The Function of the Fetish in The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Priscilla,Queen of the Desert

Lou Adler's The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Stephan Elliott's Pris cilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) share an obsession with the fetish, and b oth locate the fetish on the desiring body of the male. This essay uses psy choanalytic film theory to explore these renderings of the fetish and argue s that the films deploy radically different economies of desire; the fetish in Rocky Horror is grounded in a sadistic masculinity, while in Priscilla, the fetish serves as a referent for a masochistic, even utopian principle of 'being'. However, while the political values that the two films give to the fetish as spectacle are quite different, as are the grounding aesthetic s and the space allowed to women, ultimately, both films remain unable to e nact a sustained, strategic, and comprehensive resistance to traditional, f ixed cinematic renderings of gender for women.