Epilogue
Sequels, Sidelines and Sex

And so it goes on. And so The Rocky Horror Show goes on. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, and sometimes . . . well, indifference is not a word that is easily associated with Rocky Horror, but occasionally it has reared its head.

Indifference, for instance, greeted the news that MTV Films was aligning with Sky Movies to create a straightforward remake of The Rocky Horror Picture Show; indifference from those people who either assumed it would be just another in that long line of dismal celluloid revivals that have crashed and burned over the past couple of decades, or who didn’t care in the first place; and rage from those you’d expect to have been among the very first people to be consulted, but who were now firmly out of the celluloid loop.

Richard O’Brien certainly fell into the latter camp, telling the Independent newspaper, “Anger furls and distorts my outlook on the whole thing. When the stage show first went to the US, Lou Adler arranged the sale of the film rights to Fox. I wanted to take the contracts home to read, but was hurried into signing. Sure enough, I found out I was going to be marginalized. [The movie] made Fox $360 million, keeping them afloat for years. Lou made a conservative profit of about $20 million; whereas I’ve made less than a million.”

Barry Bostwick, too, was barely able to mask his scorn. He told bullz-eye.com, “What a waste of money. It would be like saying, ‘Hey, let’s go remake Casablanca! How are you going to remake it? It’s a one-off . . . you should just leave those things alone. Films like [Rocky Horror] are stand-alones, and they’re brilliant for what they were at the time they were done. I mean, you would have to do it as a period piece. It’s not like you’re going to update Oklahoma! It’s of its time.”

At the same time, however, one must allow leeway for at least a tiny shrug of admiration; the kind of shrug that attends any piece of history that has lived long enough in the memory to be preyed upon by the modern vulture of incessant revamps. So perhaps it was merciful that the idea eventually faded out, or at least went underground long enough for everyone to forget about it.

But they hadn’t, not really. Ryan Murphy, creator of Fox TV’s Glee spoke longingly of the possibility of remaking the movie, to the extent of posting declaration of his intent with the Halloween 2010 broadcast of The Rocky Horror Glee Show—the ghastly cast of that appalling show’s own grisly (but mercifully brief) homage to the original.

Not even a guest appearance from Barry Bostwick could salvage that; and, like dancing the time warp at the Junior Prom, one wonders precisely which elements of The Rocky Horror Show were considered most suitable for a crop of high school kids. The torture? The sex? The slaughter? The systematic mockery of a wheelchair-bound senior?

You choose, but remember this. As long ago as 1979, playwright Bill Gleason gifted the middle school set with The Clumsy Custard Horror Show, a strictly PG-rated audience participation sci-fi musical whose very title speaks loudly of its inspiration, even as it also broadcasts its humor and innocence.

Nevertheless, the farce continues. In April 2015, it was reported that Fox was again looking at the property, this time with an eye for the fortieth anniversary of the movie’s release. Although the tentatively titled remake The Rocky Horror Picture Show Event remained casting contingent, Kenneth Ortega (High School Musical) had already been engaged to direct, executive-produce and choreograph the projected two-hour feature, while original movie producer Lou Adler (together with Gail Berman) were attached as executive producers.

And yet . . .

We use such words as “revival” and “remake,” “revamp” and “rehash” so naturally in this regard, just as we treat every fresh production as one more thread in the vast tapestry that is The Rocky Horror Show.

But are we not also being a little disingenuous; to ourselves, to the concept, to Rocky himself?

By the time these words are read, the fortieth anniversary of the movie’s release will be over, and we will be entering the countdown for the fiftieth anniversary of the stage show in 2023 (with the movie to follow in 2025). Nor is there much doubt that both will be celebrated as wildly, by just as avid an audience, as all the other birthdays that Rocky has celebrated down the decades.

The original cast are all a lot older, of course, and even some of those that we think of as having played their part more recently are zeroing in on pensionable age. New generations are celebrating the show and interpreting it according to their own requirements, too.

The old Rocky, the one that we celebrated through the first half of this book, isn’t simply dead; it is superfluous. It exists only in the minds and memories of cultural historians, elderly thespians and rampant nostalgics, none of whom really have a place in the exciting new world in which we are told we thrive today.

The Rocky Horror Show is, again to deploy that hateful modern term, the ultimate interactive experience—the most fun you can have with someone else’s clothes on. If the nature of that fun can be said to have been coarsened and cheapened, then that is the price of mass appeal. Shakespeare, too, has been accused of being dumbed down.

But there is another way of looking at it, too. Yes, Shakespeare has changed, but that is because the times have changed. Many of the points that were relevant at the end of the sixteenth century mean nothing in the twenty-first, and to try and reinforce them would be tantamount to self-immolation, at least on a major stage, before a rambunctious audience.

What was the height of daring in 1599 lies in the depths of obscurity today.

And so it is with The Rocky Horror Show. What was heroic in 1973 is commonplace today; and whether or not Richard O’Brien wrote the show as a commentary on the sexual and cultural mores of the age, viewers at the time believed he had, and that is what counts.

No less than today, The Rocky Horror Show flourished as much from what the audience put into it, silent and smartly dressed though they were, as from what was written into its script and staging. Change the audience’s perceptions and you change the nature of the play; remove the subtext and you remove its heart. Unless other features and factors can rise up to replace it. And that is what they have done.

Shakespeare’s works survive because, regardless of all the other trappings associated with the show, the story was strong enough to overcome any shift in understanding. Likewise Gay’s Beggar’s Opera, likewise the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein, likewise all the other great works of stagecraft that have truly survived and prospered over the years, decades and centuries, from the legend of Robin Hood to A Streetcar Named Desire; from the latest revival of The Sound of Music to the most recent adaptation of Virtue in Danger.

They survive because they have adapted and adopted everything that they need to do so, as Nell Campbell pointed out when the blog wakeupscreening.wordpress.com asked her to reflect on the stage show that she helped bring to life.

The Rocky Horror Show, she explained, is “a combination of sex and great songs and great humor. Such a funny script, so sharp and tight. The songs are great, and they still work, and a great song lasts forever. They’re all great, and it’s a wonderful musical with homo/hetero sex, cross-dressing, songs, movie jokes and everything.”

Did you hear that? Everything. In other words, then, how can anyone ever possibly claim to be reviving, or even revisiting, revising, or re-anything-else-ing something that was already perfect when it was born?

It was great when it all began. And that’s why it’s still great today.