Rocky Horror Picture Show

I suppose it’s appropriate to follow up the last blog, RennFair, which concerned a mass of strange people dressed extravagantly odd, with this one – about at least one cross-dresser. Last weekend I went into Manhattan and saw this again for the second time, the first being back at College Park, Maryland, during college.  Both shows were at midnight.

 Movie.  Essentially it’s a musical movie for which the audience tends to participate rather extravagantly. 

Plot: a couple, Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) find themselves seeking assistance at a dark and stormy castle when their car breaks down.  The castle is inhabited by a variety of freaks, the leader of whom is a mad scientist, Dr. Frank-n-Furter (hereinafter, “FnF”), played by Tim Curry…as a transvestite. “Transsexual” seems inapplicable as he seems 100% male; “bisexual” sounds more appropriate, but escapes the colorful alliteration. 

            They do a dance called the “Time Warp”; FnF seduces not only Janet but also Brad; Eddie (Meat Loaf) breaks in on a motorcycle and FnF kills him; FnF brings a handsome monster to life (Rocky) who ends up hooking up with Janet, much to FnF’s anger and jealousy; Eddie’s uncle, Dr. Scott, a wheelchair-bound scientist (not quite mad) arrives; FnF turns everyone into a statue with a “Medusa” ray; all of them come back to life in lingerie; and finally Riff-Raff and his sister/GF Magenta reveal they are actually aliens, and after defeating FnF and evicting everyone, take the castle into space back to their home planet, leaving Brad, Janet, and Dr Scott alive amidst the ruins.  The movie is interrupted several times by narration by Charles Grey, who we recognize as Blofeld from several James Bond films.  There is actually very little nudity, mostly Rocky’s beefcake and some modest cheesecake from Janet.  The music sounds like Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell album, poppy and not particularly memorable.

 Audience Participation.  The film did so-so on its original theatrical release in 1975, and was brought back for midnight movie showings in 1976, starting at the Waverly Theater in New York City; it’s still there, now called the IFC Center down on 3^rd St. & 6^th Ave. in Greenwich Village, but nowadays RHPS is based at the Clearview’s Chelsea on West 23^rd Street.  Several different people claim credit for starting this “shout at the movie” business.  The most common elements are:

1.         Audience members dress up as movie characters (Brad, Janet, FnF, Riff-Raff, Magenta, Columbia, Eddie, Dr. Scott, Rocky) and pretend to follow along.   At the NYC show, every character was represented, but FnF was done by a woman (!).  The degree to which these people succeed at emulating the cast seems variable at best.  At NYC I’d give “FnF” an A for effort (despite being a ringer – a woman portraying a male transvestite..tres “Victor Victoria”!), with “Dr. Scott” being close to dead-on.  “Riff-Raff” was not bald (another audience member had the right wig), “Columbia” and “Magenta” were OK, “Rocky” was so-so, and “Brad” was so geeky that he made Barry Bostwick look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The “Janet” was actually hotter than Susan Sarandon. 

2.         The audience throws rice at the wedding at the beginning

3.         The audience covers their heads with newspapers as Brad and Janet approach the castle in the rain

4.         The audience shouts “Slut” when Janet first appears and “Asshole” at Brad

5.         Anyone there for the first time is emphatically denounced as a “virgin”

6.         Toilet paper is thrown as Dr. Scott enters the lab

7.         Cards are thrown when FnF sings “cards for sorrow, cards for pain”.

 Remarkably, I found that the College Park crowd was far more in tune with these standard elements than the NYC crowd, but the NYC crowd had more complete coverage of the “cast”.  The CP crowd was more conventional in the callbacks, whereas the NYC crowd was pretty much just shouting nonstop, the same three jerks who wouldn’t SHUT UP.  In other words, the NYC crowd felt that since it was NYC, whatever they did was “Rocky Horror”, vs. the College Park crowd felt like faithfully following a tradition someone else had established. 

 Even earlier than College Park, I saw the movie “Fame” on a school trip to Italy.  There’s a scene in the movie where the characters go to RHPS and essentially “let down their hair.”  Sure enough, I recognized many of the College Park audience from the “introvert dorm” (Hagerstown Hall).  Likewise, the NYC crowd was somewhat charming (acting out characters) and downright annoying (ad-libbed callbacks from those three jerks).     

 To borrow from Dave, “have I mentioned how much I hate these people…?”