Let's Do The Time Warp Again and Again and Again

It's a Friday night in Pfeiffer Hall.  Midnight.  The bright red bloody words of Rocky Horror Picture Show illuminate the blackened classroom that I and my fellow Untitled cast members sit in.  At this moment, I secretly cross my fingers that I will catch glimpse of a Pfeiffer ghost.  This moment would be too perfect.  

We're watching Rocky Horror in preparation for our upcoming shadowcast (October 22 at 10 PM for anyone who is interested).  We've all seen the film a dozen times before--we know the music by heart, know the call outs, even remember our exact blocking on stage from when we performed it last year.  Rocky Horror, as we all admitted in the darkness of Pfeiffer Hall, has our hearts and souls tangled into it.  That doesn't stop us from ragging on the film the entire hour and thirty-eight minutes we're watching it.  

The biggest complaint (and "complaint" here is used in the most endearing terms as possible) is that the film lacks substance to the plot.  The criminologist doesn't really need to be in the movie, the brief cameo by Meatloaf leaves little to be explained (it is explained--you just have to squint really hard to see it), and there are several scenes that add nothing to the film overall (for instance: though "Over At the Frankenstein Place" is my favorite song in the entire film, Brad and Janet literally just stand there in the rain singing up towards the castle, getting wet being the very thing they complained about not even a minute prior).  

The plot itself brews with potential, but the sexual liberation of the movie is focused on more than the actual sequence of events, yet that's exactly what makes it all the more charming.  Rocky is visually appealing with flaws far and few between.  It's mismatched and campy.  A social pariah celebrated by anyone who's ever felt like an outcast.  It boasts how to have fun, and what better poster child than a lingerie-clad Tim Curry?  Rocky Horror brings out community.  The entire time we're watching it, we were screaming the lyrics.  We leapt out of our seats, did just a jump to the left, a step to the right, and did the "Time Warp" over and over again.  Yes, it does have its blander moments (I'm looking at you, dinner scene), but the magic of Rocky is that it's eternally loved, warts and all.