Saturday, January 07, 2012
CAMPING OUT
Today's gay film favorite was
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
This film is probably not very good but it has long since superseded any close scrutiny from that particular angle. Ebert gave it only 2.5 stars out of 4.
I went, stoned and probably drunk, to see it when it came out. We all went for the spectacle which came by word and mouth. We did it as a group which most people did for a long time. It was an identity piece, particularly, at the beginning, a place you could go to the movies and be gay, with gays, to see gays on the screen (or at least bisexuals) cavort and overact and have a lot of fun.
Later it was taken up by the hip, the collegiate, the teens and probably way down the line there some of the bourgeois but probably not the evangelicals.
For some reason it always drew groups and if you were not in a "group" you could go to the midnight shows which still have not ended (see locations) and immediately bond with other people who had seen it over and over and were now reciting it along with the script but also adding "comments" and then acting out. Water sprayed during the rain scene and shouting out to the no necked narrator. We went to one or two of those. Got "rained" on.
The mockery of the movie was being mocked.
What more can I say? If you have never seen this let alone heard about it, you are so out in the hinterlands that it is irrelevant. I won't say that you are.
Why is this such a classic not only to "the gays" or the hip but to a lot of people who are, perhaps, otherwise conservative folks but want to let their hair down of a night in the movies.>
I do not know but there are academic papers galore by now. Theses. Perhaps books.
The stars emerged from the film with full blown careers. Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, who while not a luminary, has worked steadily and consistently ever since. Meatloaf! The star. Not the menu.
It is fascinating and I am not one to figure it out.
I was apprehensive about seeing it again. It was a bit tarted up on the disc, extras and some foofrew in the menu but otherwise clear, tuned up sound and a great experience. And get this. I saw it alone. Well, Booker was in the room. So my theory about being for groups is shot. But I have the collective memory of all the groups that I saw it with.
A huge 5 out of Netflix5.
