By Ayva Strauss
“It was hilarious. It was horrifying. I was scarred mentally for the rest of my life,” she joked. That is how Rebekkah Hurlbert, a sophomore at Susquehanna University, described her first time attending “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” at age 11.
“The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” a film released in 1975, tells the story that unfolds when a perfectly boring, young couple—Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon)—stumble upon a haunted mansion. They step inside for shelter during a fierce rainstorm and find the place inhabited by a campy, iconic, eclectic mad scientist, his monster, and their equally strange friends, according to IMDb.
But it was not always the hit it is today. In fact, according to Larushka Ivan-Zadeh in her article “The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The film that’s saved lives,” the film was something of a blunder when it premiered. Low turnouts and middling reviews meant it had to be pulled from theaters. One critic, Roger Elbert, observed that the film could be a success, but it seemed to be missing a key ingredient. In his 1976 review, Elbert wrote: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show would be more fun, I suspect, if it weren’t a picture show. It belongs on a stage, with the performers and audience joining in a collective send-up.”
He seemed to have predicted the future of the now cult–classic. As soon as the film moved to smaller, underground showings in the Waverly Theatre in New York City, it started to take on a life of its own, thanks to the nature of its new audiences. Ivan-Zadeh writes, “In a time and place where gay rights was just finding a voice in the wake of the Stonewall riots, the Waverly attracted a congregation of groovy outcasts, weirdos and rejects.”
These audiences felt a real connection with the film, where queerness was celebrated so openly and joyfully. Here was finally a piece of media where the “straight, white, conventionally attractive young couple called Brad and Janet, both virgins until their wedding night, are considered the freaks,” Ivan-Zadeh adds. She goes on to explain how exciting it was that meanwhile, Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a pansexual version of Dr. Frankenstein with dark red lips, chunky pearls, and black, lacey lingerie gets to be the star.
Thus began the subculture of the film, where people would show up every Friday night to their favorite local theaters, stumbling in complete with stilettos and corsets. Hurlbert tells me about some of the call-outs these audiences created and that continue to be shouted in theaters across the world today.
She describes one scene, where Dr. Frank-N-Furter murders another character with an icepick. “That’s my favorite call out—’you can’t pick your friends like that, Frank!’” She is also a big fan of the call-out that surrounds Brad’s character. Everytime his name is said on-screen (which is often), the entire audience responds “Asshole!”
Ivan-Zadeh writes that eventually, audiences even started bringing props to respond to specific scenes. For example, during a scene where the characters raise their glasses to give a toast, audience members launch actual pieces of toast into the air.
That is a tradition that Susquehanna’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) encouraged this past Halloweekend, when they hosted a showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in Weber Chapel. According to Hurlbert, every guest was given a little bag that contained bubbles, party hats, a newspaper, rubber gloves, and other seemingly random objects that all have their place in the film.
Even though she has been seeing it for the last seven years in her hometown, Hurlbert says it is truly unique every time because of the audience participation. “There’s way different call-outs here than in Connecticut,” she added.
Hurlbert also believes that the wide-range of characters gives everyone a chance to participate in the fun by dressing up: “You can dress like any of the characters—from Frank-N-Furter, who wears a speedo and a corset and six-inch heels, to Brad, who dresses like the average 1980s white man.”
And that inclusivity spreads far beyond the costuming. Hurlbert says that every time she has seen the show, there has always been a real sense of community. “There’s such a loving atmosphere around the show,” she said. “As raunchy as it is, there’s still this atmosphere of we’re all in this room together watching this.”
