To get an indication of how cultural mores can shift as the decades pass, one should take note of the recent announcement for an ultra-high-definition edition of Jim Sharman’s “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975), a movie musical to be released in selected theaters and as a Blu-ray on the occasion of its 50th anniversary. Who better to restore the genre-bending, gender-fluid midnight movie mainstay than a team based at that venerable bastion of family entertainment, Walt Disney Studios?

Disney has garnered a lot of attention in recent years for its blatant and increasingly troubled sops to ideological fashion, so this news shouldn’t be greeted with too much of a raised eyebrow. All the same, a readjustment of one’s weltanschauung is necessary upon considering how an all-American go-getter like Mickey Mouse is now a brother-in-arms — or, to use the parlance of the day, an ally — of a “sweet transvestite from transsexual Transylvania,” Dr. Frank-N-Furter. 

This medical professional was portrayed by an English actor and singer, Tim Curry, and the relish he brought to the role is a significant component of the movie’s staying power. Having originated the character in the London stage version of “Rocky Horror,” Mr. Curry had ample opportunity to hone his strutting, preening, vamping and camping. Subsequent tours of Los Angeles and the Great White Way allowed Mr. Curry to transform Frank-N-Furter from a Teutonic peroxide-blonde to a caricature of someone closer to home, Queen Elizabeth. 

Well, that’s Mr. Curry’s version of it, and though he went on to other memorable roles — many of us remember his turn as King Arthur in a Broadway production, “Spamalot” — the imprimatur of “Rocky Horror” is unshakable. There are worse ways to be remembered, and as the movie is shown throughout the United States, it will be accompanied on select occasions by other of the original actors, including Nell Campbell, Patricia Quinn, and Barry Bostwick. Fans of the film are sure to come out in droves.

Much has been made of the picture’s pan-sexual inclusivity and “celebration of difference,” which only goes to prove how even the most outre of phenomena can be tempered by changes of taste and a marketplace happy to absorb them. The movie has been adapted as a video game, a cookbook, and a televised reboot proffered by the Fox Broadcasting Company in 2016, an effort helmed by Kenny Ortega, director of Disney’s “High School Musical” I and II. You have to wonder what Uncle Walt is thinking of this confluence of events from his perch on high. 

The benighted out there — or, as they are called in “Rocky Horror”-speak, virgins — are advised to attend a midnight showing in which fans of the film, well-versed in its dialogue and songs, don costumes of their favorite characters and participate in the proceedings. A raucous time is guaranteed for all, but that’s not to say that there aren’t protocols to abide by. “Calling Brad an ‘a——-e’ and ‘neck lines’ to the criminologist are funny in their proper place,” a fan website counsels, “but should not be yelled every time you see these characters’ faces. It does get boring and monotonous.”

Brad (Mr. Bostwick) is an upstanding and hugely naive young man who is traveling through a stormy mountain pass with his equally innocent girlfriend, Janet (Susan Sarandon). Seeking shelter, they hole up “over at the Frankenstein place” and encounter a cadre of singing, dancing, and sexy miscreants. Dr. Frank-N-Furter seduces both of our protagonists, engages in some dubious scientific experiments, and meets his fate in a glam-sodden, tear-soaked denouement.

Are we all, as the ending song suggests, “lost in time, and lost in space … and meaning?” If anything, the longevity of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is proof that human endeavor, however much it may be festooned in fishnet stockings, is a rejoinder to even the most blase form of nihilism.