cross-dressing – Bitch Flicks

‘Cinderella II’: The Gender Identity Romcom of ‘Some Like It Hot’

Jerry never leads with Joe or Sugar. This suggestion, that the character might be made more assertive and empowered by a female role, effectively challenges the patriarchal concept of femininity as necessarily submissive and disempowering; femininity in ‘Some Like It Hot’ is portrayed as empowering and liberating when it better expresses the individual’s natural impulses and identity.

This is a guest post by Brigit McCone.

Some Like It Hot topped the AFI poll as funniest film of all time, almost always ranking high in similar surveys. It is, beyond doubt, the most popular choice for the greatest cross-dressing farce of all time. While we regularly debate whether political correctness is killing comedy, it is worth remembering that the greatest cross-dressing farce is also the most humanizing (and, rather depressingly, unequaled since 1959). Where most cross-dressing comedies (except possibly those by Alice Guy) rely on the humor of insecure masculinity in a one-joke premise (“it’s funny because they think we’re gay/women, but we’re actually not gay/women, which is embarrassing because being gay/women is inferior”), Some Like It Hot expertly raises these anxieties, but has the courage to interrogate them by exploring the possible attractions of a female role. The film is still among the only cross-dressing comedies to feature a genuine gender identity crisis by a sympathetic protagonist; the human depths that this adds to the flimsy set-up are the key to its comedy. Jack Lemmon’s Daphne/Jerry is not the butt of the joke; Daphne/Jerry is an acid-tongued wit in hir own right and the film casually assumes our maturity to follow hir on hir gender journey, laughing along with its contradictions and pressures.

According to Wilder, he was unsure himself whether the legendary “nobody’s perfect” was strong enough to be the final line of the film. This suggests that Wilder was unaware of the extent to which he had crafted perfect romantic comedy between Daphne/Jerry and Osgood, along the lines of Jane Austen’s genre-defining Pride and Prejudice, which uses romance as a catalyst for confronting the self. Where Tony Curtis’ Joe and Marilyn Monroe’s Sugar Kane have a relatively flimsy romance, begun in lies and concluded with inertia as each reverts to their established type, the romance between Osgood and Daphne/Jerry is the catalyst for a psychosexual crisis as profoundly subversive as it is hilariously expressed. Although Daphne’s relationship with Osgood has been interpreted as a “low comedy flip” of the primary relationship between Curtis’s Joe and Monroe’s Sugar, I suggest that the brilliance of I. A. L. Diamond’s final line is how satisfyingly it flips that interpretation, revealing Daphne’s relationship with Osgood as the major love plot. I have explored how Austen’s template structures the psychological struggles of Fight Club; I’d now like to explore the way that it deepens and illuminates the gender identity struggle at the heart of Some Like It Hot.

Cinderella the Second: The Meet-Cute — *Cinderella the Second*: The Meet-Cute

The classic Pride and Prejudice meet-cute occurs when the judgmental Elizabeth Bennet is herself judgmentally dismissed by Darcy as “not handsome enough to tempt me” – its cuteness lies in the irony of the similarity at the root of the mutual hostility. The meet-cute of Some Like it Hot occurs when Osgood chivalrously leaps to restore Daphne’s lost stiletto, provoking her to comment that she is “Cinderella the Second.” The irony is double: Jerry feels the ironic absurdity of being treated as a princess when he is really a man, yet the character’s story will genuinely serve as a comic twist on the Cinderella archetype. Jerry is the downtrodden servant, constantly bullied by Tony Curtis’ alpha Joe, the wicked stepbro of macho peer pressure; Daphne is the mysterious stranger who captivates the prince. Jerry loses the coat off his back because Joe demands it; Daphne is showered with diamonds. Jerry must watch Joe get all the girls (it is significant that hir attraction to Sugar never makes Daphne/Jerry consider attempting to woo her in male form, as Joe instantly does); Daphne is a sexually irresistible “firecracker.” Daphne is swept off her feet for a night of glamorous dancing, then bullied into becoming Joe’s “Jerry” again in the morning.

The stiletto heels play a significant symbolic role in this transition. When we first see Jerry in drag, he is complaining that he doesn’t understand how women can “walk in these things.” Despite his theoretical attraction to cross-dressing (Jerry suggests cross-dressing for cash even before the pair are forced to flee the mafia, and appears titillated by the idea), he is the one who panics and feels threatened by taking on a female identity – “it’s a whole different sex!” – which for Joe is only a meaningless disguise. Where Daphne wants to choose her own name, Joe apathetically takes the feminine form of his male name. The Cinderella meet-cute with Osgood turns Daphne’s clumsy inability to walk in heels into the beginning of her fairy-tale romance, rather than a betrayal of masculinity. It is therefore a stroke of genius that the mafia recognize Daphne, at the end of the movie, because she’s still wearing her heels even when fleeing in a male disguise. Jerry is not betrayed as “really a man” while attempting to be Daphne; rather, Daphne’s true nature is revealed by her heels as she attempts unsuccessfully to pass as male. Jerry’s transition into accepting Daphne’s heels as second-nature suggests Daphne may likewise accept Osgood’s love, a conclusion as taboo in the 1950s as it was satisfying to leave to the viewer’s imagination. If the shoe fits…

I'm a Boy. I Wish I Were Dead: Protagonist Rejects Love Interest — *I’m a Boy. I Wish I Were Dead*: Protagonist Rejects Love Interest

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth’s initial aversion to Darcy’s arrogance is compounded by a series of misunderstandings that peak in her explosive rejection of him in the famous proposal scene. In Some Like It Hot, Daphne’s loudly stated aversion to the “dirty, old man” Osgood is, from the very beginning, comically insufficient to prevent her from repeatedly flirting with him. The climax of their relationship is also a proposal scene: the sweeping of Daphne off her feet in the film’s delirious tango sequence. Daphne can’t stop leading during the dance; that might be seen as a joke reflecting her actual maleness, but it is equally a sign of her growing confidence, spark and fire. Jerry never leads with Joe or Sugar. This suggestion, that the character might be made more assertive and empowered by a female role, effectively challenges the patriarchal concept of femininity as necessarily submissive and disempowering; femininity in Some Like It Hot is portrayed as empowering and liberating when it better expresses the individual’s natural impulses and identity.

After a night of zinging banter, heady admiration and dance, Daphne is seduced and agrees to marry Osgood. In the morning, Joe forces the male role back onto her: “You’re a guy! Why would a guy want to marry a guy?” and Daphne agrees to renounce her plan. It is true that Daphne’s claim to be marrying Osgood for “security!” ironically reflects Joe and Sugar’s relationship, where Sugar believes she is chasing money and Joe believes he is chasing sex. However, rather than simply parodying their shallowness, Daphne’s shining eyes and glee after the tango scene reveal that her own attraction to Osgood is more than mercenary, just as Osgood will later reveal that his attraction to Daphne goes far deeper than a comically blind urge to chase anything in a skirt. The key to Daphne’s decision to reject Osgood’s proposal is the unquestioned assumption that Osgood would reject Jerry if he discovered his true nature; this is the underlying misunderstanding that keeps the lovers apart, forcing Daphne to define her seduction as an impractical dream. Like Cinderella’s ball, it is magical but incompatible with her real self. Where she formerly chanted “I’m a girl! I’m a girl!” to resist her sexual attraction to women, now she must chant “I’m a boy! Boy, oh boy, am I a boy!” before sighing “I wish I were dead” as she renounces her fantasy self. The use of gender identity as romantic obstacle complicates the usual dynamic of love interests rejecting each other. It is more accurate to say that Daphne rejects herself on Osgood’s behalf.

The Omelet's About To Hit the Fan: Fate Intervenes — *The Omelet’s About To Hit the Fan*: Fate Intervenes

The psychological dynamics of acceptance and rejection in Pride and Prejudice are interrupted in the book’s final third by the dramatic elopement of Lydia, which brings relationships to crisis-point and a more dramatic conclusion; at first appearing to separate the lovers, it ultimately unites them. It is at roughly this same point in the plot of Some Like It Hot that the mafia re-enter. The mafia function throughout the film as a device to express transphobic anxieties without confronting them. By providing an urgent motivation for the characters’ cross-dressing, they allow the audience to avoid confronting the issue of any internal motivation. The intense, scrutinizing pressure and threat of violence which the openly transfeminine are subjected to, even today, is expressed through the extreme anxiety of the need to “pass” under mafia scrutiny, but it is not confronted: the characters of Some Like It Hot are never threatened with transphobic violence, only with murder as witnesses to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (although it could be regarded as symbolic that the mafia become murderous after flirting with the girls, then stripping Daphne’s curvaceous double bass to reveal her true identity – “there’s your valentine!”). Although the mafia threat appears to be a force that will drive Daphne away from Osgood, her fear of the sinister and shaming “ladies’ morgue” is ultimately the only catalyst strong enough to make her defy society’s conventions and to push her into his arms. Both the mafia and the ladies’ morgue represent exposure anxiety; they also represent an inevitable mortality before which a person’s greatest regrets are usually the things they have left undone.

Nobody's Perfect: Sacrificing The Ego — *Nobody’s Perfect*: Sacrificing The Ego

The final reconciliation of Pride and Prejudice is made possible when Elizabeth Bennet sacrifices her ego to make a humiliating admission of her feelings for Darcy to Lady Catherine de Bourgh. In an even more major sacrifice, Daphne risks murder by mafia as well as humiliation by confessing her true identity to Osgood. After a series of comically escalating confessions, she finally tears away her wig and announces “I’m a man.” Osgood replies, shrugging, “nobody’s perfect.” This might be an easy laugh at Jerry’s awkward entrapment, but we have already seen his glowing eyes after their night of tango. Rather, the line “nobody’s perfect” flips our assumption that we are watching a farcical romantic parody on its head, to become supremely romantic. In a trademark Wilderism, Some Like It Hot reveals cynicism to be a facade for romance rather than the reverse: Joe and Sugar’s “real” goals of sex and money give way to their “pretended” love; Daphne and Osgood’s “real” identities as fraud and womanizer give way to their human connection. A night of chemistry at Cinderella’s ball is as real as the enforced roles of our daytime reality. The oddball coupling of a cross-dresser and a wrinkled millionaire can seem more lovable than the photogenic pairing of Monroe and Curtis. It is the genius of Lemmon’s performance that he is able to make Daphne’s personality more vivid, enticing and three-dimensional than Jerry’s, so that Daphne seems seductively like the true self that Osgood appreciated all along. Finally, a character defined for the entire film by comically escalating discomfort with their own identity meets absolute and unconditional acceptance. Our image of what happens next is a Rorschach test of each viewer’s own assumptions, of their varying levels of ageism, transphobia and romantic cynicism. But in my own interpretation, Cinderella the Second has a ball.

Brigit McCone is a shameless Wilder groupie, writes and directs short films, radio dramas and The Erotic Adventures of Vivica (as Voluptua von Temptitillatrix). Her hobbies include doodling and making weird Pride and Prejudice analogies.

‘Tootsie’: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Woman

So what’s feminist about it? Although the word “feminist” is never uttered, Michael plays Dorothy as a bold, liberated woman. At the audition, slimy director Ron Carlisle (Dabney Coleman) tells Dorothy she’s too “soft and genteel” and “not threatening enough” for the part. Dorothy replies: “Yes, I think I know what y’all really want. You want some gross caricature of a woman. To prove some idiotic point, like, like power makes women masculine, or masculine women are ugly… Well shame on the woman who lets you do that.” Right out of the gate, Dorothy not only speaks her mind, but also openly protests sexism.

Movie poster for Tootsie — Movie poster for *Tootsie*

This guest post by Rebecca Cohen appears as part of our theme week on Male Feminists and Allies.

Have you seen the 2012 AFI interview with Dustin Hoffman, where he gets emotional about his role in the cross-dressing 1982 comedy Tootsie? In the video clip, Hoffman relates his disappointment in discovering that, although makeup artists could help him pass as a credible woman, he would never be a beautiful woman. Hoffman says he cried, realizing that if he were at a party he would never approach a woman who looked like him. He concludes tearfully, “There’s too many interesting women I have … not had the experience to know in this life because I have been brainwashed.”

The video of those remarks went viral recently, and most reactions were enthusiastically positive. Hooray for Dustin Hoffman, breaking through his social conditioning to see the world from a woman’s perspective. Thank you to Dustin Hoffman, for expressing the harshness of beauty standards in such a concise and heartfelt way. Making Tootsie made Dustin Hoffman a feminist ally.

Right?

Well… yes and no. Hoffman’s statements, like the movie Tootsie itself, are a good start. They’re a sincere attempt by a well-intentioned man to address feminist issues. Still, both his words and the movie fall short in many ways.

The Good

In Tootsie, Hoffman plays unemployed actor Michael Dorsey, who disguises himself as a woman to land a job on a daytime soap opera. After winning the role, Michael must continue to pretend to the world that he’s actress Dorothy Michaels. Hilarity, as you might expect, ensues.

Although the role she’s auditioning for, Emily Kimberly, is written as a ball-busting harridan, Dorothy plays her with both fire and vulnerability. Director Ron remains unimpressed, but producer Rita Marshall (Doris Bellack) is obviously moved by the portrayal, and Michael/Dorothy gets the job.

This in itself is pretty layered and rather feminist, if you think about it. The role of Emily Kimberly is written as a sexist stereotype, a cardboard cutout of an unfeminine woman – basically, a man in a dress. But when presented with an actual, literal man in a dress, Ron declares him too feminine. The film thus (probably unintentionally) unpacks some complex ideas about gender and performativity. In order to pass as a woman Michael must play Dorothy as delicate and refined; in a way, he has to present as more feminine than a “real” woman. And this, ironically, almost costs him the role.

From there, the movie continues to develop an overtly feminist narrative. In order to avoid kissing a male co-star, Michael refuses to perform a scene as written. Instead of swooning, the character asserts herself. Producer Rita loves it. Michael/Dorothy continues to depart from the scripts, insisting on making Emily Kimberly feisty and self-assured, and Rita continues to allow it. The character’s popularity grows, Dorothy’s fame grows, and soon Dorothy becomes an outright feminist role model, even appearing on the cover of Ms. Magazine (and Cosmopolitan too, perhaps so we can be assured she’s not that militant). At one point, Rita marvels at what Dorothy has accomplished: “You are the first woman character who is her own person, who can assert her own personality without robbing someone of theirs. You’re a breakthrough lady for us.”

Dorothy also becomes a personal role model for co-star Julie (Jessica Lange). Through her friendship with Dorothy, Julie gains the strength and self-confidence to break up with Ron. She tells Dorothy, “You wouldn’t compromise your feelings like I have. You wouldn’t live this kind of lie, would you?… I deserve something better, you know? I don’t have to settle for this.” Through the movie, Julie repeatedly expresses how Dorothy has taught her to stand up for herself.

At the same time, Michael learns his own lessons about feminism, drawn from his experiences living as a woman. He’s taken aback by the effort and expense required of women to keep themselves attractive. He attempts to voice concerns on set, but gets frustrated when Ron dismissively talks over him. Experiencing the world as Dorothy, Michael comes to believe he really has a new understanding of what women endure. He tells his agent, George (Sydney Pollack): “I feel like I have something to say to women, something meaningful,” explaining how he knows what it is to feel helpless and not in control.

In one of the most memorable moments of the film, Michael/Dorothy, fed up with Ron’s patronizing treatment on set, stands up to him:

Michael/Dorothy: Ron, my name is Dorothy. It’s not Tootsie or Toots or Sweetie or Honey or Doll.

Ron: Oh Christ.

Michael/Dorothy: No, just Dorothy. Now Alan’s always Alan, Tom is always Tom, and John’s always John. I have a name too; it’s Dorothy. Capital D, O, R, O, T, H, Y. Dorothy.

Titling the film Tootsie emphasizes that Michael’s experience of being marginalized, of struggling to demand respect, is meant to be understood as a focal point of the film.

So, clearly it’s a feminist movie. In some ways.

The Bad

So why does Rita Marshall, a seasoned and capable TV producer, never include independent, assertive women on her show until Dorothy Michaels comes along and steamrolls her into it? Did it never occur to her that such a thing was possible, or that her mostly female audience might enjoy it? Similarly, why is Dorothy the only woman who stands up to Ron’s harassment, even though it’s evident he’s been behaving this way with impunity for years?

The film seems to imply that Michael, coming from a position of male privilege, is uniquely positioned to call out sexism. He isn’t accustomed to enduring second-class status. Women deal with it grudgingly, because, you know – that’s how the world works. But Michael hasn’t been conditioned to accept it. So he doesn’t.

Here’s the thing. This situates Michael as the White Knight, the male savior of women’s rights. Spending only a few months experiencing how the world treats a woman, he’s better able to challenge the status quo than the women who’ve spent their entire lives experiencing it. Like many cross-dress comedies, Tootsie falls into the trap of implying that a man is better at being a woman than any woman knows how to be.

Also, what does Michael do with his newfound understanding of the struggles women face? He sees how Ron mistreats Julie, lying to her yet claiming it’s to spare her feelings. But Michael does essentially the same thing to his longtime friend Sandy (Terri Garr). He sleeps with Sandy to cover up his secret, then lies to her and strings her along even as he’s steadily falling in love with Julie. It’s women, specifically Sandy and Julie, who bear the brunt of the harm caused by Michael’s deceit. Recognizing how men use lies to abuse women doesn’t stop Michael from doing it himself.

Even after the truth is revealed, Michael never apologizes to Julie for deceiving her. (Interestingly, he does apologize to her father in suitably man-to-man fashion.) He tells Julie, “I just did it for the work. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.” In other words, instead of acknowledging her hurt and owning the harm he caused, he tries to explain and justify. He tells her, “I was a better man with you as a woman then I ever was with a woman as a man.” This is the lesson Michael draws from his experience as Dorothy: it has made him a better man… somehow.

Thus the film undercuts its early feminist promise. Michael never has to answer to the women who admired him as a feminist icon, only to find out he was a man all along. He never apologizes to the women he deceived on a very intimate level. He doesn’t, when all is said and done, make anything better for women. But that’s not important. What matters is that he has become a better man. “I just gotta learn to do it without the dress,” he explains.

Terri Garr, speaking to the Onion AV Club in 2008, shared her thoughts about Dustin Hoffman’s Tootsie-inspired insights about gender: “They put a man in a dress, and he’s supposed to know what it feels like to be a woman. But of course he doesn’t. I think what Dustin [Hoffman] says is, ‘I realize now how important it is for a woman to be pretty. And I wasn’t pretty.’ God! That’s all you realized? Jesus Christ. Oh well. Don’t quote me. Actually, quote me.”

Dustin Hoffman’s epiphany about women being judged based on their looks is most certainly A Good Thing. So is his acknowledgment of his own role in marginalizing women who don’t meet a certain beauty standard. But even as he laments all the interesting women he never took the time to know, Hoffman’s comments still center on himself. It’s about his loss in not getting to know these hypothetical women. It’s about his regret. And fundamentally, as Terri Garr points out, something is still missing.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/Ch57pIuYhbM”]

I’m genuinely pleased to know that making Tootsie taught Dustin Hoffman to be a better man, just as his character Michael Dorsey learned to be a better man. But being a male feminist or feminist ally isn’t primarily about men’s personal character growth. It’s supposed to be about liberating and empowering women. And it’s frustrating to see people respond as though Hoffman has discovered some earth-shattering truth, when women have already spoken and written about these issues at length. Why does it carry more weight when a straight, white, cis, wealthy, famous man expresses it?

Of course, like it or not, people listen when straight, white, cis, wealthy, famous men speak. So I can’t criticize Dustin Hoffman for using the platform he has to amplify a feminist message, even if what he says should be obvious to everyone by now. Terri Garr is absolutely right: Dressing as a woman for a day does not convey the entirety of what it means to be a woman in a patriarchal society. But I wouldn’t object if more men wanted to give it a try.

Rebecca Cohen is the creator of the webcomic “The Adventures of Gyno-Star,” the world’s first (and possibly only) explicitly feminist superhero comic.

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’ and the Pitchfork of Puritanism

The lips in the opening sequence–the biting action has sexual and fearful connotations.

The cult classic film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was based off a British play of the same name, was released in 1975. At that point in American history, audiences (young audiences especially) were eager to have their boundaries pushed and revel in the debauchery that Rocky Horror provided. Whether it was the after-glow of the sexual revolution of the 60s and early 70s or a preemptive strike back to still-noisy social conservativism, Rocky Horror dealt with issues of gender and sexuality in a way that can resonate with viewers almost 40 years later. Buried beneath the campy music and bustiers is strong commentary on religion, gender and sexual norms, social customs and puritanical morality.

After the opening sequence (in which the famous red lips–belonging to Patricia Quinn, who plays Magenta–lip sync to Richard O’Brien, who plays Riff Raff and wrote the original play and screenplay, singing “Science Fiction/Double Feature”), the first shot of the movie is a cross atop a church steeple. The camera pauses, making the audience absorb the contrast between a clearly sexual (and even fearful), disembodied mouth and Christianity.

As the camera pans down, a wedding party and guests burst through the doors of the church. Outside of the church doors, a solemn-looking Tim Curry appears as the pastor, and Quinn and O’Brien flank him in the style of the American Gothic painting by Grant Wood.

We will see this image again. It will never really leave us.

The actors who will appear later as Magenta and Riff Raff play American Gothic in the first scene at the church.

According to the Art Institute of Chicago, “American Gothic is an image that epitomizes the Puritan ethic and virtues that he [Wood] believed dignified the Midwestern character.” Puritanical “virtues” are on display in this opening sequence.

As American culture reminds us, when these virtues are imbedded in a society, often the only option for sexual expression is at the extremes of the virgin/whore dichotomy. Suppression and purity on one end of the spectrum, complete surrender to earthly pleasure, no matter the cost, on the other. These extremes are shown throughout the film.

As the wedding comes to an end (and after Janet, played by Susan Sarandon, has caught the bouquet), a car pulls up to take away the bride and groom. Sloppily written on the side of the car is, “Wait till tonight, she got hers now he’ll get his.” The heteronormativity of this scene is clear. Women (including Janet) are eager for marriage, men want to “get theirs” after the wedding is over. Janet’s boyfriend, Brad (Barry Bostwick), does quickly propose to her after they discuss marriage in the church cemetery as a storm brews overhead. A billboard with a heart and the motto “Denton – The Home of Happiness” looms above them. The marriage ritual and social expectations surrounding it are, on the surface, celebrated in this scene (“Dammit, Janet, I love you!” sings Brad as they rollick around the church). However, the symbolism of the cemetery, the pending storm, and the fact that the American Gothic characters are preparing the church for a funeral as they wheel in a casket is not lost on the discerning viewer.

The two set off on a road trip to announce their engagement to a professor they’d had in college (they met and fell in love in his class). On the way, as they drive through a thunderstorm while listening to Nixon’s resignation speech on the radio (perhaps a nod to moral failure), they blow a tire. They end up at a foreboding castle (one used in many “Hammer Horror” movies that Rocky Horror parodies), and motorcycles pass them on the road going to the same destination. Brad says of the biker with judgment, “Life’s pretty cheap for that type.” An “Enter at Your Own Risk” sign invites the couple into the castle grounds, and they do.

After Riff Raff lets them in, they’re quickly initiated into the party that’s being held–the “Annual Transylvanian Convention.” They stand, innocent and wide-eyed, as guests (all dressed in gender-neutral tuxedos) dance the “Time Warp” and thrust their pelvises. The American Gothic painting, as well as the Mona Lisa, both appear on the walls of the castle.

Riff Raff welcomes Brad and Janet to the castle; the American Gothic painting looms behind him.

PBS art commentator Sister Wendy Beckett says, “You can recycle the Mona Lisa any way you like. Back to front, upside down, it remains instantly recognizable. That’s the ultimate compliment and it’s been paid to Grant Wood’s American Gothic. Somehow it seems to speak to the American psyche, though what it actually says isn’t as simple as it might seem.” The coyness of these particular works of art mirror what lies beneath The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Brad and Janet are visibly uncomfortable in this world (it seems “unhealthy,” Janet says). They, and the audience, which has seen the action from their naïve perspective, are then introduced to Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played by Curry. The camera pans up his fishnet-clad legs, reminiscent of the gratuitous male gaze present in so many other films. However, this time the object of that gaze is a “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania,” as he introduces himself in song.

Dr. Frank-N-Furter introduces himself to Brad and Janet.

He invites the couple up to his lab to “see what’s on the slab.” They are stripped to their underwear by Riff Raff and Magenta (“We’ll play along for now,” says Brad). On their way up to the lab, Janet asks Magenta if Frank-N-Furter is her husband. She laughs, and Riff Raff exclaims that he’ll probably never marry (again, marriage is slighted). Frank-N-Furter has changed into a scrubs-style dress (with a pink triangle on the chest) in the lab. He flirts with Brad, calling him a “force of manhood, so dominant,” and Janet begins to giggle and seem less uncomfortable in this new setting. Being stripped of their clothes leaves them almost naked and vulnerable, yet opens them up to sexual possibilities that explore gender and dominance.

Frank-N-Furter, seated, flanked by (from left) Columbia, Magenta and Riff Raff–all of whom he as used for his gain.

Frank-N-Furter announces that “My beautiful creature is destined to be born!” and the references to Frankenstein throughout the film thus far are fully realized. He climbs above the tank that is holding his “creature,” and drops in rainbow-colored liquid, leaving the creature awash in the rainbow. (In 1975, the rainbow flag had not yet been formally adopted as the LGBT banner, but rainbow flags were commonly used for similar liberal causes starting as early as the late 1960s.)

After his creature is born–a muscular, blonde, tan god–Frank-N-Furter ogles and gawks at his creation, chasing and crawling after him, scrambling to even kiss his foot. Rocky (his creature) doesn’t seem interested at all, as he sings about feeling the sword of Damocles above him. As history (and science fiction, like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein) has repeatedly shown us, when we create a system in which others are to be subservient–whether via imperialism, slavery or patriarchy–the outcome is only good for those in power, and even then the reward is short-lived.

But for now, Frank-N-Furter appears to be getting his way (after ridding himself of Eddie, played by Meat Loaf, who we find out was an ex-lover of Frank-N-Furter and Columbia, played by Little Nell). Masculinity is magnified in this scene as Frank-N-Furter sings about making Rocky a “man” through intense physical workouts and bodybuilding routines, and Eddie’s display of hyped-up violent masculinity (motorcycle, leather jacket, rock and roll). But who is the dominant one in these relationships? Frank-N-Furter, in his fishnets and heels. As heteronormative as the opening scene of the film was, at this point almost all of the lines have been or are beginning to be subverted and blurred.

Frank-N-Furter and Rocky walk out of the lab arm in arm as the wedding march plays and his guests shower them with confetti. The curtain is drawn as they embrace, and the audience expects that they will consummate this “marriage” immediately.

In the middle of the night, Rocky escapes the wrath of Riff Raff and Magenta (he has chains on his ankles as he attempts to flee).

Janet and Brad have been put in separate rooms, of course, so they may retain their pre-marital chastity.

While his creation attempts to escape, Frank-N-Furter visits Janet. He acts like he’s Brad, and she welcomes his embrace and sexual advances. When she figures out it is Frank-N-Furter, she kicks him off: “I was saving myself!” she cried out. After a moment of rough persuasion, she lies back. “Promise you won’t tell Brad?” she says, and laughs as Frank-N-Furter descends upon her.

Afterward, “Janet” visits Brad, and he also welcomes the embrace until he realizes it’s Frank-N-Furter. The scene plays out exactly as it does with Janet–persistent refusal and then “You promise you won’t tell?” Again, Frank-N-Furter moves downward on Brad.

These scenes are poignant in that they are exactly the same–from the strict puritanical refusal to the “secretive” consent to the oral sex act itself–yet the sex of the participants is fluid. Frank-N-Furter is on top, but he’s adamant that the two give themselves “over to pleasure,” which he delivers.

(It’s also worth noting that during the sex scenes others in the house–Riff Raff, Magenta and Columbia–can watch via monitors that display live feed from the rooms. Voyeurism isn’t off-limits, either. Like most issues in this film, there is vast gray area in regard to consent that we are challenged to think about.)

By the next morning, Janet is crying and feeling immense guilt about betraying Brad. However, she happens upon a monitor showing him smoking a cigarette on the edge of his bed, which Frank-N-Furter is lying in. She then spots the injured Rocky, and tends to him. He touches her hand, and she smiles a smile that indicates she has found within herself power and passion.

Janet then bursts into her climactic song, “Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch-a, Touch Me,” a sex-positive female power anthem if there ever was one. She decries her years of avoiding “heavy petting,” since she thought it would only lead to “trouble and seat wetting.” While the narrator says that Janet was “its slave,” it’s more clear that she is sexually dominant in this scene.

After a lustful night with Frank-N-Furter, Janet embraces her sexuality with Rocky (she places his hands on her breasts).

Even in her critique of the woman’s stray curl in American Gothic, Sister Wendy senses something beyond the surface: “Some see the stray curl at the nape of her neck as related to the snake plant in the background, each one symbolizing a sharp-tongued ‘old maid.’ Sister Wendy sees in the curl, however, a sign that she is not as repressed as her buttoned-up exterior might indicate.” Nothing is quite as it seems.

After a cannibalistic dinner (insert corny pun about Meat Loaf here), everything seems to be falling apart. Eddie’s uncle–the Dr. Scott who Janet and Brad were trying to visit in the first place–comes to the castle (he’s both looking for his nephew and doing research on alien life forms). Dr. Frank-N-Furter, seeing everything he’s built to serve himself revolt (Riff Raff, the “handyman,” and Magenta, the “domestic,” are getting antsy to leave to go home to Transsexual; Columbia screams at him for just taking from people–first her, then Eddie, then Rocky, etc.–and Rocky isn’t working out as he planned), clings on to whatever power he can. He mocks Janet and her sexual inadequacy–“Your apple pie don’t taste too nice”–and turns all except for Riff Raff and Magenta into stone via his Medusa switch (the mythology echoing that of Damocles’s sword and what happens when one demands too much).

“It’s not easy having a good time,” Frank-N-Furter laments.

The floor show that follows is a spectacle of gender and sexuality. The stone figures are “de-Medusafied” one by one, and all are wearing kabuki face makeup and Frank-N-Furter-style fishnets, heels, garters and bustiers. They each sing a stanza exploring their current state of drug dependence, uncontrolled libido and freedom in “Rose Tint My World.”

Columbia, Rocky, Janet and Brad have all reawakened in Frank-N-Furter’s gender-bending image for the floor show.

As Frank-N-Furter begins “Don’t Dream It, Be It,” he asks, “Whatever happened to Fay Wray? / That delicate satin draped frame / As it clung to her thigh, how I started to cry / Cause I wanted to be dressed just the same…” Here we see him stripped of his over-exaggerated power as he indicates that he struggled with gender, presumably when he was young. He’s been searching for how and where he fits, and “absolute pleasure” and “sins of the flesh” have been where he looked for fulfillment.

Frank-N-Furter jumps into an on-stage pool, and shot from above he’s floating on a life saver between God and man in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam. The religious imagery present in the opening scenes is re-visited here, inviting the audience to consider the juxtaposition of “giving in to absolute pleasure” and the church, which is the very institution that dictates much of what we consider gender and sexual norms.

Frank-N-Furter floats in the pool, meticulously placed above Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam.

Janet, Brad, Rocky and Columbia all jump into the pool, and as they lustfully sing “Don’t dream it, be it,” there is a wet conglomeration of fishnets, limbs, tongues and strokes in the pool over the image of the Creation. Janet breathlessly sings, “God bless Lili St. Cyr.” She’s embracing her newfound sexuality by referencing a burlesque dancer/stripper/lingerie designer from the 1940s and 50s.

In the midst of this dream-like pseudo-orgy, Magenta and Riff Raff violently storm into the room. Dressed in other-worldly attire (yet gender-neutral), Riff Raff is holding a pitchfork-like weapon (American Gothic, of course), and threatens Frank-N-Furter and the group. “Your lifestyle is too extreme,” Riff Raff scolds, and says he’s subverting the power and will now be the master. For all of this time, Riff Raff and Magenta have been the “help,” and saw the need for an uprising. This also supports the subversive power roles within the film. Also worth noting is that Riff Raff and Magenta are lovers and brother and sister (the American Gothic painting is said to feature a brother and sister or father and daughter, not a husband and wife like many viewers imagine). Relationships, and our expectations and discomfort levels throughout, are meant to be examined.

Riff Raff and Magenta appear again as a futuristic American Gothic; his laser pitchfork will kill those whose “lifestyle” is too extreme.

Riff Raff proceeds to kill Columbia and Frank-N-Furter with his laser pitchfork. Rocky is more difficult to kill, and while he cries and mourns over Frank-N-Furter, he throws him on his back and tries to climb the RKO radio tower on stage. Frank-N-Furter so badly wanted to feel like Fay Wray in his life, and he finally got to after he died. However, Rocky’s plan doesn’t work and the two fall backward into the pool, buried in the very source of life.

The midwestern, puritanical values that American Gothic seems to represent so well win at the end of the film, and quite literally kill difference and sexual and gender subversion. While Riff Raff and Magenta go back to their home planet Transsexual, in the galaxy of Transylvania, Brad, Janet and Dr. Scott are left on the cold ground, crawling and writhing in their fishnets.

The narrator closes the film with the words: “And crawling, on the planet’s face, some insects, called the human race. Lost in time, and lost in space… and meaning.”

We are, the narrator suggests, quite meaningless in our earthly struggles. We blindly grasp on to expectations and norms, whether it be social constructs, gender or sexuality, and if we wander outside of those norms it will very well ruin us because of the deeply ingrained expectations we have in regard to these issues of morality.

Of course, we aren’t supposed to walk away from a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show feeling utterly meaningless. O’Brien himself self-identifies as transgender, and has been outspoken about how society should not “dictate” gender roles. He said in a recent interview, “If society allowed you to grow up feeling it was normal to be what you are, there wouldn’t be a problem. I don’t think the term ‘transvestite’ or ‘transsexual’ would exist: you’d just be another human being.” He also has said, in terms of Rocky Horror’s significance, “Well in our western world, England, Australia and the United States etc, there are still strongholds of dinosaur thinking. But, you know, I am a trans myself and I know it’s easier for me now. I can be wherever I want, whatever I want and however I want. And I suppose to some extent, a very small extent, my attitudes in Rocky Horror have helped make the climate a little warmer for people who have been marginalised, so that’s definitely not a bad thing.”

No it’s not. And for all its campy fun, great music and dance moves (and how ironic that the Time Warp lives on at wedding receptions across America), The Rocky Horror Picture Show also provides forceful commentary on religion, gender roles, sexual agency, control and the foreboding power that the pitchfork of puritanism holds over us all still.