Absolute Pleasure: Queer Reflections on Five Messy Decades of Rocky Horror

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.

Margot Atwell (she/her/hers) is a writer, editor, publisher, speaker, and community funding expert. She is the former executive director and publisher of Feminist Press. Previously, she was head of publishing and director of community outreach at Kickstarter, PBC, and publisher of Beaufort Books. In 2019, she was selected as a Publishers Weekly Star Watch Honoree and received the Digital Book World Outstanding Achievement Award. She’s the coauthor of The Insider’s Guide to Book Publishing Success and author of Derby Life. You can find her on Twitter or Instagram at @MargotAtwell, and read her writing in her On the Books newsletter.