Absolute Pleasure

Queer writers reflect on the complicated legacy of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Since its earliest midnight showings at the Waverly Theater in New York City, The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been an underground sensation. For five decades, people around the world have dressed up and gathered in dark theaters to dance, yell, mime obscene acts, and forge connections with other queer people and weirdos.

The film shattered expectations and social norms at the time of its release. But how does its presentation of queerness—not to mention its portrayals of murder, manipulation, consent violation, and cannibalism—hold up today? The essays in Absolute Pleasure—by queer writers including Sarah Gailey, Grace Lavery, and Magdalene Visaggio—explore the film's complicated legacy, along with queer and trans joy, sexuality, family, generational understandings of queerness, and what we do with our problematic faves.