Is “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” the answer to international relations?

Is “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” the answer to international relations?

This story has two equally sugary- sweet parts:

Part one: When I was 19 or so, my mom was dating around after getting divorced, and was into going to night clubs to listen to live bands and other fun stuff she could never do while married to my computer programmer dad. So one Halloween night, she was bopping in and out of her room getting ready to go out for an evening of fun and I was sitting on the couch, happily absorbed in an ancient, well respected holiday tradition—watching “Rocky Horror Picture Show” on VH1.

This love began long ago. When I was in high school, the dressing rooms for our stage were under the stage itself, tiny wooden labyrinths that rocked with the sounds of two tapes on repeat: The soundtracks for Grease and Rocky Horror Picture show. Hours were spent arguing over who would “play” who (it was decided that I would be Janet, as I was the most “sweet and innocent” of the group. Hey, I was the youngest, this was ultra-decadent Catholic school, and this was the theater crowd, here!) and the girls’ dressing room rang with the sounds of girls singing the kooky lyrics to “I can make a man of you.” So I’ve had a special place in my heart for the campy cult classic ever since.

So as my mom came out to get my opinion on her latest outfit manifestation, she became entranced with the black hole of charisma that is Tim Curry in full on Franknfurter mode- like a glam rock Freddy Mercury with a touch more of…edge? Glamour? Sex Appeal? Freddy always seemed heartrendingly sincere, whereas Tim Curry is menacingly vampy and seductive. It’s hard to make a man dressed as an ironic 1930’s cabaret vamp seem attractive to women (and believe me, he is INSANELY attractive in this movie, probably for the same reasons that, some years later, bands like Poison would become attractive to women) but Curry does it. Writhing around on stage and stomping his 5 inch sparkling platform heels, Curry owns it.

“Who is that! I want to do my eye makeup JUST LIKE THAT!” She was riveted. I remember her watching at least half of the movie and really digging it! (15 years ago my mom was much more of a free spirit than she is now, Post- Hippie Ex. Her usual taste runs to Frank Capra movies, Jane Austen, and Victoria magazine). It’s one of my favorite memories because she was so cool about it, especially considering the drugged out, oddball, over- the- top dance numbers, prominently featuring the type of freaks you usually only see hanging half way off the back of someone’s truck during Mardi Gras parades.

Anyhoo, I made a tradition of watching it on Halloween until I got into my later 20’s and was too busy partying to watch movies on Halloween.

So this past Halloween I asked my roommate if we could rent Rocky Horror and he gave me a blank stare. I attempted to describe it and settled for a mash up of a few lines of the most famous songs, and a breathlessly positive review based on the above story. Then I sent him this from IMDB.

Well, my roommate and I were at the mall today and were looking for the trailer for another holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life” (after giving him the plot summary from what I could remember---I’m famously bad at such things, he was strangely hung up on the “suicide” angle (“But WHY was he trying to kill himself? WHY!!??”) and I was trying to show him that the film wasn’t really about that), and he reminded me “Oh, how about Rocky something or other?”

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, he was plunged into the “Time Warp” (a song they play on the radio during Halloween as well, unless I’m out of my mind) which he took to like a fish to water! He was singing the intro lines (ostensibly so I “could hear too” since only he had headphones, but I think it’s really because it’s IMPOSSIBLE not to sing along) and kept asking “I want to see the guy with the lipstick! When does the guy come?” (He means Tim Curry).

Well, at the end of “Time Warp”, Tim Curry has a solo number “Sweet Transvestite Transsexual from Transylvania”, which is the number my mom caught that caused her to fall fathoms deep in love with Curry’s eye makeup. We cued that up on YouTube, and… Whelp, same effect on my roommate. Despite being firmly hetero, he was tickled pink and clearly had a bad case of Curry poisoning, gleefully diagnosing “Oh, he’s a gay who likes manly men!” as if he alone “really understood” Franknfurter the way no one else would. As Tim Curry purrs out his first lines, curling his heavily lipstick-ed mouth, in that deep plum pudding voice of his, my roommate was about to propose on bended knee “Nice voice!” He grinned. Keep in mind that my roommate doesn’t drink, smoke, swear, or even raise his voice- he’s very conservative and old fashioned, he sort of disapproves of two piece bathing suits, and he was SUPER into this movie. Ah, Rocky Horror. The magic stays alive.