For over thirty years, The Rocky Horror Picture Show invites audience member to become one in the most overtly ritual movie-going experience. After a dismal first-run in 1976, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, based on a wildly successful
Regular audience members, noticing pauses in the dialogue, began shouting one-liners back at the screen. J. Hoberman describes the “back talk” in his book Midnight Movies:
The counterpoint backtalk… had varying rationales. Some was a direct response to the erotic tease of Tim Curry’s Frank… Others were the equivalent of
Rather than engaging with the stage, ala a theatrical production of a play, the “cult” of Rocky Horror was engaging in something quite different:
the Rocky Horror reaction was the reverse of [audience engagement within story, as in Peter Pan], because it wasn’t being directly solicited, was spoken to a screen instead of a stage, and came closer to being a dialectical response – a real dialogue between screen and spectator, and not a mere consensus. (176)
If the line was popular, you could expect to hear it the following week, and so on. Before long, the Rocky Horror ritual brought about a new level of audience solidarity:
Still, it was more like cheerleading at school than reciting a prayer in church… but also a bit of teaching, too, such as when he began making announcements about matters of general interest to the cult before he even started the cheers – laying out a few ground rules for newcomers (or “virgins,” as they were identified), calling attention to new parts of the twice-weekly ritual, and helping, like any good theater director, to keep the kids in line and groom their performances. (179)
Meanwhile, another ritual began at the Waverly, “[q]uite independently of [counterpoint backtalk], members of the audience had begun turning up dressed like some of the screen characters.” (177). The “cult” of Rocky Horror also brought props to share, based on lines from the film, while a separate set of actors onstage re-created the film as it played.
As the ritual continued, it became clearer this was more than simply a film-based event; “More importantly, some people would turn up periodically at the Waverly because they made friends there… standing in front of the Waverly, they’d swap information, sing and dance on the sidewalk, compare their costumes, discuss potential line and prop ideas” (181). Rocky Horror fans became a fully fledged sub-culture movement, and “the demarcation line between insiders and outsiders was clearly drawn” (184).
Group identity within this sub-culture is based on defining oneself against “conventional” audiences, particularly the “rules” of movie-going, even if the end result is identical. The behavior grew in popularity, and so did the size of crowds, although the Rocky Horror ritual was not always welcome:
People outside the cult were beginning to take notice. Some were sympathetic, but some of the older visitors to the Waverly found the whole spectacle too nihilistic and noisy – too boisterous about opposing everything that they held sacred about sex, art, and life – to take much pleasure in the madness, which they often found dumb or foolish or just plain sick. (182)
The ritual spread across the nation, and I must admit to have been a regular attendee of the Rocky Horror Picture Show for several years. The collective experience is akin to an evangelical church – with fouler language – and the bonds between long time ritual attendees are strong. The film continues playing every Friday night in the
So there's that. Sorry about setting up the second piece and forgetting about it, but the Cap'n gets a little scatterbrained from time to time.
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