I saw the movie on Friday night. No protesters, no big deal at the movie theatre.

Here's my take: It's camp. A type of religious camp, but camp nonetheless. See Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp" (1964) Sontag distinguishes between pure camp, which is naive, and conscious camp, which is knowingly campy and therefore less satisfying. In point 23, she writes: "In nave, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the nave ."

"Camp rests on innocence. That means Camp discloses innocence, but also when it can, corrupts it." The idea of Opie and Tom Hanks (Mr. American Decency) making the most controversial religious movie of all time is outrageous, and deliciously corruptive to a campy sensibility.

Where did--does--the idea of viewing the film as a type of religious camp first become solidified? In the appearance of Ian McKellan, of course. He deliberately camps up his role, and gives the audience the necessary clues as to how to read the rest of the movie.

Now how, as a religious person, do or should you relate to camp? I'm not exactly sure. But I don't think it's straightforwadly to take offense. I honestly don't see how anyone could take Silas seriously as a representative of anything--he's a cartoon figure.

Does anyone really see "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" (knowing camp) as undermining Catholic sexual ethics? I honestly don't know how to create a common space for the Theology of the Body to talk to "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." St. Augustine has a better shot, but even there, the odds of a conversation aren't good.

We went to the Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight in college. We threw toast. We reveled in its outrageousness, gawked at the audience, and thought ourselves truly on the cutting edge. But we were nice middle class kids. There was no edge anywhere around. Actually, we were in the middle of a bowl of oatmeal. The joke was on us: WE were innocently campy in our pretentiousness!

And now the Rocky Horror Picture Show is on basic cable TV. My mom watched it, and thought it was funny. I laughed at my younger self with her pretense at sophisitication. But not meanly; my older self knows that that's what you're supposed to do in college.

And maybe that's the response that camp ought to provoke: a little bit of humility, and a willingness to laugh gently at oneself. I get the sense that that's how Opus Dei is handling things.