It is Saturday night at the Paramount Theater. The houselights dim over an audience decked out in red lipstick and faux pearls and thigh-high pleaser boots. Backstage is a mess of glitter and sweat and fishnet stockings. The first syrupy notes of “Science Fiction Double Feature” spill from the speakers, and Patricia Arquette’s iconic lips hover into view. Whether watching for the first time or the fiftieth, members of the crowd shiver with antici…pation. Thirty trixies strut onto the stage, and the Rocky Horror Picture Show begins.
Adapted from stage to screen in 1975, Rocky is a comedy horror musical that parodies Golden Age B-movies. The film follows an uptight couple, Brad and Janet, after their car breaks down by the castle of transvestite alien Frank-N-Furter. The couple watches Frank animate a muscle man, Rocky, before descending into a night of debauchery, bisexuality, murder, and cannibalism.
More than a movie, Rocky Horror is a phenomenon. The film was a critical and commercial failure, but after years of midnight showings—where people began to wear costumes and talk back to the screen—it gained new life as a cult classic and a cornerstone of queer community. Now, in Rocky’s record-holding 50th consecutive year of theatrical release, these traditions are still very much alive. Thousands will flock to the show in their best corsets to shout profanity-laden callbacks, throw special props, and watch performers act out the movie in front of the screen.
Rocky speaks to the queer community because of its portrayal of fluid gender and sexuality. The film celebrates Fran's genderqueerness as beautiful rather than questioning or shaming it.
Rocky speaks to the queer community because of its portrayal of fluid gender and sexuality. The film celebrates Frank’s genderqueerness as beautiful rather than questioning or shaming it. Brad and Janet begin as a heterosexual couple, but they both go to bed with Frank and dance in drag at his floor show. Rocky creates spaces that are full of possibility and free from gender norms and sexual mores. Countless people experiment with their gender or sexuality for the first time at Rocky, and even veterans find new ways to express themselves at each show. I have seen women play Rocky, men play Janet, and nonbinary people play everything in between. In the film’s climactic musical number, Frank floats above an underwater mural of “The Creation of Adam” and croons to the audience, “Don’t dream it. Be it.” Just as Frank would have wanted, each Rocky production is a microcosm of queer liberation and self-reinvention.
I first watched Rocky when I was eleven years old. My somewhat eccentric father believed it was important for my cultural edification, but I did not understand a single thing about the film. Then, the summer before my senior year of high school, I suddenly remembered Frank while brainstorming Halloween costumes. That night, I rewatched the film and fell in love. For the next few months, the original cast recording was the only music I listened to. I would sit in the back of history class and loop the album on my earbuds while I worked on my essay. I would go home and practice my Frank makeup and mimic his facial expressions in the mirror.
The night before Halloween, I saw my first shadow cast production with my brothers in Boston. This was my first time hearing callbacks, watching toilet paper rolls fly at the screen, and feeling the rich community behind Rocky. When I looked around at all the smoky eyes and bedazzled corsets, I knew I had found some place like home.
The next day, I strolled the streets of Salem in full Frank-N-Furter drag. I remember that a passing lesbian couple asked me, “Is that you, Frank?” Not “Is that a Frank costume?” but Is that you, as if we were old friends and I really was Frank. And for that night, I was.
That spring, I visited UVA for the first time and saw flyers for the student-run shadow cast. The next year, I was lacing up my corset for my very first show as a trixie, or background dancer. I remember the thrilling pre-show atmosphere as I practiced wheeling Dr. Scott around the theater. I remember the way the audience turned to watch us shake and shimmy down the aisles during “Time Warp.” Most of all, I remember all the after-show laughs and the rain on our faces as we streaked the lawn.
Each new costume is as liberating as the trixie lingerie beneath, opening up new forms of play and gender expression.
Every semester since, I choose the same exact role—because trixies have the most fun. As a trixie, I’m always dancing with my friends—those I met through the club and those I introduced to Rocky and dragged to rehearsal with me. Each show begins with the trixies performing a themed striptease. Over the years, I have stripped as a zombie attacking a hospital, a mime getting spanked, a werewolf prowling with his pack, and a frat boy playing beer pong. Each new costume is as liberating as the trixie lingerie beneath, opening up new forms of play and gender expression.
Usually, we perform in the drab Newcomb Theater, and it is fun to fill a school building with our debauchery. But, every once in a while, we get to perform at the Paramount, the nearly century-old theater at the heart of Charlottesville. For one Saturday night, we fill its shimmering gold walls with revelers wearing rainbow party hats, leather harnesses, maid dresses, and fake blood. In the audience, I see many old faces and even more new ones—first-time viewers marked by a lipstick “V” for virgin. I spot a mothman, several vampires, and a Brad and Janet that look old enough to have seen the premiere of Rocky in 1975. The crowd fizzes with excitement.
Minutes before showtime, I stand in the wings with my fellow trixies as we pledge allegiance to the lips—and to the decadence, for which they stand.
Minutes before showtime, I stand in the wings with my fellow trixies as we pledge allegiance to the lips—and to the decadence, for which they stand. The night proceeds in a whirlwind of bare limbs and shouted obscenities. I laugh and clap along with the audience because, as many times as I have seen this movie, it always feels like the first time. There is no time to slow, but, every once in a while, I catch the eye of another performer and grin. I can tell we feel the same way—alive.
At the end of the show, my castmates and I run on stage and take each other’s hands to bow as one. The credits roll, and “Time Warp” plays once more. We jump and twist and thrust our hips with the same energy that we started the show with. On the final “Let’s do the time warp again,” we fall to the stage as one. It is bittersweet to wrap another show, but as I look around at my fellow performers—my first found family at UVA—I know we’ll all do the time warp together again.
