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The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Prisoner
A friend has been deepening my awareness of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and one thing that's struck me as I've sat down and really considered the movie is how thematically close it is to The Prisoner.
I'm not a RHPS aficionado, so I don't know if the The Prisoner is commonly known to be an influence, but it makes sense that it would be. It's only about five years older and from the same country, and there's a remarkable similarity in blocking between some of the "Time Warp" ensemble scenes and some scenes of oddly costumed folks running about in the last episode of The Prisoner.
Beyond that visual resonance, however, it didn't initially occur to me to link these two texts. After all, when one thinks of TRHPS, one thinks of sex and lingerie, and The Prisoner is about an asexual aromantic in a trim, black, almost priestly suit and occasionally in well starched pajamas, being immune to all seductions.
But The Prisoner is about the fight for individuality, the determination not to be a number but an "I"--the "One" who is not a "unit of society" but a "free man." It is about a man who will face death, torture, and anything else you can throw at him rather than compromise his sense of self by conforming to the demands of the society he is enmeshed in. TRHPS is about the same thing.( Read more... )
A friend has been deepening my awareness of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and one thing that's struck me as I've sat down and really considered the movie is how thematically close it is to The Prisoner.
I'm not a RHPS aficionado, so I don't know if the The Prisoner is commonly known to be an influence, but it makes sense that it would be. It's only about five years older and from the same country, and there's a remarkable similarity in blocking between some of the "Time Warp" ensemble scenes and some scenes of oddly costumed folks running about in the last episode of The Prisoner.
Beyond that visual resonance, however, it didn't initially occur to me to link these two texts. After all, when one thinks of TRHPS, one thinks of sex and lingerie, and The Prisoner is about an asexual aromantic in a trim, black, almost priestly suit and occasionally in well starched pajamas, being immune to all seductions.
But The Prisoner is about the fight for individuality, the determination not to be a number but an "I"--the "One" who is not a "unit of society" but a "free man." It is about a man who will face death, torture, and anything else you can throw at him rather than compromise his sense of self by conforming to the demands of the society he is enmeshed in. TRHPS is about the same thing.( Read more... )
