Since the late 70's, something strange and spectacular has happened in tinted theaters around the world. As the clock strikes at midnight, fishermen fanatics are collected as Gothic students for ritual unlike anyone else; Part music, part film, part mass seduction. We not only see "The Rocky Horror Shaight Shaight" - we get up. Richard O'Brien and Jimim Charman's hit scene adapted "The Rocky Horror Show" is Alpha and Omega of the cult cinemaresurrected from the depths of the fluctuated treasurer to become a midnight film to rule them all.

Fueled by a dedicated, gender audience who refused to let him die, Rocky Horror now holds the Guinness title for the longest continuous theater race. O'Brien's original stage production in London has already violated the rules for good taste and fun. The plays have become parties where the fourth Wallid has never been a chance, and audience participation was baked in the show's legacy on the midnight film scene.

One member of the audience named Michael Wolfson first turned into Dr. Frank-N-Furter in 1975 and continued to form the first organized acting shadow, or a group of performers' suits performing and synchronizing film events in front of the screen. Thus, a world -class phenomenon was born. Theatrical that motivates viewers "do not dream, be it" has since become a sacred, sequent tradition by half a century. Sunday after a week, decade after a decade, the audience continues to return - Rolls from toilet paper Scott in hand, toast in pocket - Let's shout, dance and worship the altar of this glorious unstoppable masterpiece, maintained alive by passionate fans - people like late, great, Sal Piro.

But "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" is not just a movie; It's a sanctuary. The amazed theaters are more than just the homes for confetti, rice and group broadcasts of "The Time Warp". They also served as one of the few places where external men, the people of the queer and anyone who was once made to feel like an unconventional conventionist, could find comfort.

The first time I saw "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" at midnight, I was a high school student who broke a curfew and drove an hour at the Milwauke-Dom Oriental Theater at the longest world "Rocky Horror Show". The audience was multigeneration. An older gay couple marked the actor -based member as a magenta to mark her granddaughter with a red lipstick "V" for "Virgin". A trance woman, quiet and reserved in line, shed the coat and transformed the moment when she entered the theater. A young tricks methle - Long before she is famous "He flew through the crowd before performing" science fiction, double feature ". This was the mid-2000s: Equality before marriage, in a state without state laws on LGBTIA+ anti-discrimination. And yet, in that theater, people were free; Wild, weird and no fear of being themselves.

"Rocky Horror" is not just a cult film; It's a cultural touch. With its basic topics of isolation, sexual research, and status quo subversion, midnight screening has developed into LGBTCA+ people-especially gender-based-rare spaces for expression without judgment or legal risk. These spaces are still important: more than half of the United States still lack the protection of the whole country for individuals LGBTIA+.

Key, it is also available refuge. A cheap ticket and the beginning of midnight made it available to working -class people. And unlike bars or nightclubs, those under 21 could attend, giving teenagers a rare space in the community in real life. The plays were also one of the few places where directly, gypsy people voluntarily and joyfully stepped into the culture of queer - singing, shouting, dressing and connecting. For many of us, Rocky Horror is not just a movie. It was a ritual of the passage. Life expectancy. Loudly, a campaign luxurious from Tim Curry's seductive baritone, who tells us that being wild and insincere is a good thing.

Since then I have been screening the hosts, joining Shadowcasts and performing in stage production many times in the last 20 years. To say that the film has an impact on me is an underestimation.

When 50 years ago "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" 50 years ago, only a few years were removed from the riots in Stonewall. The 1970s were the age of the LGBTCA+Civil Rights Movement. With the open showing of sex, sexual humor and national team of LGBTCA+, "RHP" has sent a rise in release during the 1970s, which continues to retire, inspired LGBTA+ people to this day. Half a century later, yes, we have parades of pride and corporate alliance, but not to get cute, the legislation to fight participation has returned with retaliation, and liberation can be far from the country of transgender in the transilvania galaxy. "Don't tell gay" accounts are still breaking into American legislation and Trump's administration attacks transgender community with hateful executive orders and deletion of LGBTQIA+ history from government resources. We are still fighting for space - to exist, to see, to live without trembling. That's why Rocky Horror is still important. It is a collection point for the beautiful, freaky, rejected and miraculous.

Forget about debates about whether it is "problematic". Rocky doesn't apologize - and neither should we. "Rocky Horror" was a revelation, teaching generations that unusuality does not have to be tasty; It just has to be yours. Authenticity is not a luxury; It's life expectancy. When you stop worrying about others and start living for yourself, that's when the right relationship begins. And in a world-wide growing colder to self-expression-where the demonizing is dragging and the transmisement is brought to us. Assimilation races with silence, and silence is deadly. But together, in those theaters, singing and screaming our hearts out ... They will need a laser gun capable of dropping a beam of pure antimatter to stop us. There is always a light in the place of Frankenstein, ready and ready to take us on a strange trip to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".