I’m sure this has been done before, but I’m sure it can’t be done enough.
I watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show last night with my girlfriend (saw once) my sister (saw 4 times) her husband (saw 3 times) and my girlfriend’s sister (virgin). I’ve seen it 5 times, and that makes 6.
I am a fairly white-bread guy and people are often surprised or confused when I say that I went. The main :dubious: seems to be; wait, isn’t that for Transvestites? To which I can only reply; yes, transvestites from Transylvania!
I love the show - well, the movie is just terrible…but in the best of ways. The live show with the film has wonderful absurdity. In fact, my girlfriend summed it up for me (sort of) in saying “wow, see that girl dancing in the front row? She is in the teaching program and she’s usually too shy to even talk to our teachers!”. To which I explained that at RHPS they are the stars.
Explain please, as best you can, the appeal to the show. Not the movie, but the show!
Not sure what there is to explain. It’s fun and, when I was a teen going to my first few showings, it felt risky and outsider cool. The fact that the movie was silly ( and kinda not understandable to this suburban kid) only added to it.
Once something like this gets started, it’s self-perpetuating. Why is that the thing that’s done at showings of RHPS? Because that’s what people do. Who do people do it? Because that’s the thing that’s done. There’s no need for any reason beyond that.
In lots more words: You’re in a place where nobody knows you and where nobody is going to judge you. In real life, you’re Brad Majors – heck, we all are – but HERE? Here, you’re Frank N Furter! You’re among friends. Everyone is there to have a good time and nobody knows or cares if you regularly get dragged off to the bathroom for a swirly. Here you’re a star! You’ve found your people!
IMHO it taps into the same fondness adults have for Halloween and “naughty” costumes. Which, incidentally, has morphed into the whole -COM costume industry.
It is innocently transgressive. That, and the music is fun!
The Cult Factor is The Cult Factor because it cannot be explained. Many have tried to analyze and take advantage it, and most have failed. Time, place and whim are a large part, to be sure-RHPS might have flopped totally if first shown a couple years earlier or later, or was promoted differently. All the promotion in the world won’t do squat if there isn’t a place in the public consciousness for that particular idea at that particular time.
But RHPS did flop. In fact, the New York premiere on Halloween Night 1975 was cancelled because it couldn’t find an audience. This changed the following year with the first midnight showing on April Fools’ Day at the Waverly Theater in Greenwich Village.
It was/is fun. Generally after midnight, good chance that half the audience is somewhat drunk or high. It was like going to a late party. Just watching the movie without the audience participation is not fun. You don’t need to have one of the roles, but just participating in the timewarp and shout outs can be a fun night. It has probably been 20 years since I went but I probably went a dozen times over the decade before that. All but once it was a fun night.
Did I mention that the main appeal is that it was fun?
I went to the one of the first midnight matinee showings in Atlanta, GA of RHPS in (I think) 1978. The same people who I knew from SF conventions and D&D games were all very into the entire scene. And so, since these were my friends (and potential lovers in some cases), I felt it a good idea to attend. A fun time was had by all, and one of the young ladies in particular was happy I was there. I think that, all in all, I have viewed this movie more than 20 times.
Why? Nostalgia, at this point. The music, especially Over at the Frankenstein Place, holds up well after all these years.
The scene where the lightning flashes on Richard O’Brien (Riff-Raff) standing high in the tower window. He sings the line,
I think it’s because we all need to let our wilder sides free every once in a while…and I can think of way, WAY more harmful ways to do so.
I’ve seen the movie a couple times (once, this past weekend) and a stage show (yes, it started out as a stage musical, and there are quite a few differences between it and the movie) that allowed audience participation a couple times. That last was great fun since the actors interacted with the crowd as well!
You might find this essay (mainly about the stage show) rather interesting. The author is a writer and director who’s written several books on musical theatre, each chapter focusing on a certain musical, as a resource for directors and actors. This one is part of his latest, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and Musical Theater.
Including the author, Richard O’Brian, with the sequel Shock Treatment (which is a superior movie with songs often better that those from Rocky Horror).
Because it’s fun to dress up, go out into public (in a safe-ish space) and act like a total idiot when surrounded by other people acting like total idiots.
Because it’s actually an interesting story, with great larger-than-life characters.
Because for a lot of white-bread “normal” people, it’s the closest they’ll ever get to a lifestyle totally different from theirs.
And for people *pretending *to be normal in real life (which I’m more and more starting to think is most of us), it’s a way to come out of the closet and party for a night, without really actually doing so in real life.
