After the wholesome pair profess their love through an opening song, their car breaks down in the woods, and they seek refuge in a towering castle nearby. Greeting them at the door is a ghoulish butler named Riff Raff (Richard O'Brien), who introduces them to a bacchanalian collection of partygoers dressed in outfits from some sort of interplanetary thrift shop. The host of this gathering is a transvestite clad in lingerie, Dr. Furter (Tim Curry), a mad scientist who claims to be from another planet. With assistants Columbia (Nell Campbell) and Magenta (Patricia Quinn) looking on, Frank unveils his latest creation - - a figure wrapped in gauze and submerged in a tank full of liquid. With the addition of colored dyes and some assistance from the weather, Frank brings to life a blonde young beefcake wearing nothing but skimpy shorts, who launches into song in his first minute of life. Just when Brad and Janet think things couldn't get any stranger, a biker (Meat Loaf) bursts onto the scene to reclaim Columbia, his ex- girlfriend. When Frank kills the biker, it's clear that Brad and Janet will be guests for the night, and that they may be next on Frank's list - - whether for murder or carnal delights is uncertain. And just what is that mystery meat they're eating for dinner, anyway? In addition to playing Riff Raff, O'Brien wrote the catchy songs, with John Barry and Richard Hartley composing the score. How to Do the Time Warp. The "Time Warp" originates from the musical "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," which is still often performed almost forty years later! Columbia (Character) on IMDb: Movies, TV, Celebs, and more.
You can’t do the Time Warp again: Fox should have left “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” alone. It turns out you can’t do the Time Warp again after all. Fox’s remake of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” debuted on Thursday night, putting a “Glee”- esque spin on the 1. The young, fresh- faced cast is stacked with former Disney channel stars (Victoria Justice), “American Idol” contestants (Adam Lambert), and early- 2. R& B singers transitioning into acting (Christina Milian). Directed by Kenny Ortega (“Footloose”), the production is punishingly earnest, which has a way of neutering the film’s subversive camp aesthetic. The remake feels strictly PG- 1. There are strong elements in the production. Annaleigh Ashford (“Masters of Sex”), an unexpected delight, is to Fox’s “Rocky Horror” what Vanessa Hudgens was to “Grease Live!” Playing Columbia by way of Cyndi Lauper, Ashford steals every scene she’s in. She especially tap dances the hell out of “Time Warp.” It’s Laverne Cox (“Orange Is the New Black”), however, who is the star of the show. The 3. 2- year- old Emmy nominee doesn’t have Curry’s vocal chops, but she radiates swagger and saucy sex appeal as a cannibalistic mad scientist who just wants to have a little fun. There’s a problem with Cox’s casting, however, and it’s not the actress herself. The dated gender and sexual politics of “Rocky Horror” make an awkward fit for the most widely recognized trans entertainer in the world. The year before the original film hit theatres, homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM, however, wouldn’t do the same for trans people until 2. In 1. 97. 4, trans individuals weren’t just thought of as mentally ill. The term “transgender” didn’t even exist, meaning that many people who felt gender difference didn’t know there was a word for it. It’s hard to be something you can’t name. That’s the cultural context which writer Richard O’Brien found himself when writing the screenplay for “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” O’Brien, who also plays Riff Raff, wrote the script as an exploration of his own feelings of gender variance, a sense that he didn’t fit in with the traditional categories of “male” and “female.” Today, he identifies as a “third sex.” “I believe myself probably to be about 7. O’Brien has said, explaining that he “ticks the . Kinsey, the pioneering sex researcher, argued that many people don’t conceive of their sexuality at the extremes of the binary, rated as 1 or a 6 on the scale, but instead are somewhere in the middle. Similarly, a genderqueer person might rate their gender as a 3 or a 4. That concept wouldn’t become popularized until the 1. Queer Studies literature. Kate Bornstein, the trailblazing trans writer, described herself as a “gender outlaw” in a 1. In the song “Sweet Transvestite,” Frank- N- Furter claims to be a “transvestite” from the planet “Transsexual.” Those terms contradict one another. The latter refers to someone who identifies with a different sex than the one they were assigned at birth, then an emerging term in the medical field. Meanwhile, the former is an outdated, pejorative word that connotes a person who dresses in the clothing of the opposite sex for sexual pleasure. A transvestite would include the Lou Jacobi character in Woody Allen’s “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex,” a middle- aged man who covets his wife’s underthings.“Glee” also struggled to bring the catchy number into the 2. In the show’s second season, the New Directions staged a production of “Rocky Horror” with Mercedes (Amber Riley) in the role of Frank- N- Furter. During their rendition of “Sweet Transvestite,” the musical- comedy confusingly took out the term that isn’t objectionable: “Transvestite” stayed, but “transsexual” was swapped for “sensational.” To add insult to injury, Puck (Mark Salling) casually drops the word “tranny” elsewhere in the episode, which is considered by an overwhelming majority of the trans community to be an offensive slur. The “Rocky Horror” remake attempts to skirt the implications of the song by making it clear throughout the production that their version of Frank- N- Furter is, in fact, a woman. Cox wears a form- fitting burlesque corset that accentuates every inch of her curves, making the character ultra- feminine. If Curry is doing drag, Cox is a 1. The trouble is that there’s no getting around the lyrics themselves, which not only conflate various identity markers but refer to the libertine doctor as “not much of a man.” In the original, that statement subverts the character’s masculinity, but here, it reinforces the harmful, incorrect idea that underneath the thick eyeliner and the dog collar, Cox is just a “man in a dress.” Even Frank- N- Furter’s very name is a reference to the fact that the character has a penis. This a problem shared with “Dallas Buyers Club,” “The Danish Girl,” and even Amazon’s acclaimed “Transparent,” where the lead roles are played not by trans women but cisgender men. As trans activists have argued, casting a male actor in a woman’s role encourages the audience to view these characters not as transgender but people playing dress up, as if their identities were a costume they can just take off. In the case of “Rocky Horror,” it doesn’t help that O’Brien himself has denied the existence of trans women. It’s OK to watch the film through that lens when you’re sitting in a darkened theater with your closest friends, throwing popcorn at the screen, and yelling “asshole!” at Barry Bostwick. It’s quite different, though, when applied to a movement still fighting for wider recognition. Trans people have made great strides in media representation in recent years with the success of shows like “Sense. Difficult People,” and “The Fosters,” and “Rocky Horror” is another groundbreaking first: Cox is now the first transgender actress to headline a primetime program on a broadcast network. It’s just too bad it couldn’t have been for a different role.“The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” which derives its aura of sexual freedom from its very fluidity, will always have a place in the canon. The landmark film was a lifeline for LGBT people who didn’t have other places to express the person they were becoming, the call- and- response offering queer catharsis through audience interaction. Updating “Rocky Horror,” however, is like fitting a square heel into a round hole. The remake has its moments and its commitment to inclusivity is commendable, but this show should have been left to a bygone era, where it rightfully belongs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
September 2017
Categories |