Where does one even begin with The Rocky Horror Picture Show?
My first memory associated with Rocky Horror is of the cover on the case of the movie at Hollywood Video when I was growing up. I wouldn’t actually see the movie until years later, towards the end of high school, but that image of Tim Curry in corset and fishnets reclining on those lips sure stood out.
The first time I saw the movie was, if I remember correctly, on someone else’s computer one night when a group of us were at the state science fair in eleventh grade. Having little to no idea what to expect while watching with someone else who’s already been to live showings is, from what I understand, one of the more common ways of being introduced to the movie. As a still fairly sheltered teen who’d spent most of my life in Catholic school before being exposed to all these wild public school kids, I didn’t quite know what to make of it all.
And yet…
Something about the movie resonated. I wouldn’t have the experiences necessary to understand why until later, but there was definitely a quality to the thing that stuck with me.
Relatively early in college, I pulled together a few other acquaintances in my new dorm to go to my first live showing (and their first experience with the movie in any form). I wound up going a few more times in college, although I never became a devotee of the experience like some do.
To this day, The Rocky Horror Picture Show holds a certain attraction, even as many parts of it are intellectually problematic. In a way that is similar to the Universal monsters and the broader panoply of fringe-y “dark geekdom,” the movie continues to have an appeal that is part aesthetic and part something else. (Before I go any further, I strongly recommend reading this analysis by Vrai Kaiser, either before or after reading this post.)
So what’s up with Rocky Horror?
M.J. Diedrich 
