Time Warp Again: How Rocky Horror Liberated a Generation

Fifty years later, we’re still dancing in fishnets. Midnight showings of the cult classic taught a generation of outsiders and dreamers how not just to dream it—but to be it.

Halloween-ish, near midnight, circa 1984. I was a 16-½-year-old “virgin” weaving through throngs of glitter-dusted, corseted, thigh-high fishnet-wearing youth clutching backpacks full of rice and toilet paper to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show for the first time. Ninety-eight minutes later, I emerged sweaty, euphoric, and different. Not because the movie is perfect (it isn’t), but because participation made permission feel possible.

More Than a Movie, It Was a Movement

It’s the 50th anniversary of this cult classic. If you’re a Rocky Horror virgin, here’s the plot: Freshly engaged Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) get a flat tire, stumble into Dr. Frank-N-Furter’s (Tim Curry) crumbling mansion, and get swept into a fever dream of corsets, fishnets, and Rocky—a gleaming made-to-order himbo. Debauchery and mayhem unfold. Written by Richard O’Brien (who plays Riff Raff in the film) as a campy, evocative B-movie pastiche, the musical deployed cheeky humor and horror film tropes to thumb its nose at lingering ‘50s-era sexual repression—with a hearty dose of flamboyant, celebratory ‘70s sexual liberation.

Midnight showings of Rocky Horror were a counterculture phenomenon that gave teenagers permission to celebrate their own theatrical tendencies and budding sexuality—at least within the confines of the movie theater. Becoming Frank, Magenta, Columbia, Riff Raff, Eddie, Brad, Janet, or Dr. Scott on stage or in the audience helped them learn to embody a side of themselves that society pressured them to tamp down.

Marisa Schwartz recalls losing her “virginity” at a Sweet 16 birthday party, and it made her an addict. Having spent a lot of time costuming other theater nerds for school plays, dolling up in Magenta’s slutty maid’s costume gave Schwartz the spotlight for a change and the inner transformation was revelatory. “It was the first time I showed up and showed out, and it gave me a different way of seeing myself. I looked in the mirror and thought, ‘I feel sexy in this.’” Because her look was a costume, it was easy for her parents to give her—and for her to give herself—permission to embody it.

Gia Drew’s first midnight showing of Rocky Horror helped her find a safe space for young, closeted queer people when they were rare. “Here I was, the class president and captain of the football team, but I also got picked on by some of my peers for not being in line with what you should do, say, or look like,” Drew said. “It was life-changing for me to go into a space where norms around sexuality and gender were just thrown out the freaking window.“ It gave her permission to both dream it and be it. “The best part for me was realizing that other people out there are queer, trans, and Goth, and there’s more out there for me. I felt safe in there, and that really gave me hope,” she explained.

The Rocky Horror Effect Then and Now

Watching Rocky Horror through today’s lens, however, is decidedly problematic. The “transvestite” character of Frank is an evil genius who seduces the virgins, tortures his minions, and hacks Eddie up with an ax. Janet’s repression and obsession with her MRS degree (which the film liberates her from) reads archaic. Brad’s coercion into bisexual experimentation is smarmy. “There are a lot of troubling things about the movie, but I wasn’t picking up on that part when I was 16,” Drew related. “I was just looking at the visibility. This isn’t like the depictions of credible cinema or TV or movies—I just saw it as camp. I got to dress up a little more fancifully and feel safe in there. All of those things had a profound impact on me.”

Given how the ‘70s and ‘80s were a time when homophobic and misogynistic films like Porky’s were the norm, Rocky Horror was regarded as a progressive, rebellious product of its time. “My husband is always like, ‘It’s a terrible movie,’ and I tell him I know but I love it anyway, because it just represents such a moment of peeling back and realizing it’s not just five or six of us nerds cowering in the corner in high school,” Schwartz said. “The theater was filled with people just like us.”

As for me, Halloween isn’t Halloween unless I rewatch Rocky Horror and sing along in my living room. But this lingering penchant begs the question: Are we still fond of the movie for what it is, or are we honoring who we were when we first discovered it?

For me, both things are true—the impression that film left on me and those midnight crowds remains indelible to this day. At a recent 50th party in a packed, subterranean New York City club celebrating the release of the late Mick Rock’s Rocky Horror: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Cult Classic, an assortment of sparkly revelers aged 25 to 75 ditched their cooler-than-thou postures to belt along with every word, just as if no time had passed. Moved by something more than nostalgia, we all emerged sweaty and deflowered, yet again.