20 or 30 years ago, many cities had a group of nerds who would get together monthly / quarterly / annually to put on a live action RHPS and/or watch the film. They would dress up in themed/fetishy costumes to go. There was a sort of ritualised audience participation portion where the audience yelled certain things at certain times in the plot, IIRC threw popcorn, and other stuff. I don't think I ever actually attended in one of these but I knew various people who were in the subculture. my view of it was the crowd was largely queer/bi/pan/poly/straight/genderbender white people.
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is anybody still doing this? (maybe it's still as active as ever and I've just changed who I know?)
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did the internet kill it and if so, how?
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gen z: are you familiar with this phenomena?
bonus question: what is the current analysis of RHPS, particularly, but not limited to, the concept of gender as depicted?
People are still doing it. It's still a natural coming out point for a load of people - halloween in general is I guess. I don't think it's as active as the 80s and 90s but people still dress up. It's also a lot of people's first sexy film when they're like 12 to 14 vs in the 70s 80s and 90s when it was a risqué thing with people all over the age range (I mean I guess still primarily young instead of a year or two into puberty).
The internet leaked all the callback lines and spread the funniest around, which is good and bad. You don't get to acquire them "naturally" by repeat viewings in a crowd but you do get to hear some hilarious shit.
I'm not gen z, some of my little sisters and brothers are and they haven't heard of it. The city they moved to have a yearly RHPS thing and also one at the halfway point (to halloween lol, April 30) and I said they should go with their friends to it! Gen Z also has The Room as a classic bad movie with audience participation, which is a little sad cause its not nearly as flamboyant and gay. As a general rule, Gen Z doesnt really get out especially compared to Boomers (amd Millennials too but to a lesser degree) when they were their age. For good and bad, they aren't drinking or smoking as much but there is something kind of sad that they dont wear high heels and dont really get in the soft shenanigans style trouble.
At the basement level, Gen Z is way more accepting of LGBT than previous generations were so the appeal of finally letting your hair down, putting on eyeliner and going out en femme, or finally taking out your same sex fling late at night with liquor and yelling communally at a screen all with people like you has worn off. They just dont need RHSP the way it used to be needed. Plus, the cinema is dying anyway