Last Thursday on October 18th, the Pop Culture Student Association (PCSA), in collaboration with RUMLingustics, hosted an interactive screening of the cult classic musical comedy, The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Created by Richard O’Brien, the movie was released in 1975, after the massive success of the Broadway version, The Rocky Horror Show. The film stars Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon as an engaged couple, Brad and Janet. One stormy night while driving to visit a friend,the couple is left stuck with a flat tire. Stranded and lost in the middle of the road, they decide to go seek help, and stumble upon the freaky mansion of the transvestite scientist from the planet Transsexual, Dr. Frank-N-Furter, played by the legendary Tim Curry. A lot of sexual hijinks ensue during their stay.
The Pop Culture Student Association (the pictures shown above) organized the screening in Chardon room 326, a spacious room with computers lined along the walls. Tables were set in the middle in order for the audience to enjoy drinks and popcorn when the movie started.
As people were entering the room and taking their seats, students were asked if they had seen the movie before. Those who answered no had a “V” drawn on their forehead with red lipstick to represent who were the Rocky Horror Picture Show virgins.
The first of the audience to arrive were lucky enough to receive props that were significant for specific scenes in the movie, and were given specific instructions on what to do with them when time came. The props included a glove, toilet paper, and news paper. The instructions can be found their facebook page. ( Link at the end.)
Before the movie started, the audience was asked to stand and take the “Rocky Horror Pledge.” The pledge, as well as the “The Virgin Games” that followed, are part of the original theatrical version. After the “Rocky Horror Picture Show” became a cult classic, the dedicated fanbase follow these traditions in honor of the movie, but also to have fun.
After the pledge was taken, “The Virgin Games” were played using volunteers from the crowd, which caused a lot laughter everyone because of all the weird sexual context. The first game was which volunteers in the crowd could moan the best, second game which team could best put a condom on a cucumber (picture on the left), and the third game was filling a condom with air, finding a way to blow it up with a chair. The winners from each got prizes that could ( jokingly) help improve their sexual lives. Afterwards everyone, with drinks and popcorn, sat down to watch the movie,
Since I hadn’t seen, or knew anything about the movie before that night, the experience of watching the movie as blank slate was very surreal. As the PCSA explained, the movie portrays themes “sexuality, acceptance, diversity and aliens,” and does it in such a humorous and creative way that you can’t help but love the movie by the end. The fact that we had the props to just made the experience more enjoyable. After the success of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show interactive screening” I expect more students will come to more events from this association.
The PCAS describes itself “as academic association that has conducted a huge academic conference in the past years where they accept abstracts from scholar of different academic institution and the present in a plethora of areas regarding pop culture.” The association is already calling proposals for the next conference to be held in February of 2019.
If you to learn more about Rocky Horror follow this link:
https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2005/jun/23/operation-rocky-freedom-cult-film-classic-celebrat/
If you wish to learn the Pledge, follow this link (scroll down until you see “General Audience Pledge” :
http://www.cosmosfactory.org/rocky_horror_preshow_archive.shtml#8
If you want to know more about the PCSA and follow up on their events the link to their facebook page is here: https://www.facebook.com/UPRMPCSA/
If want to follow up on the events of RUM Linguists: https://www.facebook.com/RumLinguists/