People dragging RHPS through the fucking mud around me recently and I gotta say one thing:
RHPS is the first movie that felt like a true celebration of being a freak to me.
1. It's making fun of horror tropes. Janet being called "the slut" and Frankie being "the mad scientist" and Brad being "the hero". CLEARLY these are making fun of tropes
2. The messyness of it all. The party in the beginning with the Time Warp and Sweet Transvestite? It's all messy, things everywhere, makeup isnt perfect, dancing isn't perfect. Everyone there is HAPPY to be themselves. No one and nothing is clean cut there, but they happy and freaky.
3. The beginning with Damnit Janet??? That was going to be in black and white originally. Why? Because Frankie's lips were going to be the first color seen in the movie to show the color and interest coming into their wonderbread life. This wasnt kept, imo it's because Time Warp woulda been nowhere near as cool in black and white, but it was an idea in production
RHPS was a film that changed me. I legitimately felt like an alien for much of my childhood because I was trans and didnt know that other people were out there that felt like that, because I was undiagnosed neurodivergent. And seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show at 15? Even afrer I learned what being trans was, even when i realized that i had Autism and ADHD? I never felt good enough because I was still messy, I was still too different. But RHPS celebrated being a messy little freak and it was made for that.
Every elderly queer and trans person I know, which I dont know many as many have passed away, loves the film and the show. My parents tell me how it brought all the queers and the outcasts together at late night movies in the 80s and 90s.
People seem to look at it and be like "it's outdated so by that fact alone it's offensive" they ignore that it is, in its entirely, a celebration of being a fucking outcast.
This movie was so important to my journey as a transgender individual and a queer person. And it was important to a lot of people I've met and a lot of people my parents knew.
Thank you for listening to my TedTalk
(Edit: spelling. I wrote this with a migraine and i edited this with a migrain, but "many" was mispelled badly and i had to fix that)
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