The+Rocky+Horror+Picture+Show

Maisie Sackett

** The Rocky Horror Picture Show ** //The Rocky Horror Picture Show// is a film that was released in 1975 based off a British stage play, //The Rocky Horror Show//, written by Richard O’Brien (// The Rocky Horror Picture Show //, 2011). It was directed by Jim Sharman and was to be a parody of both Science Fiction and Horror films (// The Rocky Horror Picture Show //, 2011). The film touches on many different sexual themes such as, transsexuals, transgender, homosexuality, incestuous relationships, and sex in general. The film is still played in theatres, most commonly as a midnight movie. **Plot Synopsis:** ** (SPOILER ALERT) ** //The Rocky Horror Picture Show// is a musical comedy that centers around two main characters, Brad Majors and Janet Weiss. Brad and Janet have just become engaged after attending their friends’ wedding. After the proposal the two decide they should go and see the professor, Dr. Everett Scott, who introduced them to each other. On their way there a terrible rainstorm hits and their car gets a flat tire. They had seen a mansion a while back where they could walk to ask to borrow a phone in order to call for help. Once they get to the mansion they get extremely uncomfortable upon meeting Riff Raff, Magenta, and Columbia and realize that there is some sort of party going on. Here the pair are introduced to Dr. Frank-N-Furter a transvestite who insists that they stay the night, and come up to his lab to see his most recent creation. His creation is a muscular man with blonde hair, blue eyes and a tan named Rocky Horror, for Dr. Frankenfurter to “play” with. Then Eddie, a former delivery boy to Dr. Frank-N-Furter, emerges from a deep freeze chamber where he had been kept. Columbia rushes towards Eddie, her former love. Eddie steals the attention of everyone to Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s dismay so he grabs a pickax and chases Eddie back into the deep freeze chamber where he kills him, which put everyone in a weary mood. Dr. Frank-N-Furter tries to pick up the crowd by presenting Rocky with a present of weights and then leading him away into a bedchamber area, to wedding music playing in the background. Brad and Janet stay the night in separate rooms where Dr. Frank-N-Furter visits each in the middle of the night. Dr. Frank-N-Furter convinces both of them to betray their partner when he performs oral sex on Brad, then has sex with Janet. During this Riff Raff and Magenta decide to torture Rocky where he is chained to his bed. This causes him to break his chains and run away, where Riff Raff sends the dogs on him. Janet in a confused haze ends up running around the house then sees on a monitor Brad and Dr. Frank-N-Furter in Brad’s room where she assumes that Brad has cheated on her. Rocky is hiding in the same room, and Janet finds him after she hears him whimpering. The two proceed to have sex because after her experience with Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Janet has found that she quite enjoys sex. Dr. Frank-N-Furter beats Riff Raff for letting Rocky escape, when they notice on a monitor that a man in a wheelchair is approaching. Brad recognizes him as Dr. Everett Scott, and Dr. Frank-N-Furter gets upset because he knows that Dr. Everett Scott is a rival scientists and he thinks that Janet and Brad were sent to spy on him. Then he turns on a magnetic device that causes Dr. Everett Scott’s wheelchair to be dragged through the house to the room they are in. This causes Rocky and Janet to wake up and sit up, which shocks everybody there. Magenta enters the room to announce that dinner is served. Trying to compose himself, but clearly upset, Dr. Frank-N-Furter dismisses everyone to dinner. At dinner, Dr. Everett Scott announces that he is not investigating Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s work, but looking for his nephew, Eddie. In response, Dr. Frank-N-Furter pulls the tablecloth off of the table to reveal Eddie’s hacked up body and says that they had actually been eating Eddie. Janet runs to Rocky’s arms, which angers Dr. Frank-N-Furter and causes him to chase after her. He chases her up to his lab where everyone else follows and he turns on a device that glues their feet to the floor. He then proceeds to turn them all to stone, save Riff Raff and Magenta. Then each of the frozen people appears on stage, dressed in the same drag attire that Dr. Frank-N-Furter typically wears, fishnets, a thong, and a bustier. They each sing about how they’ve changed since they came here, then Dr. Frank-N-Furter sings a solo that ends in a pool, which starts a type of orgy between the characters. This is interrupted by Riff Raff and Magenta who barge in and explain to Dr. Frank-N-Furter that they are going back to their home planet of Transylvania, and that his mission was a failure so he is now their prisoner. Dr. Frank-N-Furter gets excited to be going home, until they tell him that he will not be going home and he is instead to be killed. Columbia screams which causes Riff Raff to shoot her with the laser, then Dr. Frank-N-Furter tries to run away when he is shot with the same laser. Rocky gets upset and grabs Dr. Frank-N-Furter in an attempt to save him, which causes Riff Raff to continually shoot at him until he falls into the pool where he dies. Riff Raff and Magenta tell the remaining three, Brad, Janet and Dr. Everett Scott to leave the house while they still can because they will be beaming the whole thing back to Transylvania. Riff Raff and Magenta celebrate in the now empty house, implying an incestuous relationship between the brother and sister. Brad, Janet, and Dr. Everett Scott escape just in time as the house flies away into space. The movie is narrated by a man that is a criminologist investigating the disappearances of all of these people who also knows intimate details of the entire affair. (Sharman, 1975) **Cast:** Dr. Frank-N-Furter- Tim Curry Janet Weiss—Susan Sarandon Brad Majors—Barry Bostwick Riff Raff—Richard O’Brien Magenta—Patricia Quinn Columbia—Nell Campbell Dr. Everett Scott—Jonathan Adams Rocky Horror—Peter Hinwood The Criminologist—Charles Gray Eddie—Meat Loaf (Sharman, 1975) **Sexuality Themes:** Upon the film’s release in 1975, the ideas of homosexuality, and free love as they were expressed in the film were a cultural shock. This was during the Generation of Gender Equalization, where sexual communication was still in the process of being opened up and widely discussed. This film shockingly divulged into all of that in an entirely transparent manor that took the ideas of sex and violence and turned them into a stage production (Sanes, 2011). Each of the characters that arrive in Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s mansion is exposed to ideas of sexuality that they had never before considered and experiences that they would have never though of, which in the end frees them from the straight laced lives that they led before that introduction (Sanes, 2011). **Audience Participation:** Since it’s release, //The Rocky Horror Picture Show// has become a phenomenon with a large fan base. Across America and the UK the film is still has midnight showings in select theatres. The fans have transformed the movie into a skeptical that induces audience participation and has attracted a type of cult following. The audience participation can include yelling out things at the screen during extended pauses, dressing up like the crazy characters, acting out the film, and even throwing props at the screen during different times in the film. The prop list includes: rice, newspapers, squirt guns, candles/flashlights, rubber gloves, noisemakers, confetti, toilet paper, toast, party hat, bell, cards, and possibly hot dogs and prunes (Norman). The props that participants can bring depend on the rules of the theatre. This participation began in 1977 after the movie premiere bombed in 1975 and it was instead opened as a midnight movie ( Resteghini, 2010). A group of people began to regularly attend the film and that’s when they began experimenting with audience participation (Norman). Now the Rocky Horror spectacle has a Guinness World Record for the largest Time Warp dance, which involved 8,239 people on October 31, 2010 in honor of the 35th Anniversary of the movie (Guinness World Records, 2011). **References:** Guinness World Records. (2011). //Largest Time Warp Dance//. Retrieved April 8, 2011, from Guinness World Records website: http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/Search/Details/Largest-Time-Warp-dance/61929.htm. Norman, J. (n.d.). Participation: A Virgin's Guide. In //The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The Official Fan Site//. Retrieved April 8, 2011, from http://www.rockyhorror.com/participation/virgins.php. Resteghini, M. (2010, October 12). 5 Reasons Why The Rocky Horror Picture Show Is Astounding [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://blog.koldcast.tv/2010/koldcast-news/5-reasons-why-the-rocky-horror-picture-show-is-astounding/. Sanes, K. (2011). //The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Emergence of Recreational Evil//. Retrieved April 8, 2011, from http://www.transparencynow.com/Evil.htm. Sharman, J. (Director). (1975). //The Rocky Horror Picture Show// [Motion picture]. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. // The Rocky Horror Picture Show //. (2011). Retrieved April 8, 2011, from IMDb.com, Inc. website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073629/.