Postmodern Gay Dionysus:

Dr. Frank N. Furter

Amittai F. Aviram

Now that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is finally available on video,
thousands will be at liberty to indulge their cult interest in the privacy of their
own homes and thousands more no doubt will join them in becoming initiated
into its mysteries.’ There is a deep irony in the celebration of this cult privately
at home, however, an irony which would seem powerful enough a reason to
have forestalled distribution of the Picture Show on video hitherto. The irony is
that the Rocky Horror Cult ought to be celebrated in public spaces, late at night,
in the dark, and not trivialized by suburban solitude and trips to the kitchen for
beer. I hope it is clear by now that I am using the word “cult” not in its band
media-hype sense but rather in its classical sense. the celebration of mystic rites
pertaining to a divine being or divine beings and to the appropriate secret lore.
In other words, the Rocky Horror Picture Show centers not around a mere diva
or two, but around the divine itself. Who or what divinities? What men or gods
are these? What maidens loath? What wild pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels?What wild ecstasy?
The androgynous, seductive but tyrannical Dr. Frank N. Furter, who
commands a mostly (but not exclusively) female troop held thrall by his magic
and music, is a postmodern, gay version of the god Dionysus, followed by his
intoxicated Maenads.’ Frank and his crew have come down to earth from outer
space, just as Dionysus and his attendants have swept into town from the East
before the action of Euripides’ The Bacchae. Later, Brad, the earthling who
with his f a & Janet has stumbled upon Frank‘s castle in the wooc1s, becomes
the resistant, rationalistic spectator-another Pentheus-until Frank literally
seduces him. Thus the Show can and should be read as a gay rewriting of
Euripides The Bucchae; but it is more than that. Rich in allusions to other
tangentially related Greek myths and tragic topoi and to later Western traditions
that can also be understood as manifestations of the Dionysiac, the Rocky
Horror Picture Show is a pastiche of Great Books and other portions of Western
culture, a Bacchic orgy of learned references, and a gay response.
Historically speaking, the Dionysian pastiche of the Show is hardly isolated;

183
184 Journal of Popular Culture
rather, it is a culmination of a remarkable development, primarily in theater, in
’
North America and England during the mid-to-late 1960s. This is the era of
audience-participation theater, outrageous plays on gender and old-movie
stereotypes in the subgenre known as “theater of the ridiculous,” and a Greek
revivalism that included performances of Greek tragedy in theii original language?
The Rocky Horror Show,which opened in London in 1973 and in Los Angeles in
1974, is thus relatively belated, the movie was released in 1975. Thus whatever we
might say about the figure of Dionysus and the practices over which he presides,
based on observations of the Rocky Horror Picture Show,should have some bearing
on our undersranding of their striking importame m relation to the development of
public gay sensibilitiesand cultural prauices in the formative 1970s.
As is tbe case with all Greek mythic figures, it is very difficult to define and
especially to isolate Dionysus from the seamless web of ideas and images that forms
the text of its literary and religious culture.’ But at least for the present, it makes sense
to point to (about) three feams of Dionysus as worthy of special attention.
First, Dionysus is the god of wine and one of the gods of music. Here, music
is conceived not as perfect order and control (Apollo and Pythagoras) but more as
magical power (Orpheus) and as an intoxicant, like wine, an inducement to
explosions of raw physical, sexual energy. The god is celebrated in loud choruses
with wild dancing and in secret sexual rites. The adherent suffers the effects of
Dionysus paradoxically as both a liberation and an enslavement to the lovely but
tyrannical god. In the Show,Columbia, Magenta and Riff-Raff resent their
enslavement to their irresistible master. “Give yourself over to absolute pleawe,”
implores Frank even at the moment of his downfall (48).
Secondly, Dionysus is the god of epiphanies, “der kommende Gott” (“the
coming gad”) as Walter F. Otto, an early modem classicist put it (qtd. in Burkert
162). ’be solid ancient tradition of Dionysus’ Origin in the barbaric north or the
mysterious east has more recently been viewed as simply an emphasis on his
perennial character of a newcomer, one who makes his appearance by sweeping
through the territory. Dionysus is Thracian, Frank Transylvanian. Frank also
sweeps into bedrooms-not only Janet’s but Brad‘s as well.
Finally, and directly related to the other two points, Dionysus is the only
one among the Greek immortals who, as one of his paradoxical qualities, dies
(Detienne, Dionysos Slain). Legends of his death vary but center around the
images of being tom to pieces and being served up as food. After his death,
naturally, he is pulled back together again and revived. I would subsume under
this last point another unique quality of Dionysus among the gods, the fact that
his celebrants can, by impersonating him and wearing his mask, become him
and share in his divinity for a time. Both in Dionysus’s sacriftcial death and in
the apotheosis of his celebrants, we see the undermining of the distinction
 Postmodern Gay Dionysus 185
between the mortal and the immortal, human and divine. These attributes of
Dionysus are generally relegated to the related figure, Orpheus; in the Show,
they obviously inform the character Eddie and give tragic fulfillment to the
name of the actor who paforms him, Meat Loaf? But the suffering god is also
manifested in Frank himself, as we see not only at the end but in his entire camp
personality from the beginning, as tbe raging drag queen. ’Ibe masterful make-
up which Tim Curry wears with equal mastery suggests not so much the feigned
beauty of female impersonation as the mask, the dread visage of the sublime
god, in all his terror and agony. The adherents of the cult of the Rocky Horror
Picture Show transform themselves into the characters, and especially into
Frank, by singing the songs and especially by donning his mask.6
These three principal features-musicas power,epiphany, and the ecstasy and
anguish of mixing the mortal and divine conditions-tkse features inform the
chamter of Frank and the personages and symbols that sutroundhim. But the Show
recruits these features of Dionysus to make a specifically postmodem and gay
critique of such apparently xmsonable institutions as home and family, dad and mam
and apple pie: “Ylourl apple pie don’t taste too nice,” snaps Frank at Janet (44).And
it is the tempomy release affordedby the Show fmm the bonds that these institutions
impose that probably explains best the ever-growing popularity of its cult.
Wild, orgiastic dance music is one of the giveaway signs of Dionysus.
Once Brad and Janet, drying off from the rain and “reduced to their 1950s
underwear” (22), have settled into a mystifying conversation with Frank’s
household servants, Riff-Raff explodes into the first dance number, the “Time
Warp” (23-25).While, of course, it is probably appropriate to speak of warps in
time in the presence of such homey throwbacks as Brad and Janet, the song also
suggests that we, with Mr. and soon-to-be Mrs. Normal, have just stepped into a
weird realm (Brad: “It’s probably some sort of hunting lode for rich weirdos,”
20- weird realm where time does not progress, where both space and time
are “warped” from their ordinary linearity.
The introd- of this wild dance early in the movie is reminisCent of the
appearance of the prophet Teiresiasand the old a r i s m Kreon early in the &rcchae
before Pentheus, attempting to persuade him to join in the dance and demonstrating a
few steps. Indeed,here, Teiresias is rather the type of the txmator-c~terinthe
play and movie. Riff-Ms introductory lyrics are vintage Baccante:

I remember doing the time warp

Drinking those moments when
The blackness would hit m e - a n d the void would be calling
Let’s do the Time Warp again. (23-24)
186 Journal of Popular Culture
The ensuing dance is so contagious that even the narrator-in the movie, “a
criminologist (an expert)” played by the stout and sexless-lookingCharles Gray,
notorious to cult adherents for lacking a neck-even this character joins in the
dance, hands on his hips and thrusting his pelvis (Henkin 7). Much of the
movie’s theater audience, of course, participates. Only Brad and Janet must
stand and watch, she looking wistfully on,he standing tall and a bit bemused.
I have mentioned that initially Brad is in the position of Pentheus,
representing that hypocritical combination of censoriousness and morbid
curiosity. The first part of the movie is structured around tbe conflict between the
two protagonists, Frank and Brad, and thus around the larger strugglebetween the
powers of irrational abandon and rational probity. At this point, Janet is merely
the weak side of Brad, the suppressed, feminine, vulnerable side that is open to a
seductive attack. Hence, while Brad introduces himself to Riff-Raff and cohorts
as Brad Majors (one thinks of carpentry, mechanical attachments and the
military), he pronounces Janet’s name by a slip as “Janet Vice” (23). The early
confrontation between Frank and Brad resembles strikingly the moment in
Euripides where god and prince meet face to face, the former with long, flowing
tresses and in women’s clothes. the latter armed and threatening: “He thought you
were the candy man,” sneers Frank bitchily (21). When Brad shouts to assert the
law of hospitality (orrather decency), Frank is quick on the uptake:

FRANK. (flicking BRAD wirh a rubber glove) How forceful you are, Brad, what a
perfect example of manhood-so dominant. You must be very proud of him, Janet.

JANET. Yes.

FRANK. Tell me, Brad, do you have any tattoos?

BRAD. (aggressively) Certainly not.

FRANK. Oh well...( ro JAhE7) How about you? (26)

Aside from the camp humor of exchanges like this one, there is a larger,
more overtly political, gay side to the conflict between Frank and B r a d 4 e
general theme of the disruption of heterosexuality. By heterosexuality I mean
not love between people of different sexes, but rather a social institution that
regulates sex and whose purpose (as an Althusserian Ideological State
Apparatus par excellence) is nothing other than reproduction in every sense of
the word-ideological as well as biological. Hence the movie opens on the
scene of a wedding outside of a church. By virtue of the bouquet-throw, Brad
 Postmodern Gay Dionysus 187
and Janet are placed by forces beyond themselves into the position of next
reproducing the institution of reproduction whose consecration they have just
witnessed. Rather heavy-handed visual signs reinforce the conception of
marriage not as a celebration of love but as the fulfillmentof rigid social norms.
Two church-attendants (if that’s what they are!), a man and a woman, pose
unobtrusively behind the crowd during a photo session, and their severe looks
as they stand in front of the church d m suddenly seem familiar: they replicate
the Grant Wood painting, American Gothic. (These two figures turn out to be
none other than Riff-Raff and Magenta, a brother-and-sister couple alluding to
Apollo and Artemis.) Brad and Janet go into their marriage-proposal number,
but, despite great displays of conventional romance-Brad on his knees, Janet
about to swoon-tbey somehow don’t manage to kiss each other until the end of
the scene (though winning near the goal...). And seconds before that kiss, we
see that the hustle and bustle going on in the chapel while they protest their
devotion to each other are, in fact, the prepamtions for a funeral: the coffin is
brought in at a crucial moment. The kiss finally takes place in a graveyard.
Cradle, wedding, coffin: the socially-ordainedmilestones of life which, it would
seem, we must inexorably reproduce. How can one think of one without
thinking of the others as well?
The assault on heterosexuality-as-instimtiontakes place on several fronts,the
most obvious being the bedrooms at Frankenstein’s place. But another, equally
important version of this assault on ideological reproduction is the Show’s genre
itself. It is a pastiche-a kind of wild party after the Great Books of Western
Civilization course is over. Literary authority is disseminated freely, as at the baths,
rather then reproduced carefully,as in the suburban master bedroom.
Aside from Euripides’ The Bacchue, we find bits and pieces of other
myths and traditions everywhere. The slaughter and serving up of Eddie as
dinner at a feast to which his father is invited is reminiscent of a less-well-
known legend about Dionysus, but is more familiar to us as the feast of
Thyestes, repeated in the sacrificial feeding to his uncle, Tereus, of little Itys by
his mother and aunt, Philomela and Procne. Indeed, Greek tragic myth is rather
rich in such meals-a veritable pressure-cooker of infanticide. Eddie’s uncle,
Dr. Scott (Great Scott!), wheels himself out of a much more recent myth, the
Vietnam-era cult film spoofing Henry Kissinger as Dr. Strangelove. His search
for his missing nephew’s body in the house of his enemy resembles Priam’s
visit to Achilleus’ ship (Frank’s castle is also a spaceship). Dr. Frank N.
Furter’s name and the name of his castle (“Frankenstein’s Place’’) obviously
refer to Mary Shelley’s modem myth of Dr. Frankenstein, as does Frank’s
obsession from his fmt enuance on to the end, his project of “mak[ing]a man.”
But Shelley’s novel bears the subtitle, or, A Modern Prometheus, in accordance
188 Journal of Popular Culture
with the ancient myth of the original maker of man and the giver to him of fire.
On Frank‘s case,the fm is metaphorical.) The= is already in Greek religion a
vague association between Prometheus’ gift in d e f a c e of the gods and that of
Dionysus, the intoxicant fruit of the vine. When Frank‘s earthling guests, along
with Rocky and Columbia, threaten to get out of hand, Frank zaps them with a
machine marked Medusa, which, of course, turns them all into either
neoclassical or George-Segal-esque postmodem stone statues. This borrowing is
particularly interesting because of Freud’s famous reading of the Medusa-head
as the terrifying representation of castration by means of the giveaway
redundancy of her phallic serpentine locks, which only thinly disguise an
essential lack. The “floor show” in which Rocky, Brad and Columbia appear as
moving statues on the stage and confess their thralldom in song can only be
imagined as late-Roman-imperial high camp. Also from the late Empire: When
Magenta, Columbia, and Riff-Raff gang up on the sleeping Rocky, shove a
candlestick in his face and thus wake him with a start so that he will run away in
terror, the figure of Magenta with the candlestick held over the gorgeous prone
male figure sleeping is a visual quotation of sorts from the Cupid and Psyche
episode of Apuleius’ Metamorphosis (“Golden Ass”). There, Psyche furtively
but nefariously holds a candle up to view her mysterious husband, who turns
out to be the gorgeous golden god Cupido (Eros);so dazed is she by his beauty
that she allows a drop of molten wax to fall and bum his wing, waking him with
a start and sending him flying away to Olympus. To go back a bit, near the
beginning of the movie, Brad and Janet arrive at Frankenstein’s Place while
searching help in the rain, after getting a flat tire, while on their way, a year
after the scene of their friends’ meeting, to seek Dr.Scott’s blessing on their
union. Their arrival “in the middle of the way”-their distraction from the
straight way into strange adventures amid the woods-comes from Dante’s
opening to the lferno. More strongly, the castle, Frank, and especially the f m t
face we see in the castle-that of Frank‘s servant Riff-Raff-as well as tbeir
avowed origin in the galaxy Transylvania-all allude to Count Dracula of
popular legend, with his awkward and lame servant Igor. This allusion has
special meaning here, since blood-sucking vampires have long been associated
almost subliminally not only with extramarital seduction but with
homosexuality in the European popular imagination. And so it’s only natural
that, after seducing Janet, Frank replays the identical bedroom scene with Brad,
offering him what seems on the Screen clearly to be a blow-job. The parallelism
of these two scenes, and the mutual shock when the two view each other’s
seduction on ciosed-circuitTV, can only further undermine the opposition of
sex-roles associated with heterosexual, ideological reproduction.
Meanwhile, the play of allusions in which these scenes occur is so dense
 Postmodern Gay Dionysus 189
and so wild, following an uncanny logic of free association, rhat the individual
myths become hardly recognizable-and it is no wonder, perhaps, that no one
seems to have pointed out in public that the movie is made up of a tissue of such
allusions. The pastiche turns heavy seriousness into high campy comedy in a
way with which we should be familiar, since it is one of the principal modes of
posbnodem theatrical art-the other being minimalism-and there is certainly
nothing minimal about The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The disseminative Dionysian power to release, disupt, seduce and sway is,
unfortunately for Frank, not limited to the personality who locally represents it
Once Janet has been seduced, she cannot be stopped from seducing Frank’s
artiftcial man in tum, whom Frank had been reserving for his own pleasure as the
perfect object of property. (Here Janet and Rocky replay, of course, Eve’s
seduction of Adam in Genesis-or rarher in the misogynistic popular Christian
revision of that myth. This is a reversal of the myth, in effect, since it seems to
purify Rocky by releasing him from his bondage to his demonic creator, and
comes right after Rocky’s flight from his “maker and his minion’’ [35]-whereas
Adam and Eve mn away from God after the fact.) Upon discovering the two in
their labomtory bower, Frank can only respond with rage. Here, Frank himself is
in the threatened position of the subject of reproduction, since he aspires to
reproduce both the controlled creatorcreature hierarchical unit and the idealized
masculine image of his fantasies. The latter is, of course, its own kind of
ideological reproduction as well, since it depends on the larger social standards of
masculinity and beauty: ‘Tonight, I’m gonna make you a man” promises Frank,
while Rocky pumps away with his dumbbells (30,33). Frank‘s urge to maintain
his supremacy, first in relation to the Orphic Eddie (Meat Loaf)and then in
relation to Rocky, are his own tragic humania and bring about his downfall.
Just as the Dionysian disseminative energy cannot be contained in sexual
terms, neither can it be controlled in the m a of politics. The movie ends in a
mock uagedy, as Frank himself is subjected to a guerilla uprising among his
own retinue-specifically, something somewhat (but not entirely) representing
a heterosexual couple: Riff-Raff and his sister Magenta. The two are never seen
having sex, but rather engaging in a rather striking gesture involving contact of
the upper arms, to which the cult audience refers with gusto as “Elbow Sex!”
Even here, myth lurks beneath the surface. Riff-Raff s nonsexual relation to his
mysterious sister resembles that between Apollo and and his virginal twin sister
Artemis. And Apollo, of course, is placed both by Greek tradition and
especially by Friedrich Nietzsche as the antithesis of Dionysus. Hence it is he
and his sister who restore to the audience the distinction betwen Transylvanian
and earthling and bring about the end of the drama.
The moment of Frank‘s literal downfall-from a tower into a swimming
190 Journal of Popular Culture
pool-is symbolically complex. After Frank has already received the death-
charge of Riff-Raff s laser gun, the woeful Rocky carries the body of his erstwhile
maker as he scales up the radio tower of the old RKO logo in a visual allusion to
King Kong’s abduction of Faye Wray. Tbe moment points up the extraordinary
pathos of Rocky (which of course also benefits from the tradition of pathos
attached to Frankenstein’s unjustly outcast monster) as, in effect, the suffering
hero of rebellion, the beauty of ‘ h a m ” as opposed to “civilization.”At the same
time, however, his scaling the phallic RKO tower is a futile act of tragic display,
and the collapse of the tower with the two on it serves as a culmination for the
iconoclastic process of the entire dmma-the fall of Western monuments. Thus,
oddly, the death of Rocky is at once yet another celebration of the collapse of
Order and the reassertion of that very Order by the internal rebellion of the
Apollonian pair, Riff-Raff and Magenta. This complexity or self-contradiction,in
view of Nietzsche’s analysis of the Dionysian, should not seem foreign to it: for
Nietzsche, Dionysus presides over the ‘’primal contradiction,” which, in tragedy,
generally means the suffering and death of the god or his surrogate.
Nevertheless, one can hardly say that in the wake of the Transylvanians’
liftoff, in the smoke and steam that leave Brad, Janet and Dr.Scott convulsing
in their heavy makeup, burlesque brassieres, corsets, fishnet stockings with
garters and high heels-one can hardly say that the status quo ante has been
perfectly restored. The institution of heterosexual reproduction has been
effectively subverted, and, according to the neckless narrator, the characters,
unlike Dante, remain “lost in time, lost in space,-and meaning” (52). To be
“lost.. .in meaning” is to find oneself in the play of meanings and allusions, in a
position that is both frightening and exhilaratingly free.
Freedom is precisely what is at stake in the Rocky Horror Picture Show
and in the Dionysian force it dramatizes. Indeed, we may see Frank’s tragic fall
as instructing us deeply about freedom. For Frank’s relation with Rocky works
as an allegory of the relation between author and artist. The artist, out of
contradictory impulses, falls in love with his work and wishes to possess it
eternally; yet he loves it specifically because it is independent of him,
“sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.” This same relation is the relation
of Western society to its own cultural heritage, the symbols which it has used to
reproduce its ideology-symbols which simultaneously, over and over again,
tell the story of their rebellion and recalcitrance.
In the gay context, then, is it reasonable to speak of the Rocky Horror
Picture Show’s pastiche as a gay appropriation of the property of reproductive
ideology? I doubt whether the case is that simple. Although the spirit of
reappropriation of Western images and themes, especially those of ancient
Greece, was and still is to some degree prominent in gay subculture, the Show
 Postmodern Gay Dionysus 191
amply demonstrates that the possession of meaning cannot be so stable. But that
demonstration, an allegory of freedom, is itself quite at home in a gay
environment. For as long as there has been a gay subculture, it seems to me, that
subcultllre has felt contradictory forces tkom within. On the one hand, there is a
farce that gives it coherency and stability, something to which we can refer as the
“gay community.” On the other hand, the gay subculture has always rep-esented
an escape from the oppressive side of such coherenciesand stabilitiesas are found
everywhere. This conflict has been felt even in the academic sphere of gay and
lesbian studies in the form of the debate between essentialism and
constructionism. Thus the play and the movie are most readable if we accept their
contradictions. On the one hand, the Show’s tragic plot makes it impossible to
think of any sexuality as stable. On the other hand, the very pastiche that
destabilizes sexual ideologies, and the energy and delight with which symbols are
lovingly and ludicrously thrown about, are themselves contained within the gay
subculture. The Show’s enactment of freedom is thus best seen as botb outside
and inside gay culture-and best viewed, accordingly, with a kind of double
vision. And it is this double vision that enables us to see the “late night double
feature science fiction picture show” as a guy rewriting of the classics (12-13.53).

Notes
IThe play and movie scripts (both listed in Works Cited) are close enough that I
refer to them as interchangeable sources for specific moments and words. Page-
references are to the play script; all comments on visual images refer to the film. Lyrics,
which appear in the script in all capitals, are quoted in normal upper-and-lower-case.
Helpful for background information, if rather groupy-ish, is Henkin. It should be
noted, in addition, that the new video admirably represents the best of audience
participation in movie theaters in the form of a documentary framing the actual film. It
concludes with a message urging the viewers to join in at their local theaters.
2My comments on Dionysus and related figures-Orpheus, Pythagoras and
Apoll-are based on several ancient and modern s o m . Among the former the most
useful are Euripides’ The Bacchae; Plutarch’s Moruliu V; and Ovid’s Metamorphoses
(mend). The most valuable modem discussions are Burkert (161-67, 222-25, 237-42
and 290-301) and Detienne’s two brilliant books (DwnysosSlain, esp. chapter 4,68-94
Dionysos at Large). Fernand and Nilsson give useful overviews. Paglia’s discussion is
stimulating and provocative, if more impressionistic than the others. The very thorough
older treatment by Harrison (esp. chapters VIII-X) provides excellent background to
appreciate Burkert’s and especially Detienne’s original theoretical contributions. The
offhand comments of Dodds and Kitto are also helpful as background, if more general.
And Nietzsche’s perspective, which informs Paglia’s, is still invaluable, especially for an
understanding of modern and postmodem images of Dionysus.
192 Journal of Popular Culture
)On Theater of the Ridiculous in New York in the 1960s and 1970s. see Brecht.
Performances of Greek drama in its original language (or some approximation thereof)
were given at La Mama in New York‘s East Village in the early 1970s.
‘Detienne, Dwnysos Slain is especially good on this point.
T h e catastrophe in Greek tragedy is generally signalled by the fulfillment of an
initial prophecy, but sometimes, as in Oedipus, this f u l f i i e n t has the additional effect
of a recognition of the true meaning of the tragic hero’s name. In the case of Oedipus,
the name means “club-foot,” which as we learn. when all the temble truth comes to
Oedipus’ full awareness, refers to his having been lamed by his father, in avoidance of
dire prophecy, with pins stuck in his infant feet to prevent him from escaping his
abandonment on the hillside.
61t is interesting to note in this regard that Dori Hartley, the then-unemployed
actress who claims to have originated the practice of masquerading as the film’s
character, did so by dressing up as Frank. “Iactually started the thing. I couldn’t help it. I
felt possessed ...Tim Curry-Frank-excited me so much that I had to do it.”
(“Possessed” indeed!) Anna Quindlen, “Midnights at ‘Rocky Horror’,’’ The New York
Times,9 March 1979: C1: 1 and C9:3-6. Hartley is quoted on C9:4-5.

Works Cited
Brecht, Stefan. Queer Theotre. New York: Methuen, 1986.
Burkert, Walter. Greek Religion. Trans. John Raffan. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1985.
Detienne, Marcel. Dionysos af Large. Trans. Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge: Harvard
UP, 1989.
-.Dionysos Slain. Trans. Mireille Muellner and Leonard Muellner. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins UP, 1979.
Dodds, E. R. The Greeks Md the Irrafional.Berkeley: U of California P, 1968.
Harrison, Jane. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. 3rd Ed. New York Amo, 1975.
Henkin, Bill. The Rocky Horror Picture Show Book. New York: Hawthorn, 1979.
Kitto, H. D. F. The Greeks. 1951. Middlesex: Penguin, 1986.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy and the Case of Wagner. Trans. Walter
Kaufmann. New York Random, 1%7.
Nilsson, Martin P. Greek Folk Religion. New York: Columbia UP, 1961.
O’Brien, Richard. The Rocky Horror Show. New York: Samuel French, 1983.
Paglia, Camille A. Sexual Personae. New Haven: Yale UP, 1990.72-98.
Robert, Fernand. La Religion Grecque. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France, 1981.
The Rocky Picture Shav. Dir.Jim Sharman. With Tim Curry and Richard O’Brien. Original
musical play, music and lyrics by Richard OBrien. Twentieth-Century Fox, 1975.

Amittai F. Aviram is an associate professor of English and comparative Literature at

University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208.