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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

Team Q, LGBT Center present third annual 'Rocky Horror Picture Show' event

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This Halloween weekend, Team Q and the LGBT Center's event is BYOP — bring your own props.

For the third year in a row, the groups are coming together to present “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975) tonight at 9 p.m. in Barnum Hall Room 008, complete with a live performance and the audience participation for which the film has become famous. The screening, co-sponsored by Tufts University Social Collective (TUSC) Film Series, will be preceded by Tufts University Television (TUTV)’s Horror Fest, a showing of four short student horror films, which begins at 7:30 p.m. While the "Rocky Horror" performance, along with Horror Fest, is not ticketed, the event has reached capacity in the past.

According to Team Q member and event co-organizer Supriya Sanjay, a sophomore, "Rocky Horror” veterans strive to create a welcoming experience for all.

"The followers themselves are really inclusive and the energy of it is empowering and fun,” Sanjay said.

The highlight of any “Rocky Horror” showing is the shadow cast, a parallel performance by usually-costumed performers acting out the film in sync with the action projected on the big screen. Junior Madeleine Onstwedder, a shadow cast member for the third year, directed this year’s shadow cast performance, which will feature Tufts Burlesque Troupe in the opening number of the performance.

The cast members often are not the only ones in costume, since dressing up as characters from the film can be a way for audience members to express themselves as they choose. To this end, the Tufts event, produced by Sanjay and sophomore Jenni Niels Matthews, will also include a costume contest and other activities.

Sanjay emphasized that while the event is intended to celebrate queer culture, its execution at Tufts is meant to be particularly inclusive.

"'Rocky Horror' has such a cult following because the followers themselves are really inclusive and the energy of it is empowering and fun," Sanjay told the Daily in an email. "[It is] meant to be an intentional space that not only centers queer people but also is committed to being open to everyone.”

LGBT Center Director Nino Testa said he originally had the idea for the event in 2014, when he learned that TUSC Film Series was already screening “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” for Halloween. He decided to combine forces to put on the shadow cast performance and bring the whole “Rocky Horror” experience to Tufts.

The film is based on “The Rocky Horror Show” (1973), a theatrical musical written by Richard O’Brien and produced and directed by Jim SharmanThe production debuted in London and went on to be performed around the world. Sharman and O’Brien then adapted the stage version for the screen, only for the film to flop on its initial limited release. But that was not the end for the film version. Enthusiastic audience participation soon led to its revival as a "midnight movie" with an epicenter in New York City. The movie has been running theatrically ever since, giving it the distinction of having the longest run of any film.

That sense of collaboration and community has helped to make the film a worldwide phenomenon, and there are shadow casts that regularly put on performances every Halloween and throughout the year. Boston, for instance, is home to the Full Body Cast, a troupe that performed in Harvard Square for 25 years and now calls the Boston Common AMC theater home.

Newcomers to the raucous “Rocky Horror” atmosphere — “virgins,” in the community’s parlance — will be greeted with traditions such as shouting “callbacks” in response to specific lines in the film and throwing toilet paper at the screen. Some exhibitors have had to ban certain customs that create too much of a mess, such as by hurling rice at opportune moments or throwing objects, which can damage screens.

The popularity of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” recently led Fox to remake the film into a TV movie released last Thursday under the title “The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.” The lead role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry), a self-described “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania,” was recast with “Orange Is the New Black” (2013-present) star Laverne Cox, a transgender woman. This casting decision has generated much conversation within the "Rocky Horror" community.

As New York Times critic Neil Genzlinger noted in his review of Fox's latest version, “[s]ome things can’t be replicated or recaptured, and … we now know that one of them is the subversive magic of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’”

Commentators have also pointed out that, despite Cox’s praised performance in the role, transvestitism and transgenderism are not synonymous.

Testa noted that while "Rocky Horror" performances are often seen as celebratory, there are also components of the show's culture that are offensive to people, specifically noting "misogynist, racist or ableist" callbacks and sexual assault references that the organizers have chosen to take out of the show. Most glaringly, the 1975 film has no people of color among the main cast. 

"It has been a priority and a goal for our production to acknowledge those aspects of 'Rocky' and push against them," Testa told the Daily in an email. "We want to use this event to name that and work against it."

Onstwedder added that the shadow cast has taken steps to highlight such instances during the film screening.

"We have created signs to hold up during certain scenes to show that what is happening is not consensual, even though the film portrays those scenes in a really uncritical and lighthearted way," they said.

In addition, performers examine the film's problematic elements. In this way, the audience and performers' participation both creates a fun, communal experience while confronting issues within the film itself.

Onstwedder, who portrays the character Columbia in the show, noted that these aspects of the film allow an opportunity for the community to discuss the issues at hand.

“I don’t think we’ve yet a way to fully reconcile the problematic aspects of the film with our own ideals," they told the Daily in an email. "It’s really important that we keep having these conversations as a way for the Tufts LGBT+ community to engage in critical dialogues.”

Onstwedder noted that the film highlights privileges and marginilizations within the community that are important to recognize.

“While we say that the Rocky Horror Picture Show is important to the LGBT+ community, it also … may be more a part of the history of those of us who hold a lot of privilege within this community," they said.

Onstwedder explained how, despite its missteps, the film allows every audience member an opportunity to think outside of socially constructed norms.

"I think it’s one of the few shows where there is no ‘norm’ that the audience has to fit into," they said. "Anything goes, and that kind of freedom to define yourself, instead of being put into a certain category by other people, is invaluable."

Exemplifying that quality is Dr. Frank-N-Furter, whom Onstwedder said “exhibits … toxic masculinity, while simultaneously celebrating and expressing qualities that are usually defined as feminine."

Portrayed by Curry in the film, Frank-N-Furter wears clothes stereotypically considered female, such as his famous fishnet stockings, but often behaves in ways that are stereotypically male.

By combining what may seem to be opposing qualities, the character “points out the limits of these categories and … challenges us to think of ways we can work outside of them,” Onstwedder said.

While mainstream attitudes have changed since the film's 1975 release, this kind of questioning remains an important part of helping the film find new meaning in regards to issues of equality.

As queer communities struggle against demonization, Testa said that the film provides audience members a way to celebrate their queerness.

“'Rocky' looks at the monstrous, villainous, shameful, dangerous, destabilizing and threatening tropes about queer people … and take away some of [their] power … by turning them into a campy, feather boa’ed, musical nightmare,” he said.

The film’s radical acceptance of queerness was especially subversive when it was first released, leading it to be banned in many places – including South Africa, which prohibited screening the film within weeks of its initial release.

But the communities that have sprung up around the film have persevered.

“The people who have worked on the show in previous years had compiled some really helpful notes, so I was able to use those and build on them for whoever’s involved in the future," Onstwedder said.