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5 Feb 2020

Why I Don't Like Fishnet Stockings (Or The Rocky Horror Picture Show)

Let's do the time warp again 
[No thanks]


Black fishnet stockings and tights, with their open, diamond-shaped knit, continue to be very popular with all types of women - not just goths and showgirls. They are one of those things that never quite go in or out of fashion. We might, therefore, describe them as a perennial favourite within the world of hoisery.  

Personally, however, I'm not a fan.

And that's because fishnets always remind me of Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, the sweet transvestite from Transexual, Transylvania: nice face, shame about the legs (too chunky for my tastes). 

I've tried to break this visual association - to picture instead Marilyn Monroe wearing her fishnets in the famous 1956 photo by Milton H. Greene - but, alas, whenever I see anyone wearing them, I invariably think back to The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) - a charmless vision of camp outrageousness and gothic queerness that succeeds only in making one nostalgic for the world of fixed gender roles and heteronormativity that Brad and Janet belong to.

As someone once said, Rocky is ultimately an excuse for straight people to cross dress and pretend to be a little bit queer for the night: they don't want to be it, just dream it ...


Play: 'Sweet Transvestite' from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, (dir. Jim Sharman, 1975), performed by Tim Curry: click here.


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