“The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is one of Whitman’s most popular student events every year, and this year was no exception. Cordiner Hall was packed with hundreds of students dressed up and ready to play Virgin Games before watching fellow students recreate the iconic film. The unapologetically queer and camp movie is shadow casted and acted out by students every year around Halloween.
Allen Zamudio, a first year, was cast as Brad for this year’s production. Zamudio loves “Rocky” and was ecstatic to get the opportunity to perform this year.
“’Rocky’ is fun, it’s raunchy and it’s exciting. There’s fun songs and dances, and it’s always been fun to just dress up for ‘Rocky’. I’ve been going to productions for a couple of years now, and I love getting dressed up with my friends and I keep coming back to it,” Zamudio said.
Senior Sonia Xu is playing Magenta this year and has performed for ‘Rocky’ nearly every year they have attended Whitman. Xu agrees with Zamudio, finding that the queer nature of “Rocky Horror” is what keeps bringing them back year after year. As a fan of camp movies, “Rocky” is the perfect event for Xu. Xu explained that the movie’s more silly and over the top moments helped to solidify its iconic status in queer circles and make the event a night full of laughter and audience interaction.
“’Rocky’ is very camp so it is very much not what you expect movies to be like. [In ‘Rocky’] you can see things that are usually cut, like where actors made a little mistake and look where they shouldn’t look. [In ‘Rocky’] they keep it in the movie. [‘Rocky’] is very much like a low stakes, high-fun movie, I think that really speaks a lot to queer culture,” Xu said.
For Zamudio, feelings of community paired with fun excitement make the experience enjoyable for everyone regardless of whether or not they are an actor.
“It is a big event that I look forward to every year. [‘Rocky’] is something fun to do with friends and it is excessively queer—I really love that about ‘Rocky’,” Zamudio said.
Senior Lita Bacus is on the student-run board of “Rocky Horror” and loves that “Rocky” is for everyone to express themselves and experiment. She highlighted the ability of “Rocky” to break free of social norms and expectations, allowing for a level of freedom seldom seen elsewhere on campus.
“ [‘Rocky’] is for everyone. It is about queer and sexual history and liberation…but I have literally not seen more people (of any sexuality) happier or more free in expressing themselves,” Bacus said. “Men who rock climb shedding their Patagonia for wearing cat ears and a maid outfit. You would only see that at ‘Rocky’ because ‘Rocky’ is the only place [where] the community can come together and do that. It is built for releasing inhibitions, and on a college campus with school and stress, ‘Rocky’ is the release everyone can use.”
This year, many participants were focused on understanding opportunities for community building at “Rocky” beyond the queer community. Zamudio mentioned the racial diversity in the cast of “Rocky”, highlighting this year as an important moment for “Rocky”‘s diversity.
“I am super excited that there’s a few of the main cast members that are people of color with this ‘Rocky Horror’ production. A lot of them I’ve seen have been mostly white, and so I think it’s exciting to get that kind of representation into ‘Rocky Horror’,” Zamudio said. “I have heard of other people also being excited about that aspect. I’m excited to be one of those people of color in ‘Rocky’ and I think that that’s really cool that we have a more diverse cast this year.”
“Rocky” has been a Whitman mainstay for years and will reliably return again next year for a night of Virgin Games, the Whorus and other classics that are bound to leave audience members cheering for more.
