Why The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not outdated

I went to my first screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the ICon festival three days ago. It was the first time in 10 years that I went to a screening, and the first in 11 that I went to one at the ICon. Quite honestly, the whole event felt like going to mass (and yes, I have been to mass), or, rather, like a mirror image of going to mass.

This triggered a brief, mild fixation with the film and the musical, which led me to coming across a wide array of people expressing the idea that the musical is outdated, as the liberal environment culture we live in today that makes the revolutionary edge of the original obsolete. As a matter of fact, it is even considered homophobic or callous towards consent. What I was surprised to see was that it seemed just about everyone thought Rocky was about ‘straight-laced Americans who need to stop being so uptight and try a fishnet or something’, and that’s even from people who still go to screenings.

No, the point of this musical has to do with a much more fundamental and timeless theme. Admittedly, when I first saw the film and read the original play (found here in its entirety), I misinterpreted the main theme and thought that it was about the meaninglessness of existence and the futile attempts to fend it off with:

clinging tightly to a rigid social order, in the case of Brad, Janet, and Dr. Scott;

hedonistic sex like Frank and Rocky; or

drug use like Columbia. (This is more apparent in the play, when the drug that knocks out everyone else just gives her a high, but even in the film she sings, ‘Now the only thing that gives me hope / is my love of a certain dope’).

(As a matter of fact, I even wrote a short book report on it back in high school, but that’s another story.)



There are also other symbolism in the film, such as Frank’s wild hubris (including Biblical allusions to typological numbers 3 and 7 and Frank’s god complex) and some mention of male privilege and racism (Brad’s repeated attempts to restrain Janet and his panicked reaction to feeling ‘sexy’ versus Janet feeling liberated, Dr. Scott’s derisive remark regarding ‘aliens’), but this sort of depressive nihilism is what I saw as the main theme there.

But, the truth is, I apparently missed the point, which became more apparent when I re-watched the film and gave it a little more thought. The true theme of the film is the emptiness that comes with lack of true human connection (or, I suppose, Transylvanian connection), sometimes in favour of using others as tools for personal enjoyment or even just optics.

This is why when Brad and Janet talk about Ralph and Betty’s wedding, they don’t talk about their connection but rather Janet talks about how Betty was beautiful and how she now has the title ‘Mrs.’ to be proud of, and Brad talks about how useful they will be to each other (Betty as a skilled cook, Ralph as a breadwinner who’s soon to be promoted). When Brad does confess his love to Janet, in most adaptations he starts running away from her to focus on singing, and the first thing Janet says is not ‘yes!’ or ‘I’m so happy!’ but rather, ‘It’s nicer than Betty Munroe had!’ In the film, even though Ralph and Brad talk about how inseparable the Hapshatts have always been, the car they drive away in reads, ‘Wait till tonite—she got hers, now he’ll get his,’ as if the marriage was essentially transactional in nature—thus, it’s no surprise they are bitterly divorced in Shock Treatment.

It’s also no surprise to see this theme continue as Brad and Janet argue pretty much non-stop afterwards (in one Japanese rendition at least, Brad even aggressively yells at Janet to shut up at one point), and later (in the play) when Janet has a disjointed dialogue with Rocky in which they barely listen to each other, and then she essentially uses Rocky (who, in the film, might not even have the mental capacity to consent) for her own pleasure (and perhaps payback). These actions stand in stark contrast to Brad’s emotional reaction to Janet’s cheating in ‘Once in a While’, in which he hopes he and Janet can move past it and make up—this might be a minor epiphany moment, even if it’s not dwelt on, and Frank even dismisses it as ‘maudlin’.

More importantly, however, it’s very much the central theme of Frank’s behaviour. Tim Curry himself has pointed out that he’s ‘obsessed with image’, which is why he kills Eddie and replaces him with Rocky. That is why in the film he has a minor tantrum when Columbia says Rocky’s just ‘OK’, and in the play when Rocky asks, ‘How can you keep him around? He’s so ugly,’ he excuses it, ‘We had a mental relationship— / But a deltoid and a bicep […]’ His rape of Brad and Janet is not an outdated way to show they actually wanted it in secret, but to show both how flimsy their actual relationship was, but more importantly to show how callous Frank is towards them, seeing them (and Rocky) as little more than sex toys rather than actual people. (The play makes it more apparent as Rocky can speak and think for himself, and tells Janet he fears that what happened to Eddie could easily happen to him.)

The film even spells it out when Columbia lashes out at him and tells him how she used to love him, but all he ever does is use people and leave them spent. Columbia herself actually does try to form genuine connections, both with Frank and with Eddie, but she is simply denied it (leading to her drug use).

Ultimately, it all crashes down on Frank, first when Rocky sleeps with Janet (and, in the play, tells him to ‘piss off’), and finally when Riff Raff and Magenta, whom he has hitherto seen as servants to use as tools for his own convenience finally turn in on him and kill him. In this context, Riff Raff’s line ‘your lifestyle’s too extreme’ is often seen as a reactionary response to Frank’s liberated sexuality or his homosexual practices, but it is soon made very clear it was just a flimsy excuse when he shouts, ‘They didn’t like me! They never liked me!’ (and, in the play, adds, ‘You saw the way things were—the way they were going!’) The rest of the surviving characters are left to rebuild their lives after their delusions have collapsed.

This is why the musical is still relevant. We may have become far more liberal in our attitudes towards sex and sexual orientation (for the most part—there are plenty of Bible belts and conservative areas throughout the Western world even today), and many of the B-movies referenced in the film are far more removed from our collective memory now, but the underlying message is as relevant as it always has been. Luddites might argue that the message is even more relevant now, with the advent of technology (allegedly) replacing human connection.

A comforting thought, however, is that this seems so non-intuitive because the film screenings have ironically fostered a sense of community and close bonds, which make the point of the film less relatable to those who watch it. I would certainly like to think so.



Also, interestingly enough, the theme appears very prominently in Shock Treatment as well. In essence, as I see it, when Richard O’Brien said that this film was The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s ‘equal’, he meant what we would refer to as an ‘AU’. The whole point about the temptation of Janet into the life of stardom was to explore the theme of glamorous yet shallow image versus love and compassion—this is practically spelled out in ‘Looking for Trade’. The difference is that in Shock Treatment, when Janet is faced with the dilemma of choosing one or the other, she does not fall for the same trap as Frank, choosing Brad over her celebrity status, and making two new friends on the way bringing the saga to a positive ending. ‘We just gotta keep going’, indeed.

