Causes and Symptoms of The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Maybe the rain is really to blame! The expanse of Rocky Horror, good and bad.
By Al McCann-Tabor
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is a familiar title for many, but it’s a cult classic especially within the queer community. The open and unapologetic queer identities of the characters, even if labelled using outdated language of the 1970s, is still very impactful in many people’s lives to this day. The film has sprawled out into countless different performance interpretations, popularized by shadowcasting, where costumed performers act out the story while the film plays behind them. Similar to a shadowcast, another unique interpretation is the Rocky Horror Cabaret, produced by University of Puget Sound’s Bare Bones Theater Collective and performed a few weeks ago on October 10th. The production consisted of a variety of numbers that, while not all strictly following the film’s story, still captured the unapologetically queer essence of the beloved film.
One of the main components that the cabaret and a typical shadow cast had in common is how closely everyone is involved in the construction of the show. Queer performance art is often rooted in DIY production. Historically when many queer films and live theater didn’t get sufficient financial backing for being deemed as unmarketable, people had to believe in a film or show to want to get involved. Because of this shared belief, there was a strong sense of community within the cabaret production alongside open artistic expression. The creative director behind the cabaret, Jake Williams (‘29) explained that “All of the directors were also actors within the show and they took part in various other numbers.” This, at its core, mirrored what makes “Rocky Horror” so impactful to so many people.
There is, however, contentious dialogue surrounding the film’s legacy. Many people — in and outside of the queer community — hold grievances with elements of the film’s portrayals. In his summer research project on “Rocky Horror,” Zero Lowrey (‘27), attended two different shadowcast showings of “Rocky Horror,” each with completely different attitudes. In the first, Lowrey said they “imposed a pre-show message that was talking about the transmisogyny in the show, talking about the harmfulness and derogatory aspects of the callbacks, and basically saying, ‘Hey, please don’t do that, we will pause the show and ask you to leave.’” Lowrey described the experience of that show as “such a wonderful space. It was energetic, the jokes were hilarious, they were contextually relevant, but they weren’t derogatory, they weren’t punching down.” The second showing he attended was the complete opposite. “I heard some of the most derogatory callbacks that I’ve ever heard,” Lowrey said, “and by the point where Frank was singing ‘Sweet Transvestite’ I had already noticed specifically people of color leaving the audience.” Serious harm can be done using the film’s original context, raising blame pointed at the performers, showrunners, and really anyone involved engaging with problematic material.
To reconcile with the misuse of the film’s graphic nature, it’s best to look back at the story’s origin. “It was written in 1973. In the time of its inception, Richard O’Brien wrote the musical because he felt that there was no representation of gender ambiguous individuals in the media. He created a narrative that has, to this day, influenced countless ambiguous queer individuals to engage in that ambiguity,” Lowrey said.
Given how problematic some of the language in the film may be, many still wonder how it continues to remain a cult classic. In short, it dismantles boxes that many queer people have been confined in, time and time again. Explaining how euphoric the film is, Lowrey recounted his first encounter “I immediately became invested in Frank, I was like, ‘Oh oh, maybe I can be a T boy in drag.’”
Queer representation nowadays often focuses on creating socially acceptable gay characters that fit nicely into more heteronormative stories, whether they are main characters or used as the punchline. In strong contrast, “Rocky Horror” lets its characters be imperfect without their imperfections being that they are queer. It is in your face and very loud about you getting out of the comfort zone of the straight people around you. As Lowrey put it “it’s meant to make the virgins feel shameless.”