Martin Elliot column: Hooked on Rocky Horror Show

FOR ART'S SAKE: "I don't like the statue of the cow on the corner of Victoria and Ulster Sts but I would resist any move to have it changed."

Source: Waikato Times print edition 

2 March 2004

While admitting to being no connoisseur of art, MARTIN ELLIOTT is all for a statue of cross-dressing cult hero Riff Raff in the city. 

I have a confession! I am a Rocky Horror Picture Show fan.

There you have it, a public acknowledgement of my latent fetishism for cross-dressing and fishnet stockings.

I am not 100 per cent sure what it is about the show that appeals to me, but I am hooked.

I haven't yet got up the courage to go to one of those audience participation presentations where the audience all dress up in their favourite characters' costumes and sing the songs, but I am working on it.

For those who haven't had the opportunity to go to a Rocky Horror Show then you have missed out on a cultural event of a lifetime.

Highly entertaining, risque to the point of eroticism without being pornographic, strong music with very singable songs has made the Rocky Horror Show a real hit internationally and also in New Zealand.

It is so entertaining that schools in New Zealand actually put it on as a school production.

Both Whakatane High School and Hamilton's Fraser High have "done" the show very successfully.

I confess again that on both occasions my talents were overlooked and discarded by the producers, something that bitterly disappointed me at the time and a grudge I still carry. I look damn good in fishnet stockings, although I have to admit my singing voice is a bit suspect.

When I heard that the city council had voted to have Riff Raff as a statue for the city, my immediate thought was that it was a statue of one of the council or even Big Dave.

While any of those combinations would have been very appealing I am really glad the statue will be the real Riff Raff, Hamiltonian Richard O'Brien.

I wonder if the council had considered Dr Frank N Furter, the kinky transvestite and central character in the show as the character to be immortalised as the statue? Mmmmm, whose face would be on the statue with fishnet stockings and an over-developed codpiece?

I have have a question for you.

Which would you rather have in Hamilton: a statue of Riff Raff, or a statue of Jesus being sadistically whipped and mutilated by a Roman Centurion?

My tastes in life are reasonably simple; I would rather go to the Rocky Horror Show and be titillated with erotica and entertained, than to sit through a film depicting the crucifixion of Christ with its brutality, barbarism and graphic violence.

I have never been a connoisseur of art, paintings that is; I liked what I liked and had no time for the art fartys who "oohed and aahed" over some of the most bizarre paintings ever created.

I still don't see the artistic value of a Picasso. Any painter who could take a voluptuous nude female model and give her triangular boobs, with one jutting out of left ear, and the other out her right shoulder, and for good luck a third out her midriff, was in my simple-minded opinion a deranged sick puppy.

However, given the growing cultural diversity of Hamiltonians I believe we need to acknowledge that what some see as art others think is rubbish.

I don't want Hamilton's cultural environment to be middle road, provincial and cow town.

Wouldn't it be great if the city showcased a wide range of art forms that reflected not only our taste in art but also our religious, cultural and ethnic diversity. I really like the sensitivity and vision of those people who have planned the Hamilton Gardens.

The themes incorporated in the gardens are a delightful blend of our differences.

I would like to think that sometime in the near future our Muslim New Zealanders have an opportunity to showcase their art to add to the flavour that has already been developed in Hamilton.

I don't like Picasso but I would fight for the rights of those who do like Picasso to have Picassos in Hamilton.

I don't like the statue of the cow on the corner of Victoria and Ulster Sts but I would resist any move to have it changed.

I look at the art in the art gallery and sometimes cringe, but I would urge the city council to increase the funding for the city art gallery.

Beige is a colour that personifies our mediocrity, narrow mindedness and our intolerance to our diversity. Let's make Hamilton a rainbow city. Let's take the time to appreciate the cultural tastes of others.

Hell, given 4000 years I think I might even get to like a painting of a nude woman with three triangular breasts! Not.