"Good, bad or mediocre:"
an RHPS bibliography
by Elizabeth A. Allen
Here's a list of book chapters, journal articles and online things that talk about RHPS. I make no claims to comprehensiveness. However, if you can give me bibliographic citations for analyses (not just summaries of what a midnight showing is like), please send them to me at jareth atnospam oddpla dot net. Thanks to Ruth Fink-Winter for providing some photocopied articles, as well as citations.
Note: if you want copies of all or most of these articles, please E-mail me and I will gladly make photocopies for you, since many of them are hard to find.
Books
Eco, Umberto. "Casablanca: Cult Movies
and Intertextual Collage." In Travels in Hyperreality. Tr. William
Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1983. 197-211. Talks
about cult movies as continual references to many other movies. Discussed
in detail in "Really drives you insa-a-a-ane,"
part I: what makes a cult classic a classic. Good, but rather theoretical.
Grant, Barry. "Science Fiction Double Feature:
Ideology in the Cult Film." In The Cult Film Experience: Beyond
All Reason. J.P. Telotte, ed. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991.
126-137. Talks about the ambiguity of RHPS, how it can be interpreted in
many ways. Notes that RHPS circumscribes sexual liberation, at the same
time being sympathetic to the sexually deviant characters. Good.
Kilgore, John. "Sexuality and Identity in
The Rocky Horror Picture Show." In Eros in the Mind's Eye.
Ed. Donald Palumbo. New York: Greenwood Press, 1986. 151-159. Discusses
RHPS as a movie about the search for balance of sexual expression, with
Frank representing unrestrained sex, Riff representing a moderate view,
Janet being a person well-adjusted to her sexuality, Brad being a bit too
repressed. Mediocre. Fine if you're a regular Freudie fan.
Ruble, Raymond. "Dr. Freud Meets Dr. Frank
N. Furter." In Eros in the Mind's Eye. Ed. Donald Palumbo. New
York: Greenwood Press, 1986. 161-168. Obviously, a Freudian reading of RHPS.
Riff and Magenta = the Superego. Brad and Janet = the Ego. Frank = the Id.
Oooh, psychodynamic tension. Similar to Kilgore's article. Mediocre.
Saunders, Michael William. "Queer Views From
the Outside: Damned and Damned Proud of It." In Imps of the Perverse:
Gay Monsters in Film. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger. 1998. 90-91 (relevant
pages). A short part of a chapter praising Frank for being happily and flagrantly
queer. Good.
Sontag, Susan. "Notes on 'Camp.'" In
Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Octagon Books,
1978. 275-292. A classic attempt to define the aesthetic of camp which is
so central to RHPS. Talks about the humor and self-reflexivity of camp,
the so-bad-it's-good phenomenon and other essential traits. Does not even
mention RHPS, but pertinent nonetheless. Good.
Telotte, J.P., ed. The Cult Film Experience:
Beyond All Reason. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. The introduction
(p. 1-16) gives a good overview of cult films in general with reference
to RHPS. Reminds readers that the cult film may go against pop culture in
some ways, but it's also a product thereof. Paradoxically, the cult film
is a socially permitted rebellion. Good.
Journals
Austin, Bruce. "Portrait of a Cult Film Audience:
The Rocky Horror Picture Show." Journal of Communications
(31), 1981. 45-56. An overview of the cult phenomenon, with lots of survey
results about who RHPS cultists are, what they do and why they do it. Good.
Aviram, Amittai. "Postmodern Gay Dionysus:
Dr. Frank N. Furter." Journal of Popular Culture (26:3), 1992.
183-192. Claims that Frank is a reincarnation of Greek god of wine and sex
Dionysus. Demonstrates how RHPS is a "gay rewriting" of classic
and pop culture. Discussed in detail in "A
regular Frankie fan": Crazed Imaginations and the article (about
Frank) I wrote for it. Good, bad or mediocre, depending on how high
your sense of camp is.
Bold, Rudolph. "Rocky Horror: The Newest Cult."
The Christian Century, September 12, 1979. 860-861. An outsider's
shocked description of the RHPS showings. Good for virgins, useless for
everyone else.
Corrigan, Timothy. "Film and the Culture of
Cult." Wide Angle (8:3-4), 1986. 91-99. Another scholarly article
about the theory of cult films. Mentions RHPS. Distinguishes cult films
from other films with pop references like Raiders of the Lost Ark, discusses
the importance of audience participation as a rewriting of the film, etc.
Mediocre. Read Eco instead. He says the same thing better.
Kinkade, Patrick T. et al. "Toward a Sociology
of Cult Films: Reading Rocky Horror." Sociological Quarterly
(33:2), 1992. 191-209. An overview of the traits of a cult film (including
"typical people in atypical situations," "audience identification
with subversive characters", etc.) using RHPS as a detailed example.
Very comprehensive. Good!
Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "The Rocky Horror Picture
Cult." Sight and Sound (49:2), 1980. 79-80. The history of the
cult, with some theory. Good.
Siegel, Mark. "The Rocky Horror Picture
Show: More Than a Lip Service." Science-Fiction Studies (7),
1980. 305-312. Claims that RHPS is like a religion performing a "ritual
of intensification" that fulfills jaded suburbanites. Also says that
RHPS reflects societal anxiety about sex roles. The ending is better than
the beginning. Mediocre.
Twitchell, James. "Frankenstein and
the Anatomy of Horror." Georgia Review, (37:1), 1983. 41-78.
Discusses the Frankenstein myth with some Freudian terms again, calling
it an adolescent enactment of sexual development. Claims that RHPS, as the
most popular current adaptation of the myth, is about sexual transformation
from general perversity to traditional male / female sex roles. Ruble and
Kilgore did it better. Mediocre.
Online Things
Sanes, Ken. "The
Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Emergence of Recreational Evil." Apparently a right-winger's rant, this article nterprets
Frank as a symbol of the meretricious, perverted media determined to send
us empty thrills, chills and exploitation. It made me laugh. Good (for humor
value).