Sweet Villains from Transsexual, Transylvania!

It’s the last week of October. So, let’s get in the Halloween mood and talk about Villains! More specifically, about the “Sissy Villain” trope, and the way the Rocky Horror Picture Show took this trope, spun it on its head, and turned it into a glorious queer manifesto.

This trope consists in the tendency of many films to queer-code their villains in an effeminate manner, reinforcing the (already existing) link between “gay” and “evil” in the viewer’s mind. It developed as a direct consequence to the Hayes Code, which dictated what was or wasn't allowed on-screen in early Hollywood. It explicitly condemned depictions of "degeneracy" or "sin" – thus banning all depictions of homosexuality.

A direct example of the consequence of this code is Hitchcock’s work – infamously Psycho – which led to the consolidation of the common idea of transgender people being nothing but unstable, predatory men dressing up as women. Similar is Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lamb.

But this trope doesn't stop with horror, permeating pop culture and even children's media. Below, ironically-named "HIM", villain from the Powerpuff Girls (1998-2005), as well as a close comparison between Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989) villain Ursula and celebrity drag queen Divine.

But Rocky Horror is doing something very different with it - let's have a look.

Meet: Brad and Janet, engaged. He's dressed in blue, she's in pink. Their presentation is nothing short of traditional, and their over-the-top performances immediately poke fun at heterosexual bliss. He's protective, she's blushing and shy.

Enter: the character who may not be the protagonist, but sure is our hero - Dr Frank n Furter. Immediately, the red and black palette marks a sharp opposition to the soft, gendered colours of the happy (?) couple.

Doctor 'N' Furter is, to the letter, what we would expect from a sissy villain. He’s flamboyant, he's leathery and threatening and very visually sexual, he wears typically feminine clothes. He's “just a sweet transvestite, from Transsexual, Transylvania!”, luring the young and innocent couple in his dark, secluded mansion. But Frank 'N' Furter is no villain, even if the young couple might perceive him as such.

As first order of business, the Doctor has Brad and Janet get rid of their clothing, and therefore of their colour-coded, heteronormative past.

Their white underwear are a blank slate, and the Doctor is in! He shall cure them of the horrible disease of heteronormativity. Through her experiences in the castle, Janet gives up the coy pretense and finally discovers herself and her sexual desires, including through the very explicit musical number Toucha, toucha, touch me

and eventually, even Brad finally embraces a more flamboyant truth about himself. Note how he's now also wearing Frank's signature colours, black and red.

Yes, Frank is then shot by a deadly laser beam, but as he dies the mise en scene suggests he has reached something that transcends mortality, floating by the exact point where Adam and God's fingers meet. After all, hasn't he himself created Man?

By the time Frank 'N' Further's hubris catches up with him and he dies, Brad, Janet and the audience are all left with the invite to be, maybe, a little more of a sissy, if that's what they want to be. To not let possibilities go to waste for fear of societal expectations. Or, to put it in the Doctor's own words:

"Don't dream it. Be it."

Everything in this scene works to bring home the point home that Dr Frank n Further, and sissies all across the globe, are liberated in a way only possible after we've given up the comfort of conformity to patriarchal, cis- and heteronormative expectations.

He is the catalyst for the main characters’ own sexual liberation and dies a hero.

Rocky Horror shows to its viewer how the real evil wasn’t the queer all along – it was the heteronormativity oppressing us along the way.