Shock Treatment- a Film Before It's Time

Almost everyone is familiar with the cult classic film The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Born as a musical in a small London theater, the film version become an underground hit that lives on today in midnight showings across America and Europe. But the sequel, Shock Treatment, has all but been forgotten. With little of the original cast returning and a plot far removed from the first film, Shock Treatment slipped into obscurity.

I'm not here to review this film. There are plenty of reviews out there which will give you a detailed summary of the movie, music and give an opinion as to if it's worth watching or not. I'm here to talk about how the film relates, strikingly so, to modern day entertainment trends.

The plot of the movie is deceptively simple. In Denton, the hometown of Rocky Horror's leading couple - Brad and Janet - television has taken over everyone's lives. Literally. Everything has been turned into a television show. The stars are none other than the townspeople themselves, the plots nothing more than their everyday lives. Those not interesting or popular enough to have the cameras on them spend the day in a large television studio, watching the programs. The film follows Brad and Janet as the two are forced into the spotlight. From there, Janet is manipulated into wanting to become a star. Because in Denton, unless you're a star, you're nothing.

The film was written long before the rise of reality television. And yet, if we look at it now we see a startling social commentary. Here we have a society that is obsessed with watching their friends and neighbors, everyday people like them, rise and fall in the dramas of their own lives. When someone is canceled, their lives are over. Much like the reality tv stars of today. How many of us remember the Idols who didn't make it to the finals? The Survivors that were voted off first and second? Do we care about these people anymore?

No, we don't. We only care about the ones in the spotlight, the ones that put their lives on display for our entertainment. Reality television has some of the highest ratings on tv right now. Whole families will gather around to watch ordinary people competing against one another for fame, fortune, and a chance to be recognized. Whether they compete in outlandish competitions, perform mundane tasks or simply live the life of someone else, they are given the same attention as movie celebrities.

I look at Shock Treatment and I find it more culturally relevant today than ever. I see our own society mirrored to exaggeration in the plot. A society obsessed with reality television. Isn't that what we are now? In the film, we see Janet give herself over to the producers and directors. Her image is changed. She's marketed to the masses, turned into what they want to see. Much in the same way the contestants on American Idol are dressed, trained, made up and presented in a certain image.

Reality television, despite the name, is far from reality. Programs are filmed in controlled environments, the stars/contestants exposed to carefully selected stimuli. There are even those who believe that everything is staged, the participants carefully coached and instructed on how to act and what to say. If we look again to Shock Treatment, we see this is the route the film has taken. But rather than coaching and training, the 'everyday people' are carefully manipulated into exactly what the media powers want them to be.

Could Richard O'brien have predicted this entertainment craze? Or was it simply a possibility he dreamed up one night, like a science fiction author? I don't honestly know. But I do know that despite the fact that Shock Treatment was made decades ago, it is a culturally relevant film that explores the darker side of reality television.