ROCKY HORROR AND AUDIENCE PARTICI...PATION

By Lee Romaker

It’s midnight, and every seat in the movie theater is filled—but this is no midnight premiere. In fact, the film that is about to play has been shown in near-constant release for over four decades, is the longest running theatrical release in history, and has been shown on six continents. The crowd vibrates with antici… pation, despite some having seen the film hundreds of times. The seats are teeming with attendees in black lingerie, fishnets, wigs, and corsets; some are dressed up as the film’s characters while others crossdress; more are simply dressed as their authentic selves. The lights dim, and a hush falls over the crowd, although not for long. A cast of actors dressed as the film’s characters line up on a stage in front of the screen. A slow bass line plays, and a pair of ruby red lips appears before the audience.

This is a typical scene for a midnight viewing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, described by the BBC as the first and biggest cult classic film. Based on the 1973 musical production The Rocky Horror Show, the film version made its American premiere at the Westwood Theatre in Los Angeles in 1975. Initially considered a box office failure and shelved, the film was revived in 1976 as a weekly viewing party at Waverly Theatre in New York. What started as playing the movie’s soundtrack before the beginning of the film to generate audience excitement evolved into yelling lines back at the characters, throwing props at the screen, dancing and singing along to the songs, dressing as the characters, and the incorporation of a shadow cast, a cast of actors that act out the film while it is playing. All of these elements transform a movie viewing into a celebratory community experience. What started as a box office failure spread across the US and the globe, with weekly showings becoming community gathering spaces for, according to BBC film critic Laruska Ivan-Zadeh, “outcasts, weirdoes, and rejects.”

While Rocky Horror is certainly not famous for its riveting plot, the film does tell a story that underscores many of the ideals of the communities that watch it. The film follows the “hopelessly square” Brad and Janet, a newly engaged couple, as they find themselves stranded in the woods and seeking help in a castle filled with an eccentric cast of aliens. They meet Dr. Frank-N-Furter, a self-described “transvestite” mad scientist who is attempting to create the perfect man, Rocky Horror, for him to sleep with. Musical numbers, chase scenes, a murder, cannibalism, sexy escapades, several transformations, and alternate endings follow. Most notably, the film positions Brad and Janet—a white, American, cisgender, heterosexual couple—as the outsiders and weirdos, while the foreign, sexually fluid castle residents are considered normal. Rocky Horror follows Brad and Janet as they are sexually liberated (or corrupted, depending how one interprets it) from their strict conformity to gender roles and the expectation of waiting until marriage. While Rocky Horror parodies elements of science fiction and horror movies from the 1930s to the 1960s, it also parodies and defies the gender roles of this period, positioning gender conformity and chastity as restrictions from which to be liberated.

The appeal of Rocky Horror, however, hinges more upon its creation of community spaces than its plot. Long time Rocky Horror fan and junior Mich Lewis said, “It’s more about the vibes. I fully did not know the plot of [Rocky Horror] until the third or fourth time going [to live viewings]. It was more about the viewing being an experience and having a space that celebrated Tim Curry [who plays Dr. Frank-N-Furter] and his gender nonconformity.” Frank-N-Furter, the film’s antagonist turned sympathetic antihero, is iconic for his glittering lingerie, tall curly hair, and drag-inspired makeup. Rocky Horror’s celebration of tacky glamour and its characters’ gender nonconformity creates a space for attendees to dress as outrageously as they please or in a way that resists gender norms. This space has been life-saving for some queer people.

Despite parodying black-and-white sci-fi films, Rocky Horror is filled with bright colors and theatrical elements. There are multiple larger-than-life musical numbers, elaborate yet extremely tacky sets, and characters with personalities that fill the entire theater. Rocky Horror’s most famous musical numbers involve either proud proclamations of queer identity (“Sweet Transvestite”) and sexuality (“Touch-A, Touch-A, Touch Me”), or large group numbers that encourage audience participation and merrymaking (“Time Warp”). Viewers not only feel safe to fully express themselves, but are called to sing and dance along and to become a part of grand musical numbers that encourage proud proclamations of sexual nonconformity. Die-hard fan and sophomore Jenna Kaplan said, “Rocky Horror shows dominant sexual norms of American and British society being subverted… Being in theaters and shadowcasting provides a place for those who participate in those subversions to find a place of belonging and acceptance.”

Most notable about Rocky Horror’s style is its utilization of camp, a style of taste or aesthetic that to define or talk about “is… to betray it,” according to foundational camp scholar Susan Sontag. For the average viewer’s sake, camp is an aesthetic style that is characterized as over-the-top, exaggerated seriousness that fails, marked by high ambition and unsuccessful execution. Jo Michael Rezes, a Tufts PhD candidate and professor of the ExCollege class Camp: Bad Taste, Humor, and Cult Classics, played Frankn-Furter in The Rocky Horror Show at Entropy Theatre in 2019. They said, “[Rocky Horror] plays with sci-fi and punk rock and excess and filth in a way that makes it camp… Playing Frank-nFurter was one of the greatest joys of my life and I would do it again in a heartbeat.” According to camp scholar Ann Pellegrini,

camp is a form of queer resistance, “asking the audience to take up its share of the pain—and pleasure, too.” Rocky Horror, despite being a thoroughly silly film, tackles infidelity, sexual shame, violence, and even murder. Yet these themes are expressed in such an over-the-top manner that even if audience members emotionally connect with them, they also cannot help but laugh alongside others at the film’s ridiculous nature—therefore experiencing both pain and pleasure. Perhaps what sets the Rocky Horror experience most apart from other cult classic films is its element of audience participation, specifically the act of audience members yelling callback lines to the screen. The official Rocky Horror audience participation script features over 1000 possible audience callback lines, most of which are punny, dirty, or straight up disrespectful—exactly in the spirit of the show. The raunchy, obnoxious, yet progressive values of a Rocky Horror viewing IN A ROOM FULL OF “OUTCASTS, community are most on display when auWEIRDOES, AND REJECTS,” QUEER dience members are yelling callback lines. In a room full of “outcasts, weirdoes, and PEOPLE AND OUTSIDERS ARE THE rejects,” queer people and outsiders are the ones heckling and causing noise. ONES HECKLING These lines may include homophobic AND CAUSING NOISE. slurs, transphobic remarks, or sex-shaming teasing, depending on the local theater. Whether these offensive lines hold up in a modern context is unclear, but often, these lines are coming out of the mouths of people who have been shamed themselves by these exact words. However, Rezes noted, “When I was doing [The Rocky Horror Show], it was mostly straight white men who were yelling the loudest… I can be embodying this trans character on stage and feel so good about how I’m portraying myself, but the callback lines will be like, ‘What’s in your pants?’ and there’s violence there.” Yelling at the screen and shadow cast may be empowering for the audience or violent in its rhetoric; it may very well be both. Whether this adds or subtracts from the community aspect of Rocky Horror will vary based on the people watching together. Collective viewership is the crux of the Rocky Horror experience. Kaplan said, “I think what’s special about Rocky Horror is its ability to bring people together. Seeing it live in a theater with other people… really brings the magic of Rocky Horror to life.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rocky Horror’s decadeslong streak was interrupted as theaters around the world were shuttered. Now, as vaccination rates are high in Massachusetts, live viewings and performances of Rocky Horror have been opening up again. After a long period of isolation, the “outcasts, weirdos, and rejects” of the world can finally gather together to do the Time Warp, again!