Give Yourself Over to Absolute Pleasure

Apologies for the too-long absence, I have been hard at work tapping up a storm as Columbia in a production of The Rocky Horror Show.  This is of course the stage version of the '70s movie classic--as a teenager I saw the movie many times at the Key Theater in Georgetown and listened to the soundtrack religiously. I even drew in my diary an approximation of the famously lippy RHPS logo:

Freud would have a field day.  Although he might have a hard time determining whether Frank N. Furter was fixated on the oral or the anal stage.

The meaning behind the tagline never dawned until I was cast in September and then the answer popped into my head.  The movie came out in 1975, and what other "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" film came out that year?  Everyone's favorite updated Moby Dick epic, Jaws.  More on this below.

RHPS somehow manages to simultaneously spoof horror and sci-fi flicks and capture the unabashed hedonism of the '70s, the era of suburban key parties and the gay liberation movement.  Its first song, "Science Fiction Double-Feature," is a roll call of genre classics:

Michael Rennie was ill
The Day the Earth Stood Still
But he told us where we stand
And Flash Gordon was there
In silver underwear
Claude Rains was The Invisible Man
Then something went wrong
For Fay Wray and King Kong
They got caught in a celluloid jam
Then at a deadly pace
It Came From Outer Space
And this is how the message ran...

Fascinatingly, all of the movies listed here are American, and the creator of Rocky Horror, Richard O'Brien, is English.  (Although it should be noted that the Hammer movies, to which RHS also pays homage, were English.) What is it about these British composers who are so well-versed in American pop culture capital?--the song "Tiny Dancer" is so convincingly early '70s Californian in spirit ("blue jean baby, LA lady," "the headlights on the highway," "Jesus freaks, out in the street"), it might have been written by any wistful go-west-young-man free spirit but was instead composed by Bernie Taupin, also English. The American invasion?


And for all of Rocky Horror's celebratory pan-sexualism, it ends on a haunting note--Brad and Janet stumble through the mist in the aftermath, wondering what the hell just happened to them.*

And all I know
Is deep inside I'm
Bleeding...

Perhaps this is the true genius of RHS--embodying the ethos of the '70s, it then anticipates the aftermath, the Big Chill of the '80s.  Gotta pay the piper sometime, sadly...

This poster--and endless riffs thereon--was EVERYWHERE after the movie came out.**

Back to the other set of lips: the movie Jaws is actually quite different from its source book--most people think the movie improves on it, but I have a great fondness for the Benchley novel which is both witty and dark and (like RHPS) very much a product of the '70s (and unlike the Spielberg adaptation which is surprisingly undated, hirsute heroes aside).  The novel is less of a Man vs. Beast thriller and more of an extended metaphor--the shark is not just Brodie's obsession but also a symbol of the forces that threaten to tear apart the town and Brodie's marriage, not the least of which is the sexual revolution which, by 1974 (the year the novel was published) had filtered down to the middle class.  Most memorably, Brodie's wife Ellen has a very brief affair with the ichthyologist Hooper, whose older brother she had dated as a teenager.  Throughout the novel Ellen is a consistently sympathetic character and yet coolly plans and executes extramarital seduction.  What can I say?  It was the '70s--everyone had a lot more sex then.

Key Party







The Ice Storm

Middle class '70s people preparing to have era-appropriate extra-marital sex. You just know Brad and Janet will be hosting the next one.

If you've read the novelization to the Jaws sequel, the first chapter reveals the shark that has come along to terrorize Amity THIS time is pregnant.  Even the shark had sex in Jaws!


*"Super Heroes," and Janet and Brad's bewilderment after their night of debauchery at the castle, always make me think of the last section of Steppenwolf when Harry is wandering through the club.


**Interesting perspective in the poster--in the book the shark is estimated at about 25 feet long but in this picture he sure looks a lot bigger than that!  When Hooper first sees the shark he is euphoric, rhapsodizing "Damn near megalodon!"  C. megalodon was a kind of proto-shark but much bigger and toothier, anywhere from 50 to 100 feet which is frankly terrifying.  

Jaws, the Prequel:
"You're gonna need a bigger--" CHOMP.
The End.