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ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW- The 50 year Time Warp

By. Spooky Starshine 

                                                                  

            Rocky Horror Picture Show celebrates its 50^th (!!!) anniversary this year, and we still tap our feet and perhaps even do a little pelvic thrust to the Time Warp. We still dress like Frankenfurter on Halloween. We still shout very mean things to Brad at our local movie theater. Why do we love this film so much all these years later? Of course, we know how catchy the songs are, and many of us love stories as wild as this one. But there is a certain charm about the film that has easily survived for fifty years and will survive for another fifty and beyond.

            Our two main heroes, Brad and Janet, are traditional in every way, and the friends with whom they surround themselves are also incredibly old school. Janet refers to their newly married female friend as “Mrs. Ralph Hapschatt” after the happy couple drove away from their wedding to their new lives. Brad even comments on how great of a cook Betty is, reinforcing how much he and Janet value the more traditional gender roles of married life. Even though the Hapschatts and their wedding guests have all left the wedding venue, we see a glimpse into the future as Tim Curry (Frankenfurter), Richard O’Brien (Riff Raff), and Patricia Quinn (Magenta) stay within a few yards of Brad as he sings the only cussword he knows as he proposes to Janet.

 

                                                                      

Of course, we know that things do not stay so innocent and wholesome forever. We know that something in the traditional lifestyles of Brad and Janet are about to give, and it all starts “over at the Frankenstein place” in “a night out they were going to remember for a very long time.”

                                                         

 

            While Brad and Janet are driving down the road on a dark and stormy night, they remind us of their innocent, dull lives as they listen to Nixon’s resignation speech and express annoyance at motorcyclists. When their tire blows out, they have no choice but to approach a mysterious castle in the middle of nowhere just as the “Annual Transvestite Convention” was going on. Upon their arrival at this castle, Brad and Janet are immediately greeted by an alternative lifestyle that is a completely different reality from their own. Janet is disturbed by what she sees while Brad tells her, “It’s just a party, Janet.” Later in the lab, Frankenfurter’s unapologetic behavior and his undying willingness to be himself amidst Brad and Janet’s traditional values are part of why we love this film so much. He immediately clocks this couple as innocent, yet this does not stop Frankenfurter from ripping his cape away to reveal his ensemble of women’s lingerie.

                                                                       

            While we sing along to “Sweet Transvestite” and laugh at Frankenfurter’s quips, those of us who regularly re-watch this film know the horrors we are about to see from our main character. He violently murders our beloved Eddy, all while wearing a maniacal smile that only Tim Curry can master. And, of course, we see Eddy later in the film at Rocky’s birthday party… but not at all in the way that Columbia would have preferred to see her lover again. After an incredibly awkward rendition of the happy birthday song, Frankenfurter rips away the tablecloth to reveal a coffin holding Eddy’s gutted corpse, letting the dinner party patrons and the audience know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they had been cannibalizing Eddy.

                                                                       

            But wait a minute. Aren’t we supposed to be horrified by Frankenfurter before all the murder and cannibalism and predatory behaviors? Aren’t we supposed to hate him as soon as he comes down the elevator in high heels and makeup? Aren’t we supposed to hate him even more when he rips his cloak away, revealing his stunning lingerie ensemble? Well, certainly not. Perhaps, this is the only thing we DON’T hate about him. Everything that makes him different is what draws us to him, almost as if we are under a trance of our new “sweet transvestite” friend. Certainly, in 1975, audiences must have felt some societal pressure to dislike Frankenfurter for all of his genderqueer ways, but this is actually the best thing about him, and we know it! As he struts around in what he loves – women’s lingerie – we can’t help but celebrate this aspect of him. Now, the cannibalism, predatory behaviors, and violent murder… that is what allows us to view Frankenfurter as the villain that he is.

            As poorly as trans people are treated in today’s society, this horrible treatment, of course, was even worse in 1975. So much so that it is shocking that what we would now call a genderqueer character was allowed to take front and center of this film in both the plot and in a lot of the shots, such as in the “Don’t Dream It, Be It” sequence.

                                                  

As 1975 audiences sat in their respective theaters, they surely clutched their pearls like Brad and Janet did in earlier scenes of this film. But still, audiences were transfixed on Frankenfurter as a character that they weren’t normally given the societal permission to even think about outside of the context of hellfire and brimstone. Though RHPS is a cult classic, for 1975 audiences to see Frankenfurter in all his genderqueer glory as the main character of a feature-length film made cultural shockwaves in the societal mainstream that we still feel in 2025. Of course, this 50-year-old film is not leaving the cultural zeitgeist any time soon. We will do the Time Warp again and again, and we will continue to take this “strange journey” together.