The first time I’d ever heard of the Rocky Horror Picture Show was when I saw “Perks of Being a Wallflower”. Ezra Miller stuns by stepping out onstage in a bright red corset, stockings, heels, and fake pearls. The entire song sequence, my parents were shocked watching it with me, even urging me to look away. This, of course, only made me want to watch the show all the more. (Making something illicit tends to have that effect, like a secret luring you in).
I found the movie using my internet sleuthing skills and watched it in full my freshman year of college. There was a live performance, but I wasn’t yet confident enough to ask my friends to go or to go alone. So, I watched it at home. And it was everything I could have hoped for and more.
Arguably, it’s a “bad movie”. (That’s why they’re cult classics. The first time around, you don’t necessarily like it. They’re acquired tastes). But the sequences. The dance numbers, the crooned and kickass rock songs! The TIME WARP!
For some reason, despite not making much sense of the plot on the first screening, I wanted to search it up more and more. Why was this a pop culture phenomenon? Why was it covered on Glee? Why was Victoria Justice singing it alongside Adam Lambert in the remake? I watched the live actions and amateur performances alongside the pros, eventually coming to adore the song: “Don’t Dream It, Be It.”
The answer came the following year. I’d undergone various changes due to events in my personal life, and I finally felt confident enough to go out (alone) and make new friends. These friends all seemed to share my Halloween passion for Rocky Horror. So, we sat down together and agreed we’d watch it and go as a group costume as the cast during Halloween.
I wasn’t going to just dream it… I’d be it.
Someone took Magenta, then Rocky and Eddie and Columbia and Brad and Janet. That left one…
Tim Curry’s character, the glam rock Frank-N-Furter. The evil mastermind and absolutely fabulous genius behind the whole thing. The one who makes an entrance number gliding down an elevator shaft dressed as a mad scientist sexy doctor.
Yeah, that was me. I had to emulate that sheer maddening confidence.
After watching the movie with my newfound friends, it was all I could think about. I’d be the high-heeled, impossibly high eyebrows, sparkling, glittery, diva of a performer. I’d have to cover the same role that the likes of Ezra Miller and Laverne Cox have.
Sure, some people pointed and giggled at how gaudy our outfits were. But I didn’t care (probably because those high heels were so high I couldn’t see the haters). I caked on an absurd amount of makeup and absolutely lived that role. My friends and I stayed long after Halloween’s over, singing the entire soundtrack to the musical until 4 AM. We were exhausted, but also electric.
I knew who I was with my friends beside me. Confident. Slaying the game, killing the dance floor. Singing my heart out.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show, ultimately, helped me stop dreaming and start being. Being in the moment. Being confident. Being myself.
And that, darlings, is priceless.