The death of industrial music pioneer and perpetual provocateur Genesis P-Orridge got me thinking.
Not that I liked his "music." (I decline to use his preferred pronoun, "s/he.")
But because P-Orridge died at age 70, I enjoyed picturing bummed out young "trans" poseurs learning through these obituaries that body modification and "gender fluidity" weren't their ideas.
I also thought — not for the first time since the advent of what Steve Sailer calls "World War T" — about The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975.)
The enduring cult film started out as a campy London stage musical that spoofed science fiction B-movies while dialing up the tropes of then-trendy glam rock.
"Space age" androgyny, often awkwardly slapped on top of incongruously macho, stomping tunes. (Think: Gary Glitter, Slade, Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie, Alice Cooper).
The plot is simple: Stranded clean-cut newlyweds seek shelter at the castle of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), "a sweet transvestite" from the planet Transylvania. He and his minions suck the couple into their hedonistic lifestyle, but the party can't last forever...
After the film version flopped in wide release, the Waverly Theater in Greenwich Village showed it as midnight movie (a novelty it had adopted in 1970) along with three other Manhattan theaters.
But audience participation set The Rocky Horror Picture Show apart from previous 12 o'clock cult films like Harold and Maude and El Topo. What began as a single, spontaneous outburst from one bored regular — a Staten Island kindergarten teacher, no less — mutated, then hardened, into a codified script of call-backs, and eventually, simultaneous, costumed "shadow cast" performances in front of the screen.
In high school in the early 1980s, I spent many Saturday nights acting up at midnight Rocky Horror screenings, too.
Schoolmates with stricter parents came to my apartment (under the pretext of a sleepover) to put on weird outfits and thick makeup. My mom filled twist-tie baggies with rice and toast (to throw at the screen on cue) while expressing embarrassingly unconcealed delight that her shy, strange daughter had actual friends.
(That I lived a block away from the city's only rep theater didn't hurt: we could walk there without enduring the abuse hurled at "weirdos" in our blue collar town.)
My friends and I loved the sing-along songs, the quirky costumes, and the safely subversive fun of staying up late, and yelling and making a mess in a movie theater.
Not a few "queer" folks credit The Rocky Horror Picture Show with awakening, or legitimizing, their sexuality when they were still closeted adolescents. Being straight (and back then, as virginal and clueless as most of my friends), I don't recall anything of the sort. The movie seemed only slightly raunchier than Monty Python's Flying Circus or the Carry On... movies that aired steadily on TV at home.
So the sight of some guy wearing fishnets onscreen (even one as transcendently mesmerizing and un-self-conscious as Curry) was, well, cool but whatever.
Of all the songs (and I can still "sing" them all) the poignant "Over At The Frankenstein Place" was my favorite – almost a lullaby. As it played, we raised our candles and cigarette lighters, and rocked back and forth in somber unison:
In the velvet darkness
Of the blackest night
Burning bright
There's a guiding star
No matter what
Or who you are
There's a light
Over at the Frankenstein Place
There's a light
Burning in the fireplace
There's a light, light
In the darkness of everybody's life
There was a lot of darkness in my life. Going to Rocky Horror was one of my "lights over at the Frankenstein Place," too. But not, oddly enough, the movie itself.
Fans often sum up the film's message with one of its lyrics: "Don't dream it. Be it." As someone who walked around downtown in Slits-inspired gear, I could relate. But even then, I sensed the flaws in such a philosophy, especially when it came from the red-lipsticked mouth of the movie's main character.
Frank-N-Furter is the archetypal horror "creator," but in a twist, he is the true monster. It went over my head at the time that he not so much seduces the newlyweds as rapes them. But I did notice that he treated his minion, friends and lovers like dirt.
As much as he claims to celebrate "freaks," the "monster" Frank creates is the mesomorphic epitome of traditional masculinity, beside whom the diversity and eccentricity of Frank's loyal hangers-on is cast into high relief.
Frank boasts of having not only cast aside his previous "favorite," the Fifties rocker Eddie (played by Meat Loaf), but of murdering and cannibalizing the poor guy. The homely Columbia, who'd pined for Eddie, sounds one of the first notes of doubt:
It was great when it all began
I was a regular Frankie fan
But it was over when he had the plan
To start working on a muscle man
As the chaos in the castle descends from fun into felonious, two of Frank's lackeys, Riff Raff and Magenta, confront him, armed with laser guns:
Frank-N-Furter, it's all over
Your mission is a failure
Your lifestyle's too extreme
I'm your new commander
You now are my prisoner
And the uptight criminologist-narrator, who we've been drowning out with screams of "BORING!!" every time his face appears on screen, has the last sad word:
And crawling on the planet's face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time
And lost in space... and meaning.
Rocky Horror fans, despite having seen it hundreds and sometimes thousands of times, seem willfully oblivious to the movie's cautionary coda.
As a punk whose disgust with hippies and their "do your own thing" philosophy — the same one that had broken up my home, twice — I was impressed that Rocky Horror seemed to be, perhaps unintentionally, a condemnation of the very ethos that made its "shocking" excess possible.
Recently, some admirers of the film have reluctantly acknowledged this underlying theme, along with the fact their one-time role model was a creep. In the lingo of our times, Frank-N-Furter is "problematic."
As for me, I remember when pansexual men in drag, bullying all within their orbit to obey their commands or else, were confined to screens big and small. We "visited" these colourful, carnival characters voluntarily once a week, then went back to our straight (or semi-straight) lives.
I feel foolish even having to point out that no one ever brought children to our past-their-bedtimes midnight parties.
Now, it's midnight and Mardi Gras, Christmas and Halloween, every minute of every hour of every day. Predictably, this pre-adolescent notion of "paradise" has turned out to be the opposite of "fun."
The death of Genesis P-Orridge prompted some laudably frank discussion of his proclivities for violence, diva-level tantrums and, well, treating his friends like dirt.
But we still don't have enough Riff Raffs and Magentas out there, willing to shake off their shackles and say, "Enough."
Except, ironically, this guy:
The mastermind behind Rocky Horror, and the original Riff-Raff, Richard O'Brien, has long labeled himself "third sex." If anyone can claim original gangsta trans cred, it's him.
And yet, here he is:
"I agree with Germaine Greer and Barry Humphries," he said recently. "You can't be a woman [just because you've had a sex change].
"You're in the middle and there's nothing wrong with that. I certainly wouldn't have the wedding tackle taken off.
"That is a huge jump and I have all the sympathy in the world for anyone who does it," O'Brien added.
"But you aren't a woman."
Mark Steyn Club members can let Kathy know what they think in the comments. If you want to join in on the fun, make sure to sign up for a membership for you or a loved one. To meet many of your fellow club members in person, join Mark along with Douglas Murray, Michele Bachmann and several others aboard our upcoming Mark Steyn Cruise down the Mediterranean.
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Hi Kathy,
Great interpretation of this movie as an illustration of the selfish and tyrannical nature of liberalism and decadence (the promise of the Democrats). The characters are initially attracted to a utopia of impulsive and expressive behavior, but become Dr. Frank-n-furter's useful idiots subject to murder and rape. He demands obedience and they ultimately lead joyless lives "drained of love and emotion".
Consider Sal Piro who dropped out of seminary to become a full time congregant of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. He exchanged the truth for a lie and worshiped created things rather than the creator. He had been free, but willingly chained himself in Plato's Movie Theater, preferring the shadows to reality.
What a shame...
Love the soundtrack but could not watch the movie. Maybe I was too young and square when I tried to watch it. But now I'm older and more square so...
I only saw the movie itself once or twice. But the audience, in costume, was outside the Exeter Street Theatre in Boston performing on the sidewalk every weekend.
So glad to hear all the Tim Curry fans. Unfortunately, he wasn't in a lot of films, and I was unable to see him on the stage where I think he did most of his work. I disliked the movie "Amadeus" only because I was angry because I knew Tim Curry had played the role of Mozart on stage and wanted to see him in the film. So sad to read about his stroke in the comments.
As for the movie, I like it mainly because the music is so great. The few times, four or so, that I saw it the in the movie theatre in my youth, it was fun to do the audience participation. But I was one of the few who wanted to sit and watch the credits. The ending is very haunting. The combination of the music, the camera pulling back and showing the destruction as the house launched into space, Dr. Scott spinning the globe and his last sad (as Kathy very nicely put it) words:
"And crawling on the planet's face
Some insects called the human race
Lost in time
And lost in space... and meaning"
summed up the human condition for me.
For the rest of the Club who are getting cabin fever, here is my recommended film festival.
55 Days in Peking with Charleton Heston, David Niven and Ava Gardner. The Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the 20th Century in the last days of the Qing dynasty .
The Sand Pebbles with Steve McQueen and Candice Bergen. An American gunboat on the Yangtze Patrol during the war between Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Kuomintang and Chinese warlords in the 1920's. For some reason, Candice Bergen is in several of my favorite movies.
Pork Chop Hill with Gregory Peck and a host of young actors. Defense of an unimportant hill in the last days of the Korean War. I can watch this movie over and over and as I have gotten older it has become three movies, an action movie, compelling personal stories of men in combat and a political movie.
There's a theme in there somewhere.
that is a terrific list, I dont know where you get the access to such jewels but I am bookmarking them in my list of things to do this week!
Very timely, Walt! I never would have thought of that!
For me, 55 Days in Peking is a fairly forgettable "cast of thousands" movie. The only bright spots were David Niven as the British ambassador and Flora Robson as the dowager empress.
I do agree about Sand Pebbles, but it is a deeply depressing movie as it illustrates Vizzini's (aka Wallace Shawn's, Inconceivable!) warning to avoid a land war in Asia. Watch for great performances by Richard Attenborough (Frenchy) and Richard Crenna as the captain.
Let me guess, Carnal Knowledge?
MCF! Wind and the Lion, Bite the Bullet and Sweet Home Alabama.
Richard Crenna the actor, not to be confused with the author Richard McKenna. McKenna served on a Yangtze gunboat. My sister knew him. (Pretty thin name drop, I know.) Great line, "You all did well today at the boom." Also, look for the title of Hillary Clinton's latest book in the dialog. It's the true context and meaning of the title.
Well I remember attending Midnight showings of this movie. It was fun, although I never dressed-up, but I really enjoyed shouting 'Where's your neck!' at Charles Gray.
This semi-regular habit continued until Pink Floyd's The Wall started playing at Midnight shows at the Orson Welles Theatre. It was then I switched my loyalties.
Oh dear all these folks who love Pink Floyd and The Wall. Having to look at their trademark rainbow prism thingie drawn and silkscreened on every stationary object in my very heavy metal/hard rock town. I realize that Pink Floyd were neither but they were liked by the same folks; being a teenaged snob I turned my nose up.
I was highly influenced by the fact that Johnny Rotten wore an I HATE PINK FLOYD t-shirt. He later confessed that he'd been a big fan all along, which you can pick up from his later music with PiL. Oh well.
My wife is a huge fan, even going (before we were dating) to a midnight screening in, (believe it or not) our hometown, Abilene, Texas. Some of my classmates extolled the movie, but mostly for the audience participation. Being very straight, and straight-laced, I didn't see the movie until well after she and I were married. It's an interesting experience, and I'll confess to enjoying many of the songs. She has the soundtrack CD in her weekend vehicle, so I still get to hear them on occasion.
The songs are fun to sing along with in the car for sure!
This one for me falls into the same category as "American Pie" (the song) by Don McLean. I arrived at university and for some reason kept hearing about this great song. When I finally heard it I found it to be kind of long and boring, way too much hype.
So this movie I knew about the crazy cult status and singalongs and dress up. It was only in this century that I finally saw any amount of it. Surprised to see Charles Gray, and now I know that he is the one telling us that it's a jump to the left. I just couldn't watch the whole film, it just seemed too stupid.
Tim Curry has been quite impressive over the years. I don't catch hardly anything of his performances. He played a character in a Titanic television movie who drowned after trying to steal valuables, taking advantage of the disaster. The last thing I saw was him playing a decrepit old villain on Criminal Minds, with rotten teeth and an old motorhome. He was effectively creepy there too.
With respect to American Pie (the song), I think that it really hits people of a certain age who were alive when the music actually did die. For the younger crowd, I can see that it might be a "meh".
It was one of the anthems of my youth [born 1961], of those of us who were born during the generational transition years between, say, 1957-1963. We're part-Boomer, but it was our sub-group that rejected Hippyism and embraced Hard Rock and Early Heavy Metal.
We also had Stairway To Heaven, Free Bird, Rock 'N' Roll Hootchie Koo, Smoke On The Water, and so on.
After having returned home from college I found it curious that some of my friends from high school had become Rocky Horror aficionados. They were all in on the midnight screening thing and all the inside baseball takes. I didn't even know what Rocky Horror was. Then I got a chance to watch it. I couldn't sit through it. I felt like I needed to be hosed down with hand sanitizer. The appeal remains an absolute mystery to me. It was too long a row to hoe to be able to glean the artistic themes, prophetic or otherwise. By analogy, you don't have to experience near-starvation to figure out that socialism is a bad thing.
Ditto.
Todd, Edmond: The movie is only worth viewing while sitting in the same kind of audience that Kathy describes.
Ditto 2.
I once tried watching it on TV. After 15 minutes, I flipped back to Shark Week, the Frame, or whatever I had been watching before. The plot, premise, and everything about Picture Show is beyond stupid. I agree that its appeal is totally incomprehensible. I once met a diehard fan of it; she was among one of the most messed-up, angry, unhappy, and confused people I'd ever met. This is one of those things that I will never understand and probably should not.
To fully appreciate Kathy's analysis, I would have to be someone else..
I never liked the movie myself, but liked that other people liked it. It sounded like fun, even if not my kind of fun. But I was afterward cautiously intrigued by Tim Curry. We saw him in NYC late 1989 in Nick Dear's play, "The Art of Success" about the debauched life of William Hogarth. He was creepily terrific, but my memories of that evening are dominated by the equally debauched Mrs. Jane Hogarth, played by the delectable young Mary Louise Parker. It's disconcerting to see Curry in "The Hunt for Red October" opposite such butch co-stars as Sean Connery, Alec Baldwin, and Sam Neill. You half expect him to break into "Wilkommen" in the officer's mess. Now, that's a role he was born to play.
Wow you are right: I wish he'd played the "M.C." in Cabaret at some point. Although I imagine it is difficult for any actor to break away from Joel Grey's interpretation.
Susan Sarandon has me seriously conflicted in view of the utterly unlikeable figure she became - predating the self-righteous woke generation and the shrill ageing Hollywood harpies (of both sexes).
Like a guilty pleasure I know this but I keep watching the film and I still fancy her.
How bad a person does that make me?
Sarandon was so great in many films, including the little seen "White Palace." She had such a presence.
Bette Davis always wanted her to play her in a biopic and she finally did in that "Feud" series. While she did a creditable job with gestures and expressions, she either couldn't or wouldn't bother mimicking Davis' voice, which I found disappointing. I know actors balk at doing mere "imitations" of historical figures, but still. Sarandon's voice was suitably clipped, but too high.
(Don't get me started on how bad Jessica Lange was, supposedly, as Joan Crawford. As I can just hear my late mother saying, "Sheesh, I'm glad ya told me...")
I too will admit to a guilty admiration of Sarandon in a couple of movies, specifically The Hunger and Bull Durham. I can leave Thelma and Louise alone, except maybe for the final scene.
First we must all acknowledge that Tim Curry is one of the most gifted performers of the last half century. I would have given several portions of my physiognomy to have seen him on stage in "Amadeus." It's a loss to all of us that he suffered that stroke eight years ago and has been wheel-chair bound since.
I first saw "Rocky Horror" (with my ex-wife) at a local art theater that specialized, at the time, in foreign films. (It later became a porn movie house and then a straight porn shop. Even in that incarnation it's been closed for years. That's a metaphor for something.) It was a great night and there was a great sense of bonding with the audience and people you didn't know.
We rushed out and bought the stage album and wore it out. The score is vibrant, alive and, in it's own weird way, profound. Yet the film doesn't come alive anymore because it needed that sense of participation and spontaneity that came from an actual screening. Also, whole thing is just not outrageous anymore. The incredible leaden seriousness that we now invest in "trans" issues has long outstripped the cheeky fun and joy of the film. In fact owning a copy of the flick might now be considered a "hate crime."
By chance I just watched "Now Voyager," on TCM. I am as manly as anyone I know (admittedly not a large group) but I am a sucker for the film because it genuinely is "timeless." The great acting, the finely drawn characters and the grown-up dialogue were everything that films like "Rocky Horror" were intended to subvert. (And that includes the amazingly overrated "Harold and Maude." - Sorry.) Yet "Now Voyager " is and will remain a fresh and vibrant classic while "Rocky Horror" looks like the museum piece. Oh, and the film gave us Susan Sarandon which was unnecessary to say the least.
I was lucky enough to have seen Tim Curry and Ian Mckellen in the original Broadway production of "Amadeus," and it was unforgettable. I also saw Tim Curry in the original production of "Spamalot," along with David Hyde-Pierce and Christian Borle.
In 1982, I was in London while Tim Curry was playing The Pirate King in "Pirates of Penzance;" unfortunately, he was on holiday the week I was there.
The old theatre down my street is now a church :-) Having gone from porn ("The Pussycat") to the Broadway, a rep cinema.
Curry is very gifted, it's true. Regardless of my feelings of the film's message, his performance is one for the ages.
Oh dear: "Now, Voyager" or as my husband calls it, "Not This Again." I just got the Criterion restoration and will be subjecting Steyn Club readers to my thoughts shortly!
I loved "Harold and Maude" as a teen (it played in heavy rotation on local TV) because of its non-conformist message and adolescent morbidity. And Maude being a former concentration camp inmate is what passed as "deep" in those days. I doubt I could watch it again but should dare myself to try.
Wow you are so lucky. That production is legendary. And what an amazing Pirate King he must have been.
I am red-faced with jealousy or high blood pressure. Maybe both.
I look forward to your analysis. Please give shout-out to Dame Gladys Cooper who was enjoying quite a run playing spiteful old matrons at the time.
I have been thinking about that film recently, I think I should try to see it again, also. Lets compare notes.
I cannot get in for a general comment so I will comment here.
Years ago I had a number of friends who traveled in the Warhol trans club scene. When I deigned to leave the wood in the north country they would show me the city, including the scene at Warhols, and memerably The Ramrod.
Yes it was.
Later when I saw the Picture Show, I was at home, at least visually. Been there and done that. The ones who dressed up were fun to watch, just as my original experieces were, from the distance.
IIRC toilet paper was thrown during the film?
Nonetheless, all of it was known and undrstood to be perverse. Its perversity was part of the fun, for everyone.
Now that perversity is mainstream. It is no longer fun, It becomes ....dare I say it? Fascistic.
I went to see at least a half-dozen midnight showings of TRHPS at the Biograph Theater in Chicago in the late 1970s. It really was like a weekly Halloween party. I recall one time, waiting on line in the cold, as a fellow in Frank-N- Furter drag began complaining that, as his poppers were wearing off, those nipple clamps were really beginning to hurt.
Good times.
Oh, and yes, I used to sing "There's a Light" to my kids as a lullaby.
Good times indeed.
I went to a midnight screening of TRHPS in July 1982. I could only take 15 minutes and left. I thought it was beyond stupid.
As I was leaving I ran a stop sign at an empty intersection and was soon jailed for refusing to take a breathalyzer test.
I spent the next four days from lights on to lights out reading 'Les Miserables', a book that one of my cell mates had lent me.
When they realized I wasn't going to make bail, they let me go.
Great story, Patrick. Better than the movie.
I agree!
I love the first half of the movie, but the second half gets a bit tedious. If Time Warp doesn't get you on your feet, there's something very wrong with you. And Charles Gray is Grayt.
Its a problem shared with "Avenue Q" > most of the good songs are in the first act. I imagine that with more experience, the authors would have spread the songs more but both were first creations.
With many first creations, many artists feel compelled to squeeze everything in, in case they never get the chance again. I get it, believe me! That's also why sophomore albums are notoriously disappointing.
Dear Kathy, I hope you're weathering the current virus business with good strength and in as good health as possible.
It sounds like Rocky Horror meant a lot to you. Also, I think you and I are very close in age.
I never went to see this movie. I went to see Harold and Maude probably about five times when I was a kid. I went to see Alan Bates in The King of Hearts even more times. They seemed pretty humorous to me, but by the time I got old enough to go see Rocky Horror I wasn't interested. Like you, my parents were married and divorced often. My dad was a beatnik then a sort of hippie. My mom had crippling arthritis by the time he left her with three kids and no money. He had lots of alternative friends. He once brought a poet named Alan Ginsberg to our apartment for Thanksgiving. (Alan was gay and really just interested in my dad's best friend, Lance Henrikson who went on to have a fairly successful career in Hollywood.) My dad and most of his friends took drugs. It was not as much fun for us kids as it was for him and his friends. Out of his five kids by three wives I'm the only one who never took drugs.
I never was interested in Rocky Horror, but I'm glad you showed me what the appeal was. People are funny creatures, not as different from cats, dogs, squirrels and other animals as we might think. We too are driven by natural desires for food, water, shelter, to reproduce, and to be accepted and loved. After all, we are tribal creatures. We need each other no matter how different we may feel we are.
You clearly had it much worse than I. I've always marvelled that I was the only male member on both sides of my family, going back three generations, that never took to cigarettes. ...great review. I remember hearing the ads for TRHPS on the radio as a teenager but never got closer than the Pink Floyd The Wall and Frank Zappa 10,000 Motels flicks.
"King of Hearts"! You know, that ran all the time at the Broadway as well -- it's poster was ubiquitous -- but NEVER went to see it. Isn't it funny how "big" (for a cult film) that movie was at the time but is now never talked about? Same with "Soldier of Orange."
Well that is a very... colourful upbringing! I wonder if you share my distaste for that "do your own thing" philosophy, especially when it trickled down to the "lower" classes. There's a wonderful line in the very grim movie "River's Edge" where the white trash mom says to her son, "I don't care if you smoke weed. Just don't steal any of mine" which captures the phenomenon in two sentences.
Kathy, I do share your distaste for the 'do your own thing' BS. When I was about ten I was kind of harsh. It was the mid seventies, but my natural father and his friends still called themselves hippies. I determined that hippie was short for hypocrite. They would chunter on about saving the children, but the children they were referring to were themselves.
I hope you have time to see The King of Hearts movie. I watched it recently with an elderly patient I'm caring for. I hadn't seen it since I was a kid, so I now I see that it's sort of an anti war movie, or maybe just the insanity of WW I. Anyway, it's great fun. The scenes of the countryside from the top of the cathedral and the music, it's just lovely!
Wishing you good health and great joy!
Andy, my life wasn't bad, just interesting. Sometimes it was very painful, but pain is part of life. Getting used to it isn't a bad thing.
I have five brothers and four sisters from all the different marriages my parents engaged in. Two of my brothers are named Don. I used to think, "If this was a sit-com it would be funny." But it wasn't.
Kitty Bits, I totally agree with you. The 'do your own thing' is a recipe for disaster. Kids need order, rules and big helpings of "no".
Also "hippie-crites" is excellent. Kudos.
Pain is definitely part of life. Having no pain is on the "things humans would like but can't have" list.
I sympathize with your last sentence here as well. Know the feeling quite well.
I'd give you a hug if I could.
Laura, there was some sort of discipline in our lives, but it was capricious and had more to do with how adults felt at the time, a rage sort of thing. You have to honor your parents. The commandment says so, and I love my parents. They had their own heart aches and sorrows growing up and in the case of my father, his were much worse than mine. Parents are just people old enough to reproduce who have children. There's no qualifying test or license that determines who should become one.
I was very blessed. For who they were my parents did the best they could.
The rules also give children something safe to test themselves against. Otherwise, they are adrift.
Right back atcha!
Yes, Kitty. And that's why G-d in his infinite wisdom commands us to honour, not love. You're a wise woman, and I enjoy reading your comments.
Absolutely.
You're very kind! I wish I were wise, but wisdom comes from God, and I have to keep asking for it.
I enjoy reading your comments too!
"It's just a jump to the left!"
Living in Houston I recall a number of midnight 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' showings in the late seventies. WHAT A HOOT!
'Time Warp' still on my song list.
OMG! I was one of the first people to view this movie! Tower Theater in Austin on the Drag!
At the time, I was a grad student at UT-Austin, and my two best friends (who were self-described "gay as a goose") insisted that we attend the first-day-first-showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. (Rocky Horror Picture Show actually premiered in NY, SF, and Austin; the Tower Theater had also presented a "midnight-movie" showing the previous night.)
At the conclusion of the movie, I was struck by how gay persons would be attracted to it - as my friends were. But I also recognized how nihilistic it was; everything is destroyed at the end. But possibly no more so than many movies of that era.
[Historical note: The participatory audience aspect developed MUCH later. I suppose that everyone harbors some desire to be an actor. But perhaps I should rephrase that: Everybody wants to BE SOMEBODY, even to the point of dressing as an actor in a minor movie and attending in costume, week after week, at every midnight showing of the movie... Just to be "Somebody"...]
That's incredible! I can't imagine watching the movie "straight" without the callbacks etc. It would feel empty without them.
Kathy -- The special effort you put into painting your personal context regarding this movie was superb. Thank you for curing me forever of the curiosity regarding what this movie might have to offer in the way of entertainment. If you can call it that. I don't have to experience something to know I don't need to. Cancer, for instance. Thanks again.