Rocky Horror Picture Show: Thank You, Tim Curry

The LGBT community is mourning the loss of two queer icons in two days: Dolly Parton, the honorary drag queen and fierce voice for tolerance, and Tim Curry, whose arch performance as Frank N Furter in Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975, dir. Jim Sherman) made him a beacon of hope for several generations of queer people and kinksters. RHPS is not an historical movie, but it holds an important place in history, so it’s grist for this blog’s mill, and I suppose this post gives me a chance to set down my feelings about this important piece of queer cinema. For those few benighted souls reading this who have no idea what RHPS is about, it started life in 1973 as a London stage play, moved to LA and then NYC before folding, but Richard O’Brien, who wrote the book and the music for it, was able to arrange a film version. It tells the story of a naive young couple Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon in one of her first film roles) whose car breaks down near a castle inhabited by…