Rose Tint My World: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, for better or worse

The pre-show ends; the lights dim; the audience shivers with antici…pation. There is no popcorn in sight, though some of us have packed a slice of toast. As the opening musical number begins, a pair of red lips fills the screen… and one of the live actors strides in front to begin a striptease. Welcome to the weird world of the Rocky Horror Picture Show midnight screening.

Explaining RHPS to a newcomer is never easy, or particularly successful. If you’ve never seen this movie before, I’m probably not going to convince you of its merits, because objectively it makes absolutely no sense. Sure, it has all the ingredients you’d expect in a movie musical—a more or less coherent plot, believable and suspension-of-dis-believable characters, and some fabulously campy songs. But that’s all surface. Rocky regulars, those who have seen the movie dozens or even hundreds of times in the theater, are there for the cult and the culture: costumes, props, callback lines, community. I could spend pages explaining to you why I bring toast and toilet paper to each screening I attend, only to throw them in the air at very precise moments; I could link you to a website that aggregates some of the most common audience participation lines; I could even teach you how to do the Time Warp. (It’s just a jump to the left…) But none of that would really get at what makes RHPS such a phenomenon. If you really want to understand this movie and its nocturnal fanbase, you can’t just listen to the soundtrack, or even watch it at home. You have to go out and join the cult, even if just for one night.

In case I haven’t made it clear, I love this movie and the bizarre traditions that surround it. But considering its iconic countercultural status, I think it’s only fair that even the fans apply a critical lens—and not a rose-tinted one—to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

(I promise I’ll stop with the in-jokes.)

So, about that pre-show. It consists of a ceremony in which all the “virgins”, or first-time live viewers, are called up to the front to perform a mildly to moderately embarrassing act. The “barely legals” under 18 get away with doing the “butt dance” or imitating the sound of an animal in coitus, but for the adults, pretty much anything goes—simulating fellatio on a gigantic phallic balloon, popping a balloon by grinding on a volunteer… something else involving balloons and/or whipped cream… Virgin-deflowering is not technically mandatory, but everyone onstage will see and hear your friends cajoling you out of your seat while you staunchly refuse to join in.

Once the film finally starts, well after 12:30 at my theater, pretty much anything goes for the audience participation lines. You can read up on the most popular lines beforehand, of course, but this is a thirty-year old tradition with participants all across the country, and you’ll never know quite what to expect to hear during any given scene. Some nights, a particularly dedicated group will surprise you by delivering a line for almost every five seconds of screen time; on other occasions, some loudmouth virgin will annoy you by crafting his own rather crude and unamusing taunts that overshadow the funnier lines you were hoping to shout out yourself. And some of what you hear may shock, disturb, or even greatly upset you, depending on your personal history and sensitivity.

I don’t actually mean rape jokes, though I’m sure those exist among certain audiences. Even in the movie proper, most of the sex stems from the seduction of innocents, with a certain amount of pressure before consent is given. But no, the examples I have in mind involve run-of-the-mill fat jokes, unpleasant abortion humor, and, of course, slut-shaming. Several of the characters have specific titles or distinguishing features: just as any mention of “straight” man Brad Majors is greeted with a hearty chant of “Asshole!”, Janet’s name is inextricably linked to the designation of “Slut!”—in some cases expanded to “Slut-in-training, give her time, she’s a natural”—despite the fact that she’s far from the most promiscuous character in the movie. She’s tied with Rocky at two sexual encounters in one night; Doctor Frank-N-Furter manages three.

All right, maybe the people shouting this out are sex-positive feminists who have reclaimed the term for themselves. Even then, do they have the right to do the same for someone else? Was the first person to use this callback line a sexually liberated woman, or a man unintentionally playing sexual liberation for laughs? Does it make a difference that the title of “slut” is levied at a fictional character, rather than Susan Sarandon herself?

The Room is another movie—a particularly terrible one—that has achieved cult status in the past decade or so, and from what I’ve read the audiences at midnight screenings tend to shout some pretty ugly, misogynistic lines whenever the lead actress appears onscreen; but that’s not quite what’s happening at RHPS. Brad is the “asshole” because he’s the loveably hateable skeptic, but Janet is the “slut” because… she has a lot of sex? This is ridiculous at face value; the entire film and the audience culture surrounding it celebrate sexuality in all its forms, and obviously neither of the male characters who match or surpass Janet in sexual productivity receive a comparable title. No, I’m guessing her designation as “slut” is a purposefully ironic invocation and reclamation of harmful societal tropes. Does it achieve its purpose? Perhaps the callback lines started out with this positive intent, but they’ve had decades to become so familiar, sincere, and entrenched as to be part of the script itself. I imagine this could be subconsciously reaffirming to newcomers with a history of careless slut-shaming, and alienating to those who have found themselves on the receiving end of it.

Make no mistake, not all of the audience participation lines are sexual or offensive in nature. Some of my favorites come at the expense of the characters’ rather strange fake accents—

(Magenta: “Master, dinner is prepah-red!”) “Papaya?! I hate papaya!”

—or just the general campy ridiculousness of the film—

“No, Rocky, don’t lift that sheet; there’s bad music under it!” (Sappy music starts playing)

“Same room, different color; cheap set, cheaper actors!”

Once again, I LOVE this movie, and the midnight screenings have so much to offer: a general relaxation of inhibitions, an excuse to be loud and boisterous after midnight, the opportunity to dress up in ridiculous outfits, the chance to throw toast in the air, and of course, at the best theaters, the welcoming atmosphere of the audience itself, making you feel like part of the family. Even as a nonlibidoist asexual, at RHPS I feel comfortable claiming, or perhaps performing, a sexuality that I don’t actually possess. It’s certainly a safe space for queerness, gender experimentation, and unorthodox sexual preferences; unfortunately, I can imagine some survivors of sexual assault and people who are emotionally triggered by certain slurs or situations finding the atmosphere a bit too self-indulgent, liberal to a potentially harmful extent.

Spaces, as well as subcultures, can be simultaneously uninhibited and intentional. As a Rocky fan for life, I would never give up on the movie or the midnight screenings, but I do hope to see these become more inclusive and conscious of individual needs and experiences. If nothing else, the audience participation element has given me valuable practice in speaking up before a crowd, and I hope to do so in the future when there’s more on the line than whether or not the Criminologist has a neck.

(He totally doesn’t, you guys.)

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Elise Berendt

Scr ’17

Staff Blogger