The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Blurred Lines: The Cinematic Appeal of Rape Fantasy

While Whore stigma is gradually declining, kinky desires remain stigmatized, especially in women. By vocally disowning that desire, “Madonna” Anastasia Steele qualifies herself to serve as an avatar for readers who struggle to acknowledge and integrate their sexual urges. The “displaced consent” model of rape fantasy may be recognized, and distinguished from the “sexual assawwwlt” model, by its masterful Ice Prince hero, whose full control is essential to eliminating the heroine’s responsibility.

Trigger Warning: Detailed discussion of rape apologism (and some explicit reference to Robin Thicke)

The Myth Of Male Power by Warren Farrell (PhD, of course) is arguably the intellectual foundation of Men’s Rights Activism (MRA). It is also notorious for its rape apologism, using female fondness for fictional rape fantasy to argue that men should not be prosecuted for date rape, as long as they are “trying to become her fantasy.” For the record, I don’t believe rape fantasies cause rape. In the real world, desire is not so easily misunderstood. What rape fantasy does feed, as Farrell illustrates, is rape apologism. Our cultural models of “romanticized rape” shape the excuses of rapists and encourage their general acceptance. We might respond by pointing out that women consent to rape fantasy automatically, just by imagining it, by turning the pages as they read or by opening their eyes to watch on-screen. Since rape fantasy is consensual, it has nothing in common with the violation of actual rape. But with the often coercive “romance” of Fifty Shades of Grey set to rule the box office, now is a good time to ask: what actually is the cinematic appeal of rape fantasy?

Gone With The Wind: Putting the “awww” in Sexual Assawwwlt

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRxfZHr3AxY” title=”GWTW%20marital%20rape%20scene”]

Rhett Butler threatens to crush his wife’s skull, declares “this is one night you’re not turning me out” then carries her upstairs, visibly struggling. Cut to Scarlett awakening the next morning with smiling pleasure. Her husband threatened to kill her, declared his intention to rape her while she protested, yet she is shown waking up happy the following day. Like Fifty Shades of Grey, this is an adaptation of a female author’s book, cited as sexual fantasy by many female viewers. What’s going on?

Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind mirrors classic interpretations of Wuthering Heights‘ romance – like Linton, Ashley represents the heroine’s social aspirations, while Rhett mirrors Heathcliff as her primal, resisted passion. This must be understood within a wider tendency by female-authored texts to reject their primary object of desire, which I’ve previously examined for Jane Austen’s Unsuitable Suitor and the “Wolf” of SARCom. In response to such rejection, Twilight‘s Jacob Black forces a long kiss on heroine Bella Swann. Buffy‘s spurned “Wolves,” Spike and hyena-possessed Xander, both attempt to rape Buffy.

This rape-as-romantic-desperation trope echoes the emotional vulnerability of Rhett Butler’s marital rape, where he finally confesses jealousy and desire for Scarlett. As Rhett threatens to crush Scarlett’s skull, the gesture emphasizes his powerlessness to control her thoughts and emotions. Though his role is brutal, supposedly excused by drunkenness, the scene actually affirms Scarlett’s emotional power: he attempts to intimidate her, but cannot; he acknowledges his craving for her emotional approval and his inability to secure it. Treating sexual assault as emotional surrender is the defining feature of this category of rape fantasy, the “awww” in the “sexual assawwwlt.” Because Rhett is the primary love interest, Scarlett’s resistance is a demonstration of emotional power, not lack of desire, as her satisfaction the following morning demonstrates. She is the avatar of female viewers, who both desire Rhett and desire power over Rhett. Our culture views sex as male conquest and female surrender, but “sexual assawwwlt” flips that script: it is female conquest through emotional withholding, provoking a rape that affirms male emotional powerlessness.

The cultural concept of “female sexual power” was born in 411 B.C., with the sex boycott plot of Aristophanes’ comedy Lysistrata. At the time, this was amusing partly because women were understood to have ten times the lust of men. The female fertility cults of Demeter practiced ritual obscenity, the first known sex manual was authored by Philaenis, daughter of Okymenes, and Sappho wrote nine volumes of lesboerotic poetry, all acknowledged literary classics. These expressions of female-authored sexual culture were wiped out by patriarchs of the early christian church. However, the male-authored Lysistrata‘s model of empowerment-through-sexual-resistance survived. “The Rules of Love,” laid down by Eleanor of Aquitaine’s Courts of Love in the 12th Century, included “an easy attainment makes love contemptible” and “jealousy is absolutely required by love.” Eleanor’s influential “Rules of Love” represent an aristocratic female response to social powerlessness, diverting frustration into a sadistic model of love as gratifying empowerment, rather than as emotional fulfillment. Margaret Mitchell’s depicting Scarlett as empowered by her own rape thus reflects over 2,000 years of ideology promoting sexual resistance as an expression of female power. This “female power” of sexual resistance is a poisoned chalice: by separating resistance-as-power from resistance-as-reluctance, it justifies rape as the only way to satisfy female desire, while diverting women from actual social empowerment. “Female sexual power” thus feeds rape apologism and demands male telepathy – a practice best confined to fiction.

Fifty Shades of Grey: Madonna’s Like A Virgin

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JMg9InBcgE”]

If “sexual assawwwlt” represents female sexual conquest, then the “displaced consent” of Fifty Shades of Grey represents disowned responsibility. In E. L. James’ book, Anastasia Steele expresses unwillingness and reluctance to engage in BDSM with Christian, while her consent is detached and embodied as the infamous “inner goddess.” Again, a key to understanding can be found in Jane Austen. Writing at a time of intense Whore stigma, where expressions of female sexuality were harshly punished by the withdrawal of social protection, Austen repeatedly created plots in which the heroine resists her attraction to the Unsuitable Suitor while another woman, usually a female relative, abandons social protection and elopes with him. This constant repetition suggests that the “Whore” relative represents the displaced sex drive of the “Madonna” heroine, an “inner Lydia” comparable to Anastasia Steele’s “inner goddess.” While Whore stigma is gradually declining, kinky desires remain stigmatized, especially in women. By vocally disowning that desire, “Madonna” Anastasia Steele qualifies herself to serve as an avatar for readers who struggle to acknowledge and integrate their sexual urges. The “displaced consent” model of rape fantasy may be recognized, and distinguished from the “sexual assawwwlt” model, by its masterful Ice Prince hero, whose full control is essential to eliminating the heroine’s responsibility. The classic “Ice Prince” of teen SARCom is emotionally intense, but sexually unavailable; E. L. James titillates readers by adapting Twilight‘s sexually unavailable “Ice Prince” Edward into the emotionally unavailable, but sexually intense, Christian Grey.

Compare the earlier Secretary, Erin Cressida Wilson’s adaptation of Mary Gaitskill’s story: the heroine Lee actively requests and provokes the domination of her boss, Mr. Grey, and is depicted in solo acts of masochism and masturbation that clarify her independent desire for BDSM. In BDSM practice, it is the submissive who ultimately controls the play through safe-words and consent, an ironic “paradox of power.” In Fifty Shades of Grey, however, the book’s BDSM negotiations are utterly undermined by Anastasia’s inability to sign or renegotiate Christian’s contracts, due to her disavowal of kinky desire. For sharp analysis of the book’s resulting abusive elements, from the perspective of a practising submissive, see Cliff Pervocracy’s reviews, while E. L. James’ own interviews exemplify covert desire and reinforce norms of respectability politics: “I am fascinated by BDSM, and fascinated as to why anyone would want to be in this lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s as hot as hell, and find Doms hot as hell. I met this guy recently who is a Dom… well… ‘nuff said about that – but he was fucked-up.”

Female director Sam Taylor-Johnson is apparently trying to minimize the book’s disavowal of desire, by emphasizing Dakota Johnson’s lustful facial expressions as nonverbal cues for Jamie Dornan’s Christian. His line “I like to see your face. It gives me some clue what you might be thinking” is prominent in the official trailer. But fangirls now rushing to pre-book tickets are expecting, and will demand, faithfulness to the source novel, including Anastasia’s open reluctance to enter a D/s relationship and her refusal to sign or renegotiate Christian’s contract, which deny her power of consent. E. L. James’ book also shares Gone With The Wind‘s trope of using a sexually aggressive, non-white man to provoke white male heroic protectiveness, suggesting a correlation between mainstream rape fantasy and conservative ideology. How will Taylor-Johnson tackle that? Should we support female directors regardless?

Culture’s association of sexual resistance with (white) respectability, and with (white) entitlement to social protection, acts to detach sexual resistance from lack of desire. Yet, just as Austen’s heroes cannot actually marry both the girl of their dreams and the random female relative who represents her sex drive, a hero’s being justified in forcing himself on an unwilling woman, because her consenting inner goddess is hovering like a sexual Great Gazoo, is equally unrealistic. The seduction of Anastasia may be compared to the seductions of Brad and Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a rare example of the “displaced consent” trope being unisex, as Brad and Janet’s desire is clear in their visible pleasure at “giving in,” while their vocal resistance reflects social inhibitions and fear of losing status. Janet is shown to be liberated by her coercive seduction, embracing her desires in sex-positive anthem “touch-a, touch-a, touch me,” while Brad caresses his fetish gear and croons, “I feel se-exy!” However, Rocky Horror‘s flamboyant absurdism helps to underline the fantasy aspect of this rape fantasy, as a hypothetical mental experiment in gender and sexual fluidity. Kids, don’t try this at home.

“Blurred Lines”: Male Readings Of Rape Fantasy

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyDUC1LUXSU”]

Like its female equivalent, mainstream male rape fantasy centres on forcing the acknowledgement of suppressed female desire. The fact that dominant culture continues to interpret women’s sexual resistance as unconnected to any lack of desire, may be seen in the huge popularity of Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines.” While Thicke’s lyrics include consent-positive lines like “go ahead, get at me,” the feminist backlash highlights the damaging impact of invalidating sexual resistance, not to mention Thicke’s creepy delivery (catchy hook, though).

There is no denying that degrading porn (porn focussed on humiliation rather than pleasure) appeals to misogynist men and to sexual predators, but is that all it does? Can its full popularity, dominating the ratings of porn aggregate sites, really be explained only by a widespread sexual hatred lurking in most men? I suggest that comparison with the female model of “sexual assawwwlt” offers a more complex reading. The male porn performer, like Scarlett O’Hara, is not a direct expression of desire but an avatar of sexual frustration. Popular porn is shaped by commercial pressure; to cater to the male viewer’s resentment of the female performer’s unavailability (to him personally), the male performer must paradoxically punish that sexual unavailability while having sex with her. Compare Gone With The Wind‘s urge to punish Rhett Butler’s emotional unavailability, while he’s being emotionally vulnerable. I suggest that cinematic sexual fantasy can only be understood through this contradictory duality: performers represent their characters’ sexual fulfillment, while simultaneously being avatars for the viewer’s conflicting sexual frustration. These dual pressures shape dysfunctional models for imitation.

As long as the performers are willing and comfortable, there is nothing wrong with a purely cinematic rape fantasy, or with the intense trust of consensual BDSM power exchange, that confront inhibitions while cathartically venting sexual frustrations. However, we must recognize the roots of rape fantasy in a toxic sexual culture that stigmatizes female lust and imagines female consent as disempowering surrender. Fantasy is as good a way as any to explore the resulting tensions between power and desire. But punishing female inhibition with bodily violation, when that inhibition stems from punishing female sexuality, adds injury to insult before rubbing battery acid on the wound. Films become toxic when they blur the lines of fantasy and reality, leading viewers to mistake expressions of frustration for models of fulfillment.

[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10YPz0F-KOE”]

Brigit McCone is semi-apologetically Team Wolf, writes and directs short films and radio dramas.

Cult Truth: Why The Raunchy ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ is Hilariously Humanizing

When the movie begins we’re introduced to Brad, a hero (Barry Bostiwck) and Janet, a heroine (Susan Sarandon), two straight-laced representations of the all-American, white middle class Christian boy and girl who are suddenly thrown into a den of loose morals and provocative dancing. At all turns, we’re blatantly reminded of their status as a proxy for a nice boy and a good girl, and it’s reinforced with every cliché possible.

Written by Rachel Redfern

It doesn’t get more cult classic than the most cultish of all films, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In fact, I would assert that RHPS (Rocky Horror Picture Show to fans or the “Unconventional Conventionalists“) is the first great cult film.

While many cult films have fan websites and forums, and even conferences and gatherings, they probably haven’t been shown in a movie theater continuously since 1976 (making the RHPS the longest running theatrical release in history), and they most probably are not shows with audience participation. A true showing of RHPS has a script for audience members in response to certain phrases and cues from the film, and some showings even include props, such as toast, frankfurters, confetti, toilet paper, rice, a whistle, a flashlight, newspapers, water guns, and more.

If you haven’t seen the movie, here is the summary my mother gave to me when I first learned of the film in high school: Dr. Frank-N-Furter is a transvestite who really wants to get laid and creates himself a man with “blond hair and a tan.”

If you haven’t seen it, most of this review might seem like the crazed wanderings of a feminist mind, but only because the film is the crazed wanderings of some kind of mind. And while the Glee tribute episode was well done, it can never compare to the sheer raunch and random hilarity of the original.

The original had a young, unheard-of Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in one of the most amazing performances of all time; his full-bodied commitment (pun intended) to the part of a flamboyant drag queen is fantastic. I weep a little every time I watch it at the realization that Tim Curry looks better in a corset and garters than I do, and he is rockin’ it with a confidence that would make Lady Gaga jealous.

[youtube_sc url=”http://youtu.be/lwUjJXxoGy4″]

RHPS talks a lot about illusion vs. reality, time vs. space, meaning vs. nonsense, all while mockingly, and seriously, parodying the science fiction genre, having been intentionally set up as a parody of B-movies. But the film is also a gender-bending festival of sexual exploration embodying the sexual awakening of the 60s and later, the 70s, when the Western world was coming to grips with their new social mores: the film is an obvious exploration of the incorporation and aftermath of the feminist movement and sexual freedom.

Why is it that so much of our ideologies and idiosyncrasies are revealed in parody and satire? Richard O’Brien (Riff-Raff in the film), who wrote and composed The Rocky Horror Picture Show, has been an outspoken advocate for removing cultural norms of establishing gender in children, since he himself identifies as transgender.

the_rocky_horror_picture_show_2 — Brad and Janet before sex

For example, Janet faints and screams at the slightest noise and speaks in a breathy, sweet voice; she’s sexy, but also the girl next door. She’s obviously sexy because she doesn’t know she is, until she begins her own seduction of Rocky and sings out, “Touch me! I wanna be dirty!” in her very own musical number.

Brad is confident and protective, placing his arm around Janet and calming her, leading Frank-N-Furter to remark, ““How forceful you are Brad, such a perfect specimen of manhood,” and he is, of course, absolutely heterosexual until Frank-N-Furter crawls into his bed and the two have a happy, little romp, followed by a good smoke. By the end of the film, Brad’s staunch conservativism is belied by the women’s dressing gown he wears and the lyrics of his last song, “It’s beyond me/help me Mommy/I’ll be good you’ll see/take this dream away/What’s this, let’s see/Oh I feel sexy/What’s come over me?”

Juxtaposed, however, with the happy minion of dancers and their choreographed “Time Warp” dance moves (my dream party) is the intense violence of Eddie’s death, and then his subsequent cannibalism. Eddie’s death is a mercy killing according to Frank-N-Furter because while charming, his muscles weren’t very nice.

As much as I enjoy the film, it is legitimately disturbing in its overtones of rape (toward Janet and Rocky), cannibalism, and gruesome violence. But in the midst of all the destruction, Frank-N-Furter turns to the camera and quips, “It’s not easy having a good time. Even a smile makes my face ache,” biting his finger coyly. It’s such a brilliant, meta moment of recognition for power and privilege and the way that terrible things are acted out in service to his desires.

RHPS-LobbyCard1L — The ending: Lingerie and Confusion

The climax of the film is “The Floor Show,” a confessional performance for each of the characters, held in an empty theater, there revealing their lusts, desires and insecurities. As the performance culminates, and Frank-N-Furter strips off his makeup, vulnerable, and bows to an imaginary crowd, it becomes apparent that everything has been just one big, grand performance. Dr. Scott remarks that, “society must be protected” and Frank-N-Furter removed, and thus, the pretension must go on.

It’s actually a fabulous narrative to couch the ideas of sexuality in, since admittedly, much of sexuality, in terms of preferences, sexual performance, orientation, pornography, and gender roles, are performances of stereotypes and long-held expectations.

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.