nostalgicIf you ever want to make absolutely sure a movie lives up to the hype, make sure you show it to a group of twelve-year-olds after they've spent the entire afternoon gorging themselves on pizza and sugar. Seriously. Every line was poetry, every song was the music of the spheres, and every fishnet-covered body part was a revelation (I hadn't even known you could put fishnets on some of those body parts). I walked away obsessed with all things Rocky. I acquired the photo "novelization" of the movie, a book on the history of Rocky Horror, and a copy of the score. I begged until my grandmother bought me the soundtrack from the stage show. I developed a real fondness for fishnets.
As the years stacked up and I plummeted into my teens, I began going to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show almost every Saturday night at the UC Theater in Berkeley, where Indecent Exposure was the standing cast. I dutifully learned all the call-backs and dance routines. I bought cast T-shirts and learned to put on pancake makeup. I even started making my own sequined applique patterns, and designed my own Transylvanian costume* from scratch. I pan-handled for quarters to pay my admission. I dragged my friends. I sat up all night in IHOP, talking about this movie which was a shared experience and a shared community for all of us.
If you've never been a Rocky fan, it was sort of like being a Browncoat, only sluttier and with more sing-alongs.
I'm older now than I was then; I no longer have the time to devote three nights a week to being part of a specific fandom. But I miss it. I really do. I miss the feeling of community, the in-jokes that we were happy to explain to anyone who said they wanted to join, the ticket stubs and the smell of damp velvet and the after-movie donuts at the cheapo donut stand down the block. I miss sewing canvas backing into my lingerie and calling it "outerwear." But most of all, I miss the moment when the whole theater would be chanting "LIPS! LIPS! LIPS! LIPS!" and the lights would go down, and for two sweet hours, the world would start making sense.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change ready. This moment of nostalgia brought to you by tonight's Rocky-themed episode of Glee, which will be watched by twelve-year-olds, and which brings my world full-circle.
Let's do the Time Warp again.
(*My hand-sequined tuxedo coat was one of the things I lost when we lost our entire storage unit the year I turned seventeen. I scoured yard sales and flea markets for years, hoping it would show up. It had a sequined applique of a teddy bear dressed as a Transylvanian on one sleeve, and one of a doll whose hair matched the way I always styled mine on the other, and it was battered and odd and I loved it. I still miss that jacket, even if I don't do Rocky anymore.)
I'm coming home
October 26 2010, 17:26:13 UTC 6 years ago
In 1987 they showed the film late night at the Eastercon in Birmingham, and I took my then girlfriend with me ... and totally shocked her by knowing all the US callbacks (some of which weren't known to the UK crowd there) and she was a fairly shy and reserved person and ended up crying afterwards as she'd suddenly discovered there was a whole side of me she'd never known ... sometimes it's good to be in a safe place where you can be yourself, and sometimes it's great to be in a safe place where you can be someone else! ... not that I've ever worn fishnets though :-)
Re: I'm coming home
October 30 2010, 20:53:27 UTC 6 years ago