Hello to all of you. Unconventional convention is, welcome back to Rocky Talkie, a Rocky horror podcast where we talk about anything and everything. Rocky Talkie, I'm John now I'm Aaron and I'm Jacob. I'll be subbing in this week for Nicky who is currently hunting for lost treasure in an abandoned cave in the Argentinian rainforest with a really ripped guy named Eduardo. I'm not anywhere near as adorable, but I am a bit of a Rocky newbie, especially when compared to John and Aaron. And I feel that as a straight sis man, I'll be able to bring a fresh new perspective to the convo that I'll be having with these two other straight sis men. It is great to have you aboard Jacob and we wish Nikki the best of luck with her weird Indiana Jones adventure. So, what you people do this week? Can we, can we just address for me? Is Nikki really in South America? Is that? Yeah. Huh. Well, bring me back at, uh, no, I had a great week. I had an absolutely fantastic weekend. Just this last weekend, more house stuff if anybody's following along from last week. But, uh, Meg and I went into the city finally uh, started looking at some apartments in New York and uh that was an exhausting, exhausting two days where we saw probably close to 20 apartments but fingers crossed, found something we kind of like. And uh we'll see how this goes. I'm super excited, John. What were you up to this week? All right. I know that we're not supposed to talk about Rocky, but Aaron and Nicky talk about Rocky literally every time we do this question every week and it's about time that John gets to talk about Rocky. So N Y C has booked a show this past week at the Skyline drive in, in Brooklyn. And I cannot tell you how excited I am to get back to performing. The place is awesome. The staff is awesome. They are selling tickets like wildfire right now. I'm so excited to get back to performing. I didn't think that I would be the person to say that, but I am absolutely the person to say that also. I bought a new C P U this week. So that's fun. Oh my God, dude. I am so excited for that. That is super awesome. I think I'm gonna have to sit this first one out just because of everything else going on. But like uh take pictures, say hi to everybody. God, it's gonna be cool. Absolutely. I will send your regards, Jacob my homie. What about you? What do you do this week, John, my homie. Uh I am also while I'm not performing at the uh drive in show, I am incredibly excited to go see it this upcoming weekend. I bought my ticket the instant I heard about the show. Also. I have been taking cold showers for like about a month at this point my whole life. I feel like I've heard that like cold showers are supposed to be good for you in some capacity. And I just want everyone listening to know that. I think that's a lie and they suck and there's no reason to take them. It's just, it's a, it's a rig. It's like people selling you magical elixirs. It's like cold showers aren't special. They're not gonna fix your life in any way. Honestly, that's good to know you weren't like you, there wasn't like a problem with your hot water. You, this has just been a choice you've been making. Yeah, because like, I don't know. Am I the only one who like feels like that's supposed to be a good thing. Like people, I, I 100% have heard that many times. I've heard that it's like good for your skin. I've heard that it's good for your hair. Not that I have any but like I've heard that it's supposed to be really good for you. No absolute bullshit. Not no difference anywhere on my body. Man. I never heard this before. Oh, well, I will have to go ahead and not give it a try. Yeah. And with that, let's get started with our first segment. That would be global news. All right. First up in global news, we've got promotional photos of or a Duba in bra attire. They just came out this week. You may remember back in March. Oh, Duba was announced to lead the upcoming tour of Rocky Horror in the UK. Now he's well into promoing the tour and he's dropped some pretty sultry content if we do say so ourselves, these promotional shots of or have him elegantly dressed in a blue suit jacket, a colorful bow tie, fishnet, stockings and high heels. I've got to say this brad attire suitss him perfectly. This guy looks dapper as fuck. He owns those fish nets in an interview with the mirror or talked about putting on heels and stockings for the show saying Rocky Horror is the kind of show you really have to throw yourself into head first. And after taking these pictures, consider me fully submerged and waiting in the deep end. You know, that's pretty fair. I feel like for a lot of people, especially straight Cisgender men the first time you put on an outfit like high heels and fish nets. It's a bit of a defining moment as a Rocky Horror cast member for a lot of us guys clothing like that is so far outside the realm of anything we've ever worn before. And now you're suddenly expected not to just wear it, but to own it confidently in front of a big audience of people that has the potential to be pretty jarring to someone who's never dressed as anything but traditionally masculine before. Now, I feel like we're in a safe space here. Let's talk about gas stuff. What was it like for you? The first time you cross dressed on stage? Uh, great question because it wasn't Rocky. Yeah. No, it wasn't Rocky for me either. Yep. First time I ever crossed, dressed on stage it was for a skit that we had to do in college that like, the guys all got together and did like a skit for our, like, big Christmas celebration event that we did. I thought it would be funny to wear a dress because I was a shitty college guy and was like, ha ha ha. Men wearing dresses are funny but like low key when it happened, I felt good. And then I did it again a few years later when I went to a Halloween party dressed as my girlfriend at the time because she couldn't go. And I got really mad. So I dressed as her and my friend dressed as me. He shaved a widow's peek into his head and to this day still has it. Whoops. Yep. Big whoops. But, you know, now we just kind of do it for fun, but it felt good. Like I felt, it's not like I felt natural in a dress but it was, it was, it was defining, it was powerful. It was like, I'm breaking this gender norm and I feel good about doing it. Yeah. My first time wasn't, wasn't quite as, uh, uh, crazy. And out there like that, I mean, my parents teach theater. So from a very young age there's always, you know, plenty of opportunities to dress up and, I mean, let's dress up without a little dress. Right. So there is, there is this particularly, uh let's call it sequined red flapper dress that there are photos. My mother swears to blackmail me with one day, uh are from a a I think it was a small show. It might have been, we might have just been doing a video for a project. I don't even remember what it was. Uh, but that was like so long ago, the first time where I really remember like feeling something about it or like owning, you know, the, the where it wasn't just silly was probably the first time I did Frank. It was the first time that I'd ever like worn fish nets and heels and whatever. And I remember having to go to Walmart in the middle of Nebraska and like, I was there to buy three items. I was there to buy lipstick foundation and fish nets. And this is probably almost 20 years ago now. And like, boy, did I get some weird looks from the cashier and I don't really know why. It's pretty clear. I was, I was intending to wear them myself. But man, it, it wasn't that it wasn't the fish nets. It wasn't the lipstick, it wasn't any of that. It's the damn high heeled shoes. That's the thing that when I put on heels I go, oh, ok. I can own this. I don't know what it is. It forces your ass up. You get that swish right? Like that's, that's the piece of clothing that like OK, clues me in to the attitude I'm supposed to have. And you're also like decently tall too. So putting heels on top of an already tall dude just makes you even more imposing and even more powerful. Oh For sure. What about you, Jacob? You got a good story for this one. Yeah. Unlike, unlike youtube, my first and only time cross dressing was with the Rocky Horror. Um It was for like our crossdressing specific night. So everyone was doing opposite genders and I was magenta and all I remember is I, I I was a horrible, horrible magenta. I I did not take it incredibly seriously and it was terrible the whole night. Um But that isn't what, what stayed with me. Um No, the the real thing that stayed with me was the shame of after the show I looked in the mirror and I was caked in white magenta makeup and my teeth looked so disgustingly yellow against the horrible whiteness of my face and I could, I was just so terrified. I was like, everyone knows I have horrible yellow teeth. My life is over. No one, no one thinks I'm attractive anymore because my teeth are yellow in this white makeup that's valid. You're entirely valid. Jaco. It's exactly what I think of every single time I do Frank or Magenta or anybody with like, uh you know, the, the that white base foundation, it makes your teeth look horrible and then you take it off and you're like my teeth got whiter. We love a good perspective. Well, or we hope you're loving your dive head first into the rocky pond. We wish you and the rest of your cast a delightful opening in less than a month in the Mayflower Theater in Southampton on July 16th next up while we don't have fancy boudoir photos of them. We do have an article detailing yet another artist whose formative years and art go hand in hand with the Rocky Horror picture show. May Martin is a stand-up comedian, writer and an actor. She's a two time winner of the Canadian Screen award for best writing in a variety of sketch comedy series. For her work on the Canadian sketch comedy Baroness Von sketch show. In 2011. She moved to England and since then, she's been very active on British radio and TV. She's performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the world's largest art Festival on BBC radio four. She's presented May Martin's Guide to 21st century sexuality. Contributed to the now show and co-hosted Grown Up Land. May also happens to be outspoken about her fondness for the Rocky Horror Picture Show and her unique family connection to the original stage show. Recently May did an interview with someone else's movie, which is a podcast that is hosted by Norm Wilner, where artists come in to talk about their favorite movie. And May's episode was about Rocky Horror. During the interview, she spoke about the fact that her grandmother was Richard o'brien's agent while he was doing the stage show. So because of this May's family had a lot of opportunities to see the show for free and took full advantage, especially her dad, jealous. Yeah, not only was her grandmother o'brien's agent, but her grandfather was the narrator in the stage production from 75 to 77. Her grandfather, Tom Chatto played as the narrator, nepotism at its finest. But, but this bit of the interview that really spoke to me was when May talked about owning memorabilia from their grandparents involvement with the Rocky Horror show. She talked about owning an original script of the stage show from her grandfather with all of his notes as the narrator in the margins. How fucking cool is that? So, not only is her family deeply ingrained in the origins of Rocky Horror, but because he was such a fan, her father introduced her to the movie at the age of five. After which she developed an intense attachment to the film. To the point that her first sex dream was about Franken Furter May and her father were such fans of the movie that both of them had memorized. The whole thing. By the time May started first grade is she told a really cute story about how her dad would drive her to school and the two of them would go back and forth through all the lines in the show to see how far into it they could get during the car ride. Imagine having to tell your eight year old child to stop playing Rocky Horror in their head because they have to go to sleep so they can rest and be prepared to play Rocky Horror out loud in the car tomorrow with you. Uh What you know like the Shrek meme about a kid who watched Shrek so much. He was able to play it in his head to the point that his father had to tell him to stop playing Shrek in his head and go to sleep most nights and we can only hope. May Martin has the same experiences with Rocky Horror, man. I am not looking at the same memes you guys are. Anyway, we're not. This interview was great. Not not only did May have some major rocky connections, she also has a fun little tie to shock treatment. So her father has a one line cameo in shock treatment in the song. Thank God. I'm a man. He says a jock never hawks another jock's tool. So feel free to start up shock treatment to get a look at May Martin's father. Oh, it's always nice when a celebrity is outspoken about their love for our community. Oh, absolutely. And May's work toward spreading rocky nonsense to the world doesn't stop at this podcast interview. She is the co-creator writer and star of a Netflix original series called Feel Good. That's currently in its second season. The show revolves around May and her new girlfriend navigating a passionate relationship. Unquestionably one of the funniest moments in the series and a testament to her love of Rocky Horror is when Mae's character is having sexy time troubles with her girlfriend, the couple is having some grown up fun time and Mae's character is having a hard time getting there. So May asks her girlfriend to talk like, Susan Sarandon. It was so fucking funny and I absolutely lost my shit. What an interesting kink. It's not Janet, right? It's Susan Sarandon. Like I'm not trying to yuck, anyone's yum. But that's definitely one that I haven't heard of before. It does. However, boost May's total number of sex fantasies revolving around original Rocky horror picture show cast members to two, which to be honest is probably pretty on par for most Rocky horror fans speak for yourself. Aaron. So shout out to me for spreading the good word with this interview and with your Hilarious Netflix show, you can check out feel good on Netflix and we'll be linking to May's episode of someone else's movie in our show notes. All right. And up next Oakley Court just released the new design for its upcoming film and memorabilia fare poster. And we gotta say it is pretty sweet. So this design created by Graham Humphries is uh a very classic looking monster movie poster with the giant castle looming in the background over a bunch of really scary looking guys. Think Frankenstein, Dracula, some old guy with hammer, a creepy doctor with a syringe and looks extremely pokey and of course an even creepier and sexier doctor Franken Furter standing over the creation tank. You know what else is extremely pokey that penis? You're right. Oakley Court releases a different poster design every year and this one is very cool. If you're into classic horror movies, which you probably are. If you're attending this event, this poster would make an awesome decor addition to your house. It's definitely creepy and focuses pretty heavily on rocky, but it does. So without being too over the top, scary or too over the top. Rocky, you know, it's a rocky item without being a rocky item and we all know rocky people are nothing if not subtle as a breed. We're all about tasteful minimalism facts. Jacob, I really like this one. I think it looks awesome. It's similar to the ones from previous years, but it looks super, super cool if you'd like to pick one up for yourself. All you got to do is hit up the Oakley Court film and memorabilia Fair on August 31st, 2021. That's over in the UK. And if you are able to attend, please drop us a message over at our website rocky talkie podcast dot com and let us know how you liked it and what you picked up. So next up in a recent episode, we spoke about a whole slew of Rocky horror cast members who will be attending for The Love of Horror Con in Manchester, UK on October 16th and 17th. So far, we've got Tim Curry, Pat Quinn Nell Campbell, Uncle Barry Meatloaf and Stephen Calcutt. This week, we learned that the convention will be adding one more Rocky guest to their already pretty extensive lineup. Christopher Biggins. Oh, aside from, of course, playing a Transylvanian in the most watched movie amongst our listeners, Christopher is quite a prolific actor who has made 90 other appearances on film and TV, including portraying lukewarm in a British comedy crime series called Porridge. However, Christopher's first love was theater. He got his start in acting at the age of 17 when he began work with a repertory company near his home in Wiltshire. He's appeared in dozens of theatrical performances including a guest starring role as the narrator in the 2010 Rocky Horror Show UK tour. He's even worked in radio as a co anchor of a Sunday morning radio program on the BBC. And now Christopher will be appearing as a guest at the for Love of Horror Con Rocky Horror Picture Show reunion. Like all his co-stars who will be attending the event. Christopher will be available for autographs, photo opportunities and meet and greets. So if you are interested in learning more about the event or buying tickets, you can find all of that at for the love of horror UK dot com. And if any of our listeners are able to cross the pond and attend, we hope you'll write in and tell us about how freaking awesome it was to be able to see all of our faves together in one place. And with that, I think it's time to bring it on over to a little bit of community news come community news. That's what I said, like I say, wasn't that what I said? Third base? Hey, first up in community news, we've got a fun little nugget from Tessa Staycation con. A preliminary cast list has finally been released for the all star virtual show. Although an official final version has not yet been made public. We've got some connections over here at Rocky Talky and we may have had the opportunity to a peek at a few of the role assignments and while we're not going to give away any spoilers we will stay there. Good. Fuck. Yeah, man. You guys are gonna have to take our word for it for now. But this show is going to be absolutely bomb from what we've seen. This is cast. Wonderfully, Tesser Act did an awesome job. As always, you know, there have been a lot of things about virtual performances that we've really enjoyed over the past 15 months. They've been a really incredible way to keep the community alive and interacting with one another. And like we've discussed on this show before, there are tons of positives to them. They're logistically much simpler than a live event. They're a wonderful way to perform and engage with members of our community who live in different parts of the world who you might never get to perform with. Otherwise, they certainly have their place within our community now. And I think we'll all be surprised if they ever phase out for good. I know right now, we're all extremely excited to be in the process of phasing it back into I R L shows. That's gonna be our community's primary focus for the next little while as it should be. This all star performance feels like the ultimate way to exit the online only chapter of Rocky with a huge bang. And I love that because even if it wasn't our favorite, this virtual era of shadow casting is absolutely going to be remembered as a defining moment for our community and I can't think of a better end cap. We'd like to give a huge congratulations to all the performers who were cast in this show. And also a big thank you to the teer con runners who are busting their asses to make this event special. We love you all and we can't wait to see the official cast list coming up soon. And speaking of returning to the stage, we're excited to announce that flustered mustard cast will be resuming traditional live indoor performances at the Melba theater in De Soto, Missouri on Saturday, July 24th. Advance tickets are only six bucks and can be purchased up through July 23rd by messaging flustered mustard directly or you can buy tickets in person at the theater box office. They're only five bucks if you buy them live and if you're dressed as a character from the movie, you'll even receive a $1 discount doors open at 11. Their virgin sacrifice starts at 11 30 the movie starts at, yeah, you guessed at midnight as always dressing up in costume is highly encouraged as are bringing your own prop bags. See one thing that we, that rocky talky love about this cast is although they sell prop bags at the door for three bucks each, they make sure to let their audience know how much less expensive and more fun it is to just bring your own shit to throw during the movie, which I mean, Yeah, it totally is. Oh, absolutely. Full disclosure at N Y C. Our prop bags cost roughly 11 cents to make and we sell them for $2 each. Now, granted, we get a lot of tourists at our show and people coming from out of town and I totally get, not wanting to haul around a bag of rice and toast and shit while you're visiting the M and M store in Times Square and hiking up to the top of the Empire State Building. But that isn't the case throughout the country. In most places, it's pretty easy to throw a six pack of hot dogs and a sock full of rice into your car and drive to the show personally. I love when people bring their own crap to throw. Yeah, like it's less money for the cast, but I've seen people bring some weird shit with them and it's always really fucking funny to see what people come up with. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of props that have kind of fallen out of favor hot dogs that Jacob just mentioned being one of them. Uh Most theaters don't like that turns out rats like hot dogs. Uh And they're actually not that funny to get whacked in the face with as I'm sure anyone who's ever been whacked in the face by a meat like tube can attest to, I disagree but continue, yeah, I have to, I have to side with John on that one? Wow. Ok. Well, I guess I'm the only one that doesn't like getting slapped around in the face with a meat stick. You're missing out. I think one of my favorite things that I've ever seen people bring to a show wasn't actually a Rocky horror show. So for those of you who are currently listening, me and Jacob actually went to go see Megan Aaron get married over across the pond in England. And I had the pleasure of planning out their wedding ceremony, which was as rocky as you could expect it. We turned a wedding ceremony into a Rocky horror phenomenon. And at one point, everyone threw little gelatinous penises at Aaron and Meg in front of their families. Oh yeah. And all of us, it was fantastic. They had like these little little eyes on them and they're, they're like literally an inch tall, much like my own and we just pelted them with them. There was, there were a bunch of other things in there, but I think that those really kind of took the cake. Those were absolutely the best part of your guys's wedding was the the tiny little penis dudes. I tried to keep mine around for as long as I could, but it just at some point became too weird to explain to everyone who saw it why I had a tiny gelatinous penis in my room. So I had to get rid of it. I actually, I, I had, we had a bunch of extras of those. I used one of them uh for the photo that's on the cover of our uh penis makeup malfunction episode. You used one of them? I recognized it. Yeah. Yeah. The one where uh where we talk about Rayner Burton, right? And he's dealing with his uh glitter problem. But uh yeah, I gotta say though, I think my favorite, like my personal favorite thing to do and to bring is just to go to the store and buy like two full decks of playing cards. So when cards for sorrow cards for paying comes up, right, instead of just having these like wimpy ass, like couple of cards being chucked around you, you, you fan them out and you just fling them all the way up to the ceiling and it just like showers the entire theater in playing cards. It's like, I, I absolutely love that. I think it's hilarious and I like, I don't know it, it's stupid, but I absolutely love that. So, anyway, best of luck to our friends at flustered mustard with their return to the stage, we hope you break all your legs and have a blast in the process. And with that, we finish our community news and we're gonna go on to everyone's favorite segment with everyone's least favorite host. Nicky asks a question. That's right. I said that Nikki is everyone's least favorite host and I can get away with it. Because she's not here to tell me otherwise. Darn too. So we have a, we have a link in our, in our show document right now. Let me just open this up really quickly. See what it is. Hey, you dumb fuck. It's Rowan from R K O te rack, full body cast. And sometimes if I'm feeling a little spicy, New York City, Rocky. Well, long time listener, first time caller and I have a fantastic question that I asked over at the original Rocky Horror Facebook group the other day and I was hoping that I could get some true experts to weigh in. I got tons of answers from the fan community and it blew way more than I wanted it to. So I thought perhaps an expert response would be best. So here's the question. I haven't seen the movie yet. Any recommendations for a first time viewer been on my bucket list, but I heard mixed reviews. Yeah. So you know what to do now? Um I love you. OK? Can't wait to see you soon. Bye. I'm sorry. Who the fuck is this? Yeah, O M G. This is my segment J A A Q Jacking it with Jacob for fuck's sake. Row. And we are not doing a segment about your fucking Facebook post. Uh Yes, we are Aaron. I'm sorry, but I, I thought this one was actually super fun. So full disclosure. I reached out to Rowan and asked them to record a bit for us because I, I thought that they hit on an interesting topic and Rowan was awesome and helped us out. We really appreciate it, Rowan. Thank you so much. I'm pumped for this. Well, fuck, all right, fuck you, Rowan. Thank you for the content. We love you. You're awesome guys. But this is my segment. Shut up, Nick. Shut up, Nicky. Ok, guys. Hold on. Why the fuck is this part of the script written? Like I'm Nicky because we wrote it before. I knew that Nicky couldn't make it this week. Oh OK. I mean, all right. So where do you want to go with this? I don't think we want to just summarize the Facebook post. Like we'll just drop that in the show notes and also, I'm not reading over 100 comments. Uh Hold on if Rowan knew Nicky wasn't on the show. Uh That means you knew Nicky wasn't on the show. I have been lied to. I have been bamboozled. This shall not stand. You wanted to make me read a woman's words. What the fuck goddamn it, Jacob. I'm gonna fix this right now. You guys can sit here while I fix this script and make it readable for a man. OK. That's better. All right. All better. Much better. Thank you very much. All right. So Rowan's Post like definitely stuck out to me a couple of reasons. One, uh They are trolling and I thought it was fucking hilarious. And two, it was actually really interesting to see the wider fan community respond to a post like this, not just the shadow casting and the cult community perspective, the wider community. And it ties in nicely to a broader discussion about how the Rocky community is perceived by newcomers and the multitude of different experiences that fans have. And it looks like it includes a healthy dose of gatekeeping and internet trolling because it's the fucking internet and that's just what you do online. I'm still not gonna read through all these replies to this post though. That's fine. We can summarize it for you John. We wouldn't want anyone to learn that you can't actually read. See Gatekeeping. John can't read. No, it's, it's a bit where never mind, Nicky would have gotten it. I'm, I'm pretty sure John can read guys. This is a script he's reading right now and yes I am. See John can read it's fine. So the majority of the replies to this thread were like actually a great credit to the fan community and they were really different from what you would have seen even a few years ago, let alone 10 or 15 or 25 or 40. Looks like there's a lot of go in with an open mind and see it with a live shadow cast if you can or see it with a person who knows it or watch it at home or don't watch it at home or you have to watch it with audience participation or you shouldn't ever watch it with audience participation. Yeah. Click, expand on those comments and welcome to the debate about if Rocky is better to view one way or the other and if someone is a real fan and arguing and name calling and gatekeeping and the internet, right? But that's, that's not really the point. The point is that most of the conversation is actually just decent advice. I mean, with a lot of opinion, what's interesting is that it hits a really broad spectrum of the wider fan community and how a lot of fans came at the show from really different perspectives. You've got old school fans bemoaning anything that is in the play. You've got people who think the movie is annoying with participation. You've got others that say you have to like it with a shadow cast or you aren't a real fan. Yay Gatekeeping. Sure. But, but that's kind of interesting right about how all of these people, right? Very much self-identity as quote original Rocky horror picture show fans and yet their very definition of what a true fan is and even their definition of how best to see the movie differ completely. There's even one idiot saying that Rowan should watch the remake first and that Glee is just like the stage show. Uh hold on. What, what the fuck a Aaron you wrote this trolling reply. I mean, it's the internet. God damn it, Aaron. No, no. See, but this was interesting too. Ok. I posted a really stupid and silly reply. I mean, I was not gonna let Rowan be the only one that got to have any fun. I mean, I thought my reply and the sarcasm in it was, was pretty clear but one guy ate the onion and had a really critical reply. But then the people in the community defended my right to like the remake and Glee. So to each their own, I mean, there's a limit if you were some random person like fine, but you fucking know better glee. You fucking kidding me. What the fuck Aaron? I got to the end of this post and you dared to also insult my bear, bear in front of God and Queen and country read this, read your dirty filth for the world to bear. Bask in your shame. Well, now I kind of want to hear it. Ok? I, I, so I just said quote myself. Um I would recommend watching the Fox remake version first. Then if you are still interested watch shock treatment to find out what happens to the main characters. It really completes the story that is left as a cliffhanger at the end of Rocky. If you still want more, the Glee version is probably the most true to the original stage show. Only watch the one with that guy from Spin City. If you are interested in seeing a cheesy rip off of cats and Hedwig. Wait, seriously. So someone ate that onion shock treatment. Explains the cliffhanger from Rocky. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah. What? No, that's all fine. I have, you know, but Barry Bostwick is more than just the absolutely phenomenal mayor on Spin City. He is a truly remarkable gift to the stage and screen, both big and small Greece, the Pirates of Penzance. He has a Tony Awards for fuck's sake, Megaforce Teen Beach movie, Hannah Montana. The movie, there are no small parts. Only small penis is something my bear bear knows nothing about. Leave Barry alone in all seriousness. This reply that someone posted to your trolling was fucking hilarious. Um Even suggesting this means you absolutely have no freaking clue what going to this movie really means to fans, old school fans, real cult classic fans. Yep. That's Aaron. No fucking clue what it means to the real fans. Congrats. We talked about a Facebook post. Thanks Rowan. Come on. Now, there's more to talk about here. Why are all these experiences so different yet? Many of them are so emphatic about how their way of seeing Rocky is, right? There's like a really interesting psychological thing going on or a sociological thing, whatever, both really or it's just that everyone's experience is different and your experience is what you latch on to. But it's more than that, right? It's, it's like cranked up to 11 because it's Rocky and I mean, the community is rightfully called a cult. We are obsessive and when you're passionate about something you can be super obsessive about it and vehemently defend a point of view that seems like a incredibly minor detail to an outside observer. I saw a paper about this the other day. Uh not this specifically, but it touched on it. It's called Queer Cult performance. Recreating Rocky Horror in the 21st century written by John Linskey. It comes from a book that is a collection of essays published last year called New Queer horror film and television. So this was kind of interesting. Yeah. Uh It's one of the first academic pieces that I've seen that is directly addressing the Fox remake and it uses it as an example of how network television censors queer or subversive or transgressive content. It's true. It's one of the few examples out there of like a weird cult movie being turned into a made for TV, special other than like grease or something which while commercially far more successful, can't hold a candle on the cult and community side of things. The author makes a pretty relevant point. He postulates that because Rocky developed as a radical space that promoted audience participation and allowed for an open demonstration of queer identity, you know, the whole don't dream it be it thing that the presentation of Rocky became the main event. So he's saying that because the experience of going to Rocky was so tied to what you associate with Rocky. The presentation format is massively inflated in your attachment to Rocky or to put it another way everyone's experience is different and your experience is what you latch onto. Sure. But it's more than that. He references another academic paper that takes all of the elements of a Rocky experience, the audience participation, the shadow casting the party atmosphere and lumps them all together as a set of transgressive acts. OK. Sure. He explains about the technical definition of a transgression, but it, it's what it sounds like eccentric boundary pushing, nonconventional, you know, running around half naked, screaming in a movie theater, that kind of thing. And if he takes it one step further, that I think ties in directly to the conversation that was going on on Facebook. He says, quote, I would argue that these transgressive acts act as a view strategies for marginalized audiences to undermine hegemonic conventions of cinema behavior and assert their own appropriations or readings of the film. So basically, you're interpreting this to say Rocky resonates in a lot of different ways, be it dressing up or a P or shadow casting or just a connection with the movie because it resonates so much to even form a cult following your personal way of experiencing it is central to your attachment to Rocky. And though the exact reason for why each person connects with the film might be different what binds everyone together is that it is something specific about the experience that resonates not just the content of the script and the songs. Exactly, or to put it another way everyone's experience is different and your experience is what you latch on to come on. So the author takes that point to directly discuss the remake and the choices that were made to avoid the sensors to make it more accessible to a mainstream audience and so on. He acknowledges that while it does contain the snippets of the crowd doing audience participation, it contains none of the spontaneity or the lewd and subversive aspects. So to quote the essay, the remake ignores these elements leaving any features of the audience's transgressive acts and subversion to the wayside. They are more boisterous and jovial, less mischievous and deviant. And without that, what do you have no film theater hybridization? It's not a crazy party, it's not subversive, at least not any more subversive than the network censors will allow. And the substitution for that atmosphere is a handful of cutaway scenes where extras pretend to shout synchronized callbacks at a mediocre remake which has its own set of problems and to top it off, you're sitting at home watching it on a random Thursday night. So there's nothing to draw you in. I'd contend though that there are plenty of people who got brought into Rocky after the remake, maybe even saw the remake first. That's true. But I, I would bet that what drew them in fully wasn't that first time that they watched it on Fox complete with commercials. May, maybe they were motivated to see the original in a theater or maybe they fell in love with the music and started playing it on a loop. Or maybe it was just the remake, but they had a whole group of friends over to watch and they really enjoyed. That is something about the experience was unique. Yeah. And that ties back in, there's a bunch of other stuff in this essay. He talks about Laverne Cox as Frank. If the casting is quote problematic or at least could misshape queer identity for a cisgender heterosexual audience? Uh Specifically because Frank as a character self identifies as a sweet transvestite, which is an outdated term. And on top of that, it is not at all the same thing as transgender. And because Laverne Cox herself is transgender, an audience that does not understand the distinction could draw the wrong conclusions. The also points out that Laverne herself expressed these concerns when considering the role she reconciled it as being appropriate for the time period. And that's totally fair. It's integral to Rocky. A lot of movies don't age super well, especially when it comes to representation and terminology. I mean, hell, just look at all the seventies and eighties, sex comedies, stuff like porkies or Revenge of the Nerds or Animal House, hell even stuff like American pie or never been kissed. Those do not age well and not just because of some outdated jokes, the characters are downright creepy. The situations are creepy or in some cases completely cross the line into committing literal horrible crimes and terminology always evolves. There's a ton of homophobia and gay bashing and lots of other things in nineties and early two thousands movies that don't hold up well. Yeah, people talked like that but it's cringy as fuck to a modern audience. You're cringy as fuck to a modern audience. You know it, that's something that the community often writes off. We often dismiss or ignore all the comments that come up about Rocky and not being representative of modern queer culture. And this is a totally real perspective. I mean, just go look on tiktok or Instagram or youtube and you can find tons and tons of typically younger people saying, well, I don't get why this is supposed to be the quintessential queer film. It doesn't even reflect my values or paint a progressive picture of LGBT Q I plus ideals. And I mean, they're not wrong, right? The film in itself like if you just pop it on Netflix and just play through it. OK? I get that it's can be and it's also a pretty dated musical and also to throw it back to the essay watching it on Netflix on your headphones is lacking many of the factors that make Rocky a subversive and unique experience. You only have the elements that exist within the work. Richard o'brien's script and songs, Jim Sharman's directions. Sue Blaine's costumes, Brian Thompson sets, it's compelling and unique, but it just doesn't have the same wow factor at face value as seeing it in a theater with your friends while a big bald dude sweats all over you and, and, and some awesome guy rides a scooter down the stairs after giving you a handy job in the bathroom. It's not just the accessibility of being able to see Rocky without any of the pomp and circumstance that leads people to that idea. Queer culture, drag culture, mainstream inclusivity. Many of the things that Rocky represents are not as subversive as they once were. They are far more palatable to a lot of mainstream culture. There's a long way to go. Don't get me wrong, but it's a lot easier to find a space that you can connect with. Thanks, the internet and Rocky is thankfully not the only safe space available these days to a lot of people who need one again. That's a good thing, but it's also one of the things that some would argue makes Rocky less relevant as time moves forward. I'd also point out that all of us, especially anyone who is into the community as much as we are are very much living in a bubble. There's a long way to go all over the world and within the United States, I mean, you cross the Mason Dixon line. Well, and I guess all over the US as the current conservative culture shows us there are some extremely regressive thinking people, people who could use a good dose of transgressive fun or maybe they could just pull their head out of their ass. Yeah, that too. Anyway, I, I was glad you brought that essay up, Jacob. It, it was nice to see a piece that sourced heavily from uh the book reading Rocky Horror. It's another collection of academic essays that came out in 2008. We haven't touched a lot on that side of things. I, I feel the academic relevance of Rocky isn't really something that the community talks about a lot. You see a ton of posts from students and researchers asking community members to answer some questions or fill out a Google form or whatever, but then we rarely see actual discussion about the resulting papers. I mean, do the rats ever discuss amongst themselves who made it through the maze the fastest? Wait, are we the rats? I don't like that. Not a goddamn dirty rodent. I don't scurry around in search of tiny morsels of curdled milk. I'm a person I can think and, and interpret and read. Must be nice. What, what to be able to read? I, I, I still don't get it and that's all the time we have for today. No. Fuck you. It's my segment, right? Just jacking it. I get to wrap it up. Yeah, I'll wrap it up, wrap up this dick and thus concludes this week's installment of three Cisgender white dudes trying to be woke a F God. I wish you were wrong. Well, that's our show. We want to thank Jacob for filling in for Nicky this week. You did a great job, dude. We really appreciate it. Thanks John. I'd like to remind our listeners that if anyone has a question they'd like us to answer on air for Nicky asks a question or some community news they'd like us to talk about or even a cool story to share with the community. We'd love to include it in our show. Just go to our website rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form and tell us about it. If you're enjoying Rocky Talkie, please help us out by rating, reviewing and subscribing to the show. It makes the podcast more accessible to new listeners, which really helps us to grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky talkie content, check us out on Facebook, youtube, Instagram and tiktok all at Rocky Talkie podcast. We'll talk to you next week. Bye bye bye. Good bye bye. First up in community news, we've got a fun little nugget. Are people throwing hot dogs? We'll get there not anymore. That's for sure. The best part is that they say that they're part of R K O and they go on to say that they've never seen the movie before. Hold on. I have to fucking goddamn it. I hate roads so much. I'm gonna yell at them so hard in a half hour. There are no small parts, only small penises, something my bear bear knows there are no small parts. Goddamn. There are no small parts. Only small penises while a big bald dude sweats all over you. And some awesome guy rides a scooter down the stairs after giving you a hand job in the bathroom. I goddamn it. Jacob. I realized that it was about me in the middle of it and to my voice, I can redo it if you want. No. Fuck you. It's my segment, right? Just J A A Qing it. I get to wrap it up. Oh I like that. No. Fuck you. It's my segment, right? Just jacking it so young. But Farewell. I don't know the words but I'm done. Yeah.