offered humorous retorts to dialogue and situations, interacting with the film.
From grossing less than $400,000 in its first three weeks of release, the studio went on to earn profits of over $5 million in a single year. By the late 1970s, Fox had around 200 copies in circulation. Fan clubs, conventions, and countless merchandising items soon sprang up. The Rocky Horror was now more than just a movie; it had become a genuine mass phenomenon.
From left From left, Tim Curry (Dr. Frank-N-Furter), Barry Bostwick (Brad) and Susan Sarandon (Janet) in 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', 1975
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesBut the importance of this film goes beyond its unexpected popular success. It is also a work that became a groundbreaking ode to sexual liberation, anticipating the transgender revolution that was to come. As Gordene Olga MacKenzie explained in her essay "Transgender Nation" (1994), the fundamental message of Rocky Horror was championed by its most charismatic character, the indescribable transvestite mad doctor Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played by Tim Curry: "Don't dream it, do it."
Following the codes of old gothic horror stories, the goofy and repressed protagonist couple, Brad and Janet, were forced, after their car got a flat tire, to go to an intriguing castle to request a phone call. There, they were instructed by the lustful Frank-N-Furter—with the collaboration of his own creation, the muscled ephebe named, precisely, Rocky Horror—in the "virtues" of bisexuality and free love.
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Despite its appearance as mere trashy entertainment, the film reflected the desire for change of a generation marked by disenchantment with political corruption (when Brad and Janet are driving, Richard Nixon's resignation speech plays on the radio) and also by the free spirit of punk, whose rugged yet hedonistic sound inspires the songs composed by Richard O'Brien.
This New Zealand-born actor and writer, who identifies as non-binary, fully wrote the previous rock musical, which premiered on June 19, 1973, at London's Royal Court Theatre. For the film version, O'Brien co-wrote the script with director Jim Sharman and also played the role of Riff Raff, Frank-N-Furter's hunchbacked servant.
Richard O'Brien (author of the original play) and Patricia Quinn as Riff Raff and Magenta in the musical comedy 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', 1975
Movie Poster Image Art/Getty ImagesO'Brien cleverly reworks the Frankensteinian myth to address the discovery of queer identity, which inspires unexpected terror in the most conservative mindsets of its time. The play and film parody patriarchal masculinity (represented in Brad's rigid personality and the cult of bodybuilding ). In contrast, Frank-N-Furter and his cohorts on the Transsexual Planet, who have already surpassed the conventional limits of the most predictable gender definitions, seem to enjoy worldly pleasures much more.
The pleasures of 'camp'The film freely recycles a suggestive blender of influences. In it, we find traces, whether intentional or not, of Universal or Hammer horror, B-movie science fiction in the style of Ed Wood , films featuring muscled bodybuilders like Steve Reeves, Berlin cabaret and expressionism, the countercultural cinema of John Waters, Kenneth Anger's gay biker film Scorpio Rising (1963), 1950s rock and roll mixed with punk and glam rock ...
The film is part of a series of postmodern-inspired musicals – ranging from Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise (1974) to Julien Temple's Beginners (1986) – capable of joyfully blending seemingly incongruous eras, tones and styles, using a staging replete with pop baroque, a taste for provocation and the use of a demystifying sense of humour.
Dance scene from the film 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', 1975
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesThe Rocky Horror fits well into Susan Sontag's vision of camp aesthetics. It's a perfect example of "decorative" art, of "love of the highly exaggerated" that introduces a skewed idea of beauty, in which stylization is achieved through the unfettered worship of artifice. At the same time, it cultivates a self-conscious and ironic "bad taste," as also occurs in Pedro Almodóvar's early films or in another later gem of kitsch , the initially vilified but later vindicated Showgirls (1995).
Although the film achieved unprecedented acclaim, its director, Jim Sharman, would never direct another notable film. The career of Barry Bostwick, the actor who played Brad, also never took off, and he had to settle for appearing in television and B-movie productions. His co-star, Susan Sarandon, did become a star, while Tim Curry eventually specialized in charismatic supporting roles, such as the clown in It (1990), in which he could take advantage of his attractive face and his carefully calculated histrionics.
Over time, both the play and the film have become truly emblematic of the LGBTQ+ community. Curry's drag image is now an iconic figure that transcends the boundaries of cinema, reflecting a desire for empowerment and uncensored sexual self-discovery. The Rocky Horror film gave rise to a broad fan community, initially led by former schoolteacher and comedian Sal Piro and his friend Dori Hartley, who began encouraging "performative" interaction with the film through the use of costumes and scripted lines.
Tim Curry in a still from the film 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show', 1975
FilmPublicityArchive/United Archives via Getty ImagesAnnual conventions dedicated to The Rocky Horror are still held in various North American cities, and its influence can be traced in horror films such as Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003). In 2005, The Rocky Horror was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress's National Film Registry for its "cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance."
Viewed fifty years after its release, the film remains surprisingly fresh, brilliant, and subversive. It's a magnificent example of tolerance, diversity, hedonism, irreverence, and joie de vivre that, in these rather dark times we've found ourselves in, is more inspiring than ever.
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