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Camp (style)
Encyclopedia
Taste (sociology)
Taste as an aesthetic, sociological, economic and anthropological concept refers to a cultural patterns of choice and preference. While taste is often understood as a biological concept, it can also be reasonably studied as a social or cultural phenomenon. Taste is about drawing distinctions...
and ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
value. The concept is closely related to kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy". When the usage appeared, in 1909, it denoted: ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical, and effeminate behaviour, and, by the middle of the 1970s, the definition comprised: banality, artifice, mediocrity, and ostentation so extreme as to have perversely sophisticated appeal. American writer Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
's essay Notes on "Camp" (1964) emphasised its key elements as: artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness, and ‘shocking’ excess. Camp as an aesthetic has been popular from the 1960s to the present.
Camp films were popularised by filmmakers George
George Kuchar
George Kuchar was an American underground film director, known for his "low-fi" aesthetic.-Early life and career:...
and Mike Kuchar
Mike Kuchar
Mike Kuchar is an American underground filmmaker and actor. Kuchar is notable for his low-budget and camp films such as Sins of the Fleshapoids and The Craven Sluck.-Biography:...
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, and John Waters
John Waters (filmmaker)
John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
, including the latter's Pink Flamingos
Pink Flamingos
Pink Flamingos is a 1972 transgressive black comedy film written, produced, composed, shot, edited, and directed by John Waters. When the film was initially released, it caused a huge degree of controversy and thus became one of the most notorious cult films ever made. It made an underground star...
, Hairspray and Polyester
Polyester (film)
Polyester is a 1981 comedy film directed, produced, and written by John Waters, and starring Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, and Mink Stole...
. Celebrities that are associated with camp personas include drag queen
Drag queen
A drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
s and performers such as Dame Edna Everage
Dame Edna Everage
Dame Edna is a character created and played by Australian dadaist performer and comedian, Barry Humphries, famous for her lilac-coloured or "wisteria hue" hair and cat eye glasses or "face furniture," her favorite flower, the gladiola and her boisterous greeting: "Hello Possums!" As Dame Edna,...
, Divine
Divine (Glen Milstead)
Divine , born Harris Glenn Milstead, was an American actor, singer and drag queen. Described by People magazine as the "Drag Queen of the Century", Divine often performed female roles in both cinema and theater and also appeared in women's clothing in musical performances...
, RuPaul
RuPaul
RuPaul Andre Charles , best known as simply RuPaul, is an American actor, drag queen, model, author, and singer-songwriter, who first became widely known in the 1990s when he appeared in a wide variety of television programs, films, and musical albums. Previously, he was a fixture on the Atlanta...
, and Liberace
Liberace
Wladziu Valentino Liberace , best known simply as Liberace, was a famous American pianist and vocalist.In a career that spanned four decades of concerts, recordings, motion pictures, television and endorsements, Liberace became world-renowned...
. Camp was a part of the anti-academic defense of popular culture
Popular culture
Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...
in the 1960s and gained popularity in the 1980s with the widespread adoption of postmodern
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
views on art and culture.
Origins and development
Camp derives from the French slang term se camper, meaning "to pose in an exaggerated fashion". The OEDOxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
gives 1909 as the first print citation of camp as
- ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to, characteristic of, homosexuals. So as a noun, ‘camp’ behaviour, mannerisms, et cetera. (cf. quot. 1909); a man exhibiting such behaviour.
Per the Oxford English Dictionary, this sense is "etymologically obscure".
Later, it evolved into a general description of the aesthetic choices and behaviour of working-class homosexual men. Finally, it was made mainstream, and adjectivised, by Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
in her landmark essay (see below).
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
gay male communities, where it was the dominant cultural pattern. It originated from the acceptance of gayness as effeminacy
Effeminacy
Effeminacy describes traits in a human male, that are more often associated with traditional feminine nature, behaviour, mannerisms, style or gender roles rather than masculine nature, behaviour, mannerisms, style or roles....
. Two key components of camp were originally feminine performances: swish
Swish (slang)
Swish is a slang term usually used derogatorily for effeminate behaviour and interests , emphasized and sanctioned in pre-Stonewall gay male communities. This behaviour is also described as being nelly. Wentworth and Flexner define swish as a noun meaning "a male homosexual, esp...
and drag
Drag (clothing)
Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...
. With swish featuring extensive use of superlatives, and drag being exaggerated female impersonation, camp became extended to all things "over the top", including female female impersonators, as in the exaggerated Hollywood version of Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda
Carmen Miranda, GCIH was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, Broadway actress and Hollywood film star popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was, by some accounts, the highest-earning woman in the United States and noted for her signature fruit hat outfit she wore in the 1943 movie The Gang's...
. It was this version of the concept that was adopted by literary and art critics and became a part of the conceptual array of 1960s culture. Moe Meyer still defines camp as "queer parody."
Components
Attitude
Camp means and has been from the start an ironic attitude, embraced by anti-Academic theorists for its explicit defense of clearly marginalized forms. As such, its claims to legitimacy are dependent on its opposition to the status quo; camp has no aspiration to timelessness, but rather lives on the hypocrisy of the dominant culture. It doesn't present basic values, but precisely confronts culture with what it perceives as its inconsistencies, to show how any norm is socially constructed. This rebellious utilisation of critical concepts was originally formulated by modernist art theorists such as sociologist Theodor Adorno , who were radically opposed to the kind of popular culture that consumerism endorsed.Humour and Allusion
Camp is a critical analysis and at the same time a big joke. Camp takes "something" (normally a social norm, object, phrase, or style), does a very acute analysis of what the "something" is, then takes the "something" and presents it humorously. As a performance, camp is meant to be an allusionAllusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
. A person being campy has a generalization they are intentionally making fun of or manipulating. Though camp is a joke it is also a very serious analysis done by people who are willing to make a joke out of themselves to prove a point. Roy Kift's holocaust play "Camp Comedy" (in Theatre of the Holocaust. Vol 2. University of Wisconsin Press) is a good point of reference here. The title is not only (superficially) in bad taste, the play uses irony and the humour of the concentration camp inmates to make a critical analysis of their predicament.
Drag
As part of camp, drag occasionally consists of feminine apparel, ranging from slight make-up and a few feminine garments, typically hats, gloves, or high heels, to a total getup, complete with wigs, gowns, jewelry, and full make-up. In the case of drag kingDrag king
Drag kings are mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of their performance. A typical drag king routine may incorporate dancing and singing, live as in the Momma's Boyz of San Francisco's performances or lip-synching...
s or female male-impersonators, the opposite is true and often involves exaggerated displays of masculinities.
Television
Television shows such as The MunstersThe Munsters
The Munsters is a 1960s American family television sitcom depicting the home life of a family of monsters. It starred Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster and Yvonne De Carlo as his wife, Lily Munster. The series was a satire of both traditional monster movies and popular family entertainment of the era,...
, The Addams Family
The Addams Family (TV series)
The Addams Family is an American television series based on the characters in Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoons. The 30-minute series was shot in black-and-white and aired for two seasons in 64 installments on ABC from September 18, 1964, to April 8, 1966...
, CHiPs
CHiPs
CHiPs is an American television drama series produced by MGM Studios that originally aired on NBC from September 15, 1977, to July 17, 1983. CHiPs followed the lives of two motorcycle police officers of the California Highway Patrol...
, Batman
Batman (TV series)
Batman is an American television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin — two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham City. It aired on the American Broadcasting Company network for three seasons from January 12, 1966 to...
, Lost in Space
Lost in Space
Lost in Space is a science fiction TV series created and produced by Irwin Allen, filmed by 20th Century Fox Television, and broadcast on CBS. The show ran for three seasons, with 83 episodes airing between September 15, 1965, and March 6, 1968...
, Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island
Gilligan's Island is an American television series created and produced by Sherwood Schwartz and originally produced by United Artists Television. The situation comedy series featured Bob Denver; Alan Hale, Jr.; Jim Backus; Natalie Schafer; Tina Louise; Russell Johnson; and Dawn Wells. It aired for...
, Fantasy Island
Fantasy Island
Fantasy Island is the title of two separate but related American fantasy television series, both originally airing on the ABC television network.-Original series:...
and Walker: Texas Ranger, are enjoyed in the 2000s for what are now interpreted as their "camp" aspects. Much of the cult following of camp today, grew exponentially during the transition from black and white to color television
Color television
Color television is part of the history of television, the technology of television and practices associated with television's transmission of moving images in color video....
in the early 1960s
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
. Network programming during that time was seeking entertainment content that would display the new medium with the use of bright colors and high stylization. Some of these shows were developed 'tongue-in-cheek' by their producers. TV soap operas, especially those that air in primetime, are often considered camp. Even the villains of shows as divergent as Batman and The Mod Squad
The Mod Squad
The Mod Squad is a television series that ran on ABC from September 24, 1968, until August 23, 1973. This series starred Michael Cole, Peggy Lipton, Clarence Williams III, and Tige Andrews...
were costumed as to take advantage of new colors and changing fashion styles, in ways that took advantage of camp. The over-the-top excess of Dynasty
Dynasty (TV series)
Dynasty is an American prime time television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 12, 1981 to May 11, 1989. It was created by Richard & Esther Shapiro and produced by Aaron Spelling, and revolved around the Carringtons, a wealthy oil family living in Denver, Colorado...
and Dallas
Dallas (TV series)
Dallas is an American serial drama/prime time soap opera that revolves around the Ewings, a wealthy Texas family in the oil and cattle-ranching industries. Throughout the series, Larry Hagman stars as greedy, scheming oil baron J. R. Ewing...
were popular in the 1980s.
Mentos
Mentos
Mentos is a brand of mints, of the "scotch mint" type, sold in many markets across the world by the Perfetti Van Melle corporation. Mentos was first produced in the Netherlands during the 1950s. The mints are small oblate spheroids, with a slightly hard exterior and a soft, chewy interior...
television commercials during the 1990s developed a cult following
Cult following
A cult following is a group of fans who are highly dedicated to a specific area of pop culture. A film, book, band, or video game, among other things, will be said to have a cult following when it has a small but very passionate fan base...
due to their camp "Eurotrash
Eurotrash (term)
Eurotrash is a derogatory term used in North America for Europeans, particularly those perceived to be arrogant, affluent, and expatriates in the United States....
" humour.
The ESPN Classic
ESPN Classic
ESPN Classic is a sports channel that features reruns of famous sporting events, sports documentaries, and sports themed movies. Such programs includes biographies of famous sports figures or a rerun of a famous World Series or Super Bowl, often with added commentary on the event...
show Cheap Seats
Cheap Seats
Cheap Seats without Ron Parker, commonly shortened to Cheap Seats, is a television program broadcast on ESPN Classic hosted by brothers Randy and Jason Sklar...
features two Generation-X, real-life brothers making humorous observations while watching televised camp sporting events, which had often been featured on ABC's Wide World of Sports during the 1970s. Examples include a 1970s sport that attempted to combine ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
with skiing (ski ballet), the Harlem Globetrotters
Harlem Globetrotters
The Harlem Globetrotters are an exhibition basketball team that combines athleticism, theater and comedy. The executive offices for the team are currently in downtown Phoenix, Arizona; the team is owned by Shamrock Holdings, which oversees the various investments of the Roy E. Disney family.Over...
holding a televised exhibition game at the notorious Attica State Prison in upstate New York, small-time regional professional wrestling
Professional wrestling
Professional wrestling is a mode of spectacle, combining athletics and theatrical performance.Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling", Mythologies, 1957 It takes the form of events, held by touring companies, which mimic a title match combat sport...
, and roller derby
Roller derby
Roller derby is a contact sport played by two teams of five members roller skating in the same direction around a track. Game play consists of a series of short matchups in which both teams designate a scoring player who scores points by lapping members of the opposing team...
.
The ABC Afterschool Special
ABC Afterschool Special
The ABC Afterschool Special is an American television anthology series that aired on ABC from 1972 to 1996, usually in the late afternoon on week days. Most of the episodes were dramatic presentations of situations, often controversial, of interest to children and teenagers. Several episodes were...
s, which tackled topics such as drug use and teen sex, are an example of camp educational films; in turn, the Comedy Central
Comedy Central
Comedy Central is an American cable television and satellite television channel that carries comedy programming, both original and syndicated....
television show Strangers with Candy
Strangers with Candy
Strangers with Candy is a television series produced by Comedy Central. It first aired on April 7, 1999, and concluded its third and final season on October 2, 2000. Its timeslot was Sundays at 10 p.m....
, starring comedienne Amy Sedaris
Amy Sedaris
Amy Louise Sedaris is an American actress, author, and comedian. She is known for playing the character Jerri Blank in the Comedy Central television series Strangers with Candy. Sedaris regularly collaborates with her older brother, humorist and author David Sedaris...
, was a camp spoof of the genre.
In a Monty Python
Monty Python's Flying Circus
Monty Python’s Flying Circus is a BBC TV sketch comedy series. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines...
sketch (Episode 22, "Camp Square-Bashing", repeated in their 1971 film And Now for Something Completely Different), the British Army's 2nd Armoured Division has a Military "Swanning About" Precision Drill unit in which soldiers "camp it up" in unison.
In the British sitcom The Office
The Office (UK TV series)
The Office is a British sitcom television series that was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 9 July 2001. Created, written, and directed by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the programme is about the day-to-day lives of office employees in the Slough branch of the fictitious...
, one of Tim Canterbury's pranks on Gareth Keenan includes a pun on the meaning of the word camp.
The concept of the comicbook superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
(an individual in a highly stylised, outlandish and possibly impractical costume avenging otherwise serious matters such as murder) could be interpreted as camp. However, since it was aimed initially at children, it is camp only in an abstract sense. It was not until the 1960s television version of Batman
Batman (TV series)
Batman is an American television series, based on the DC comic book character of the same name. It stars Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin — two crime-fighting heroes who defend Gotham City. It aired on the American Broadcasting Company network for three seasons from January 12, 1966 to...
(one of the more famous examples of camp in pop culture) that the link was made explicit, with the inherent ridiculousness of the concept exposed as a vehicle for comedy. Ironically, even Batman fell victim to contemporaneous parodies, with the release of Captain Nice
Captain Nice
Captain Nice was a comedy TV series that ran from January–May 1967 on NBC. Riding the tide of the camp superhero craze of the 1960s, the show's premise involved police chemist Carter Nash , a mild-mannered mama's boy who discovered a secret formula that, when taken, transformed him into Captain...
and Mr. Terrific, which layered extra camp onto the overladen superhero concept. The stylized content of Batman may have possibly jump-started television campiness, to circumvent the strict censorship of comics at this time (after Dr. Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham was a Jewish German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of violent imagery in mass media and comic books on the development of children. His best-known book was Seduction of the Innocent , which purported that comic books are...
's essay Seduction of the Innocent
Seduction of the Innocent
Seduction of the Innocent is a book by German-American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, published in 1954, that warned that comic books were a negative form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. The book was a minor bestseller that created alarm in parents and galvanized...
which led to the comics' industry-sponsored Comics Code), as the Batman comic books were very dark and Noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
ish until the 1950s and from the 1970s onwards.
The Channel 4 series Eurotrash
Eurotrash (TV series)
Eurotrash is a 30-minute magazine-format programme in English produced by Rapido Television. It was shown in the United Kingdom on Channel 4 from 1993 and was a late-night comical review of weird and wonderful topics from around the world...
was a television programme produced using the inherent ridiculousness of its subject matter for comedic effect, often using camp dubbing in regional accents and overexaggerated stereotypical characterisations (such as an aristocratic artist based on Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell
Brian Sewell is an English art critic and media personality. He writes for the London Evening Standard and is noted for artistic conservatism and his acerbic view of the Turner Prize and conceptual art...
) to puncture the interviewees' pretence of seriousness. However, an obituary to Lolo Ferrari
Lolo Ferrari
Lolo Ferrari, born Eve Valois , was a French dancer, sex star, pornographic actress, actress and singer billed as "the woman with the largest breasts in the world" though their size was artificially achieved....
was given straight dubbing as a mark of respect at odds with its irreverence. However, the subject matter would have offended many British viewers and fallen foul of OFCOM
Ofcom
Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...
if it was done with any seriousness. Again, this is an example of doing a programme in a camp manner to get around the likelihood of censorship.
The television series Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is a current example of camp, using inspiration from Public-access television
Public-access television
Public-access television is a form of non-commercial mass media where ordinary people can create content television programming which is cablecast through cable TV specialty channels...
productions, early morning infomercial
Infomercial
Infomercials are direct response television commercials which generally include a phone number or website. There are long-form infomercials, which are typically between 15 and 30 minutes in length, and short-form infomercials, which are typically 30 seconds to 120 seconds in length. Infomercials...
s, and the use of celebrity status in telethons and other televised charity appeals.
James and Meowth in the animated Pokemon series are given a campy tone in the English dub, and some fans consider him homosexual from his tendency to cross dress and don the more feminine outfits, even wearing inflatable breasts in one episode (Beauty and the Beach) that was banned in the United States for this reason.
In the Season 8
The Simpsons (season 8)
The Simpsons eighth season originally aired between October 27, 1996 and May 18, 1997, beginning with "Treehouse of Horror VII". The show runners for the eighth production season were Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein. The aired season contained two episodes which were hold-over episodes from season...
episode 'Homer's Phobia'
Homer's Phobia
"Homer's Phobia" is the fifteenth episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on February 16, 1997. In the episode, Homer dissociates himself from new family friend John after discovering that John is gay...
of American animated comedy series The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, gay secondary character John (played by gay director John Waters
John Waters
-Entertainment:*John Waters , American film director, active 1926–29 and 1947*John Waters , American film director, writer, visual artist, actor and cult figure...
) defines to Homer Simpson
Homer Simpson
Homer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
the meaning of the word 'camp' to be tragically ludicrous, or ludicrously tragic: Homer gives a misinterpreted example of 'camp' as 'when a clown dies'.
Film
Movie versions of camp TV shows in recent years have made the camp nature of these shows a running gag throughout the movies.Some classic films noted for their campy tone include:
- John HustonJohn HustonJohn Marcellus Huston was an American film director, screenwriter and actor. He wrote most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered classics: The Maltese Falcon , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , Key Largo , The Asphalt Jungle , The African Queen , Moulin Rouge...
's Beat the DevilBeat the Devil (1953 film)Beat the Devil is a 1953 film directed by John Huston. It was co-authored by Huston and Truman Capote, and loosely based upon a novel of the same name by British journalist and critic Claud Cockburn, writing under the pseudonym James Helvick...
(1953, starring Humphrey BogartHumphrey BogartHumphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
), an exaggerated film noir send-up.. - Filmmaker John WatersJohn Waters (filmmaker)John Samuel Waters, Jr. is an American filmmaker, actor, stand-up comedian, writer, journalist, visual artist, and art collector, who rose to fame in the early 1970s for his transgressive cult films...
' directing a number of camp films such as Pink FlamingosPink FlamingosPink Flamingos is a 1972 transgressive black comedy film written, produced, composed, shot, edited, and directed by John Waters. When the film was initially released, it caused a huge degree of controversy and thus became one of the most notorious cult films ever made. It made an underground star...
, Hairspray, Female TroubleFemale TroubleFemale Trouble is a 1974 dark comedy film co-composed, filmed, co-edited, written, produced, and directed by John Waters starring Divine, David Lochary, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, Michael Potter, Cookie Mueller, and Susan Walsh....
, PolyesterPolyester (film)Polyester is a 1981 comedy film directed, produced, and written by John Waters, and starring Divine, Tab Hunter, Edith Massey, and Mink Stole...
, Desperate LivingDesperate LivingDesperate Living is a 1977 American crime comedy fantasy horror film directed, produced, written, and photographed by Baltimore, Maryland filmmaker John Waters starring Liz Renay, Jean Hill, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, and Mary Vivian Pearce.-Plot:...
, A Dirty ShameA Dirty ShameA Dirty Shame is a 2004 satirical sex comedy written and directed by John Waters, and starring Tracey Ullman, Selma Blair, Johnny Knoxville, Chris Isaak, Suzanne Shepherd, and Mink Stole.-Plot:...
, and Cecil B. DementedCecil B. DementedCecil B. Demented is a 2000 black comedy film written and directed by John Waters. The film stars Melanie Griffith as a snobby A-list Hollywood actress who is kidnapped by a band of terrorist filmmakers who force her to star in their underground film...
. - Filmmaker Todd SolondzTodd SolondzTodd Solondz is an American independent film screenwriter and director known for his style of dark, thought-provoking, socially conscious satire. Solondz has been critically acclaimed for his examination of the "dark underbelly of middle class American suburbia", a reflection of his own background...
uses camp music to illustrate the absurdity and banality of bourgeois, suburban existence. In Solondz's cult filmCult filmA cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
Welcome to the DollhouseWelcome to the DollhouseWelcome to the Dollhouse is a 1995 American independent coming of age dark comedy. An independent film, it launched the careers of Todd Solondz and Heather Matarazzo.-Plot:...
, the eleven-year-old girl protagonist kisses a boy while Deborah GibsonDeborah GibsonDeborah Ann "Debbie" Gibson is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. In 1987 she was pronounced the youngest artist to write, produce, and perform a No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, with her song "Foolish Beat" and she remains the youngest female to write, record, and...
's "Lost in Your Eyes" plays on a Fisher-PriceFisher-PriceFisher-Price is a company that produces toys for infants and children, headquartered in East Aurora, New York. Fisher-Price has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Mattel since 1993.-History:...
tape recorder.
Films such as Valley of the Dolls
Valley of the Dolls (film)
The soundtrack was released in 1967. Dionne Warwick sang the title track; however, her version is not on the soundtrack. Warwick was signed to Scepter Records at the time and could not contractually appear...
, Burlesque
Burlesque (film)
Burlesque is a 2010 musical film directed and written by Steven Antin and starring Christina Aguilera and Cher. The film was released on November 24, 2010 in North America....
, Showgirls
Showgirls
Showgirls is a 1995 American drama film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring former teen actress Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, and Gina Gershon...
and Mommie Dearest
Mommie Dearest (film)
Mommie Dearest is a 1981 American biographical drama film about Joan Crawford, starring Faye Dunaway. The film was directed by Frank Perry. The story was adapted for the screen by Robert Getchell, Tracy Hotchner, Frank Perry, and Frank Yablans, based on the 1978 autobiography of the same name by...
gained camp status primarily due to the filmmakers' attempting to produce a serious film that wound up unintentionally comedic. Award-winning actresses, like Patty Duke
Patty Duke
Anna Marie "Patty" Duke is an American actress of stage, film, and television. First becoming famous as a child star, winning an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress at age 16, and later starring in her eponymous sitcom for three years, she progressed to more mature roles upon playing Neely...
in Dolls and Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway
Faye Dunaway is an American actress.Dunaway won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Network after receiving previous nominations for the critically acclaimed films Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown...
in Dearest, gave such over-the-top performances that the films became camp classics, especially attracting fanfare from gay male audiences.
Educational and industrial films form an entire sub-genre of camp films, with the most famous being the much-spoofed 1950s Duck and Cover
Duck and Cover (film)
Duck and Cover is a civil defense film produced in 1951 by the United States federal government's civil defense branch shortly after the Soviet Union began nuclear testing. Written by Raymond J...
film, in which an anthropomorphic, cartoon turtle explains how one can survive a nuclear attack by hiding under a school desk. Its British counterpart Protect and Survive
Protect and Survive
Protect and Survive was a public information series on civil defence produced by the British government during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was intended to inform British citizens on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack, and consisted of a mixture of pamphlets, radio broadcasts,...
could be seen as kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
, even though it is very chilling to watch (it was never shown on grounds of National security
National security
National security is the requirement to maintain the survival of the state through the use of economic, diplomacy, power projection and political power. The concept developed mostly in the United States of America after World War II...
and would only be broadcast if an attack was deemed likely within 72 hours). Many British Public Information Film
Public information film
Public Information Films are a series of government commissioned short films, shown during television advertising breaks in the UK. The US equivalent is the Public Service Announcement .-Subjects:...
s gained a camp cult following, such as the famous Charley Says
Charley Says
Charley Says was a series of very short cut-out animated cartoon Public Information Films for children, shown in the United Kingdom in the 1970s and 1980s for London's Central Office of Information.-Overview:...
series. Interestingly, Charley's voice is performed by the camp surrealist comedian and Radio DJ Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett was an English comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Born Maurice James Christopher Cole, Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for the Kenny Everett television shows.-Early life:...
, who came from an advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
background as a copywriter.
Some films are intentionally and consciously campy, such as The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is a 1994 Australian comedy-drama film written and directed by Stephan Elliott. The plot is based on the journey of three drag queens who travel across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they have named...
.
In British cinema the archetypal camp film cult is the outrageous long-running, 30-film "Carry On" series. Another cult is built round The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Fashions
Hipster (contemporary subculture)
Hipsters are a subculture of young, recently settled urban middle class adults and older teenagers with musical interests mainly in alternative rock that appeared in the 1990s...
s employing camp styles for the sake of humor. Yard decorations, popular in some parts of suburban and rural America, are examples of kitsch and are sometimes displayed as camp expressions. The classic camp yard ornament is the pink plastic flamingo
Plastic flamingo
Pink plastic flamingos are one of the most famous of lawn ornaments in the United States, along with the garden gnome and other such ornamentation....
. The yard globe
Yard globe
A yard globe, also known as a gazing ball, lawn ball, garden ball, gazing globe, mirror ball, or chrome ball, is a mirrored sphere typically displayed atop a conical ceramic or wrought iron stand as a lawn ornament. Its size ranges from 2 to 22 inches in diameter, with the most popular gazing...
, garden gnome
Garden gnome
A garden gnome or lawn gnome is a figurine of a small humanoid creature, usually wearing a pointy hat, produced for the purpose of ornamentation and protection from evil sorcery, typically of gardens or on lawns....
, wooden cut-out of a fat lady bending over, the statue of a small black man holding a lantern (called a lawn jockey
Lawn jockey
A lawn jockey is a small statue of a man in jockey clothes, intended to be placed in yards. Most today are white jockeys, but historically black jockeys were commonplace...
) and ceramic statues of white-tailed deer
White-tailed Deer
The white-tailed deer , also known as the Virginia deer or simply as the whitetail, is a medium-sized deer native to the United States , Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru...
are also prevalent camp lawn decorations.
The Carvel
Carvel
Carvel is an ice cream franchise owned by Focus Brands. Carvel is best known for their soft serve ice cream and ice cream cakes, which feature a layer of distinctive 'crunchies'. It also sells a variety of novelty ice cream bars and ice cream sandwiches....
chain of soft-serve ice cream stores is famous for its camp style, camp low-budget TV commercials and camp ice-cream cakes such as Cookie Puss
Cookie Puss
Cookie Puss is an ice cream cake character created by Carvel in the 1970s as an expansion of its line of freshly made products sold only in its stores, along with Hug-Me Bear and Fudgie the Whale...
and Fudgie The Whale
Fudgie The Whale
Fudgie the Whale is a type of ice cream cake produced and sold by Carvel in its franchise stores. It was developed by Carvel in the 1970s as an expansion of its line of freshly made products, along with Hug-Me Bear and Cookie Puss.-Development:...
.
Distinguishing between Kitsch and Camp
The words "camp" and "kitschKitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
" are often used interchangeably; both may relate to art, literature, music, or any object that carries an aesthetic value. However, "kitsch" refers specifically to the work itself, whereas "camp" is a mode of performance. Thus, a person may consume kitsch intentionally or unintentionally. Camp, however, as Susan Sontag observed, is always a way of consuming or performing culture "in quotation marks."
However, Sontag also distinguishes the difference between "naive" and "deliberate" camp. Kitsch, as a form or style, certainly falls under the category "naive camp" as it unaware that it is tasteless, "deliberate camp", on the other hand, can be seen as a subversive form of kitsch which deliberately exploits the whole notions of what it is to be kitsch (Sontag, 1964).
International Aspects
In the U.K., on the other hand, camp is an adjective, often associated with a stereotypical view of feminine
Femininity
Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
gay men. Although it applies to gay men, it is a specific adjective used to describe a man that openly promotes the fact that he is gay by being outwardly garish or eccentric, for example, the character Daffyd Thomas in the English comedy skit show Little Britain
Little Britain
Little Britain is a British character-based comedy sketch show which was first broadcast on BBC radio and then turned into a television show. It was written by comic duo David Walliams and Matt Lucas...
. "Camp" forms a strong element in U.K. culture, and many so-called gay-icons and objects are chosen as such because they are camp. People like Kylie Minogue
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue, OBE - often known simply as Kylie - is an Australian singer, recording artist, songwriter, and actress. After beginning her career as a child actress on Australian television, she achieved recognition through her role in the television soap opera Neighbours, before commencing...
, John Inman
John Inman
Frederick John Inman was an English actor best known for his role as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?, a British sitcom in the 1970s and 1980s. Inman was also well known in the United Kingdom as a pantomime dame....
, Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen, Lulu
Lulu (singer)
Lulu Kennedy-Cairns, OBE , best known by her stage name Lulu, is a Scottish singer, actress, and television personality who has been successful in the entertainment business from the 1960s through to the present day...
, Graham Norton
Graham Norton
Graham William Walker, known by his stage name Graham Norton , is an Irish actor, comedian, television presenter and columnist...
, Mika
Mika (singer)
Mika is a British singer-songwriter.After recording his first extended play, Dodgy Holiday EP, Mika released his first full-length studio album, Life in Cartoon Motion, on Island Records in 2007. Life in Cartoon Motion sold more than 5.6 million copies worldwide and helped Mika win a Brit...
, Lesley Joseph
Lesley Joseph
Lesley D Joseph is an English actress and broadcaster.-Life and career:Joseph was born in Northampton. She is best known for starring in the BBC sitcom Birds of a Feather from 1989–1998, in which she played Dorien Green, the Jewish next-door neighbour of the main characters Sharon and Tracy...
, Ruby Wax
Ruby Wax
Ruby Wax is a BAFTA nominated American comedian who made a career in the United Kingdom as part of the alternative comedy scene in the 1980s.-Early life:...
, Dale Winton
Dale Winton
Dale Winton is an English radio DJ and television presenter.-Early life:Winton's father, Gary, was "domineering" and died when Winton was 13. Winton was brought up by his mother, actress Sheree Winton...
, Cilla Black
Cilla Black
Cilla Black OBE is an English singer, actress, entertainer and media personality, who has been consistently popular as a light entertainment figure since 1963. She is most famous for her singles Anyone Who Had A Heart, You're My World, and Alfie...
, and the music hall
Music hall
Music Hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment which was popular between 1850 and 1960. The term can refer to:# A particular form of variety entertainment involving a mixture of popular song, comedy and speciality acts...
tradition of the pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
are camp elements in popular culture.
The Australian theatre and opera director Barrie Kosky
Barrie Kosky
Barrie KoskyBarrie Kosky's name is sometimes misspelled as Barry Kosky, Barrie Koski, Barrie Koskie. is an Australian theatre and opera director.Kosky also plays the piano, as he did in his production of Monteverdi's Poppea...
is renowned for his use of camp in interpreting the works of the Western canon
Western canon
The term Western canon denotes a canon of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. As such, it includes the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the...
including Shakespeare, Wagner, Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, Seneca
Seneca the Younger
Lucius Annaeus Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and in one work humorist, of the Silver Age of Latin literature. He was tutor and later advisor to emperor Nero...
, Kafka and most recently – on 9 September 2006 – his 8 hour production for the Sydney Theatre Company "The Lost Echo" based on Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's Metamorphoses and Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
' The Bacchae. In the first act (The Song of Phaeton), for instance, the goddess Juno takes the form of a highly stylised Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
and the musical arrangements feature Noel Coward
Noël Coward
Sir Noël Peirce Coward was an English playwright, composer, director, actor and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what Time magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise".Born in Teddington, a suburb of London, Coward attended a dance academy...
and Cole Porter
Cole Porter
Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
. Kosky's use of camp is also effectively employed to satirise the pretensions, manners and cultural vacuity of Australia's suburban middle class, which is suggestive of the style of Dame Edna Everage
Dame Edna Everage
Dame Edna is a character created and played by Australian dadaist performer and comedian, Barry Humphries, famous for her lilac-coloured or "wisteria hue" hair and cat eye glasses or "face furniture," her favorite flower, the gladiola and her boisterous greeting: "Hello Possums!" As Dame Edna,...
. For example, in "The Lost Echo" Kosky employs a chorus of high-school girls and boys: one girl in the Chorus takes leave from the Goddess Diana and begins to rehearse a dance routine, muttering to herself in a broad Australian accent "Mum says I have to practise if I want to be on "Australian Idol".
Lately, in Europe, the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...
, an annually televised competition of song performers from different countries, has shown an increased element of camp in their stage performances, at least during the televised finale, which is screened live across Europe. Many of the performers therein are strongly influenced by American-school camp artists. As it is a visual show, many Eurovision performances attempt to attract the attention of the voters through means other than the music, which sometimes leads to bizarre onstage gimmicks and what some critics have called "the Eurovision kitsch drive", with almost cartoonish novelty acts performing.
Literature
The first post-World War II use of the word in print, marginally mentioned in the Sontag essay, may be Christopher IsherwoodChristopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an English-American novelist.-Early life and work:Born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire in North West England, Isherwood spent his childhood in various towns where his father, a Lieutenant-Colonel in the British Army, was stationed...
's 1954 novel The World in the Evening, where he comments: "You can't camp about something you don't take seriously. You're not making fun of it; you're making fun out of it. You're expressing what's basically serious to you in terms of fun and artifice and elegance." In American writer Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag was an American author, literary theorist, feminist and political activist whose works include On Photography and Against Interpretation.-Life:...
's 1964 essay "Notes on 'Camp'", Sontag emphasised artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness and shocking excess as key elements of camp. Examples cited by Sontag included Tiffany lamp
Tiffany lamp
A Tiffany lamp is a type of lamp with many different types of glass shade. The most famous was the stained leaded glass lamp. Tiffany lamps are considered part of the Art Nouveau movement.- History :...
s, the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Vincent Beardsley was an English illustrator and author. His drawings, done in black ink and influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic. He was a leading figure in the Aesthetic movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A....
, Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
and Japanese science fiction films such as Rodan
Rodan (film)
Rodan, released in Japan as , is a 1956 Kaiju film produced by Toho Studios. It was the studio's first Kaiju movie filmed in color...
, and The Mysterians
The Mysterians
The Mysterians, released in Japan as , is a tokusatsu science fiction film produced and released by Toho Studios in 1957. It was directed by the "Golden Duo" of Ishirō Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya . It is notable for being the first tokusatsu filmed in TohoScope and the first Toho film to use...
of the 1950s.
In Mark Booth's 1983 book Camp he defines camp as "to present oneself as being committed to the marginal with a commitment greater than the marginal merits." He discerns carefully between genuine camp and camp fads and fancies, things that are not intrinsically camp, but display artificiality, stylisation, theatricality, naivety, sexual ambiguity, tackiness, poor taste, stylishness, or portray camp people and thus appeal to them. He considers Susan Sontag's definition problematical because it lacks this distinction.
Analysis
As a cultural challenge, camp can also receive a political meaning, when minorities appropriate and ridicule the images of the dominant group, the kind of activism associated with multiculturalismMulticulturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
and the New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
. The best known instance of this is the gay liberation
Gay Liberation
Gay liberation is the name used to describe the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender movement of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s in North America, Western Europe, and Australia and New Zealand...
movement, which used camp to confront society with its own preconceptions and their historicity. The first positive portrayal of a gay secret agent in fiction appears in a series, The Man from C.A.M.P.
The Man from C.A.M.P.
The Man from C.A.M.P. is a series of ten gay pulp fiction novels published under the pseudonym of Don Holliday. The original nine were written by Victor J. Banis between 1966 and 1968; a tenth by an uncertain author appeared in 1971. The series first emerged during a period when gay paperback...
in which the protagonist is, paradoxically, effeminate yet physically tough. Female camp actresses such as Mae West
Mae West
Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich
Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...
, Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
, Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
, Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
, and Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
also had an important influence on the development of feminist consciousness: by exaggerating certain stereotyped features of femininity, such as fragility, open emotionality or moodiness, they attempted to undermine the credibility of those preconceptions. The multiculturalist stance in cultural studies therefore presents camp as political and critical.
The Frankfurt School academic Theodor Adorno condemned pop culture as an instrument of capitalist oppression, with camp being part of the system. Camp, according to Frankfurt School theory, engenders unthinking consumerism.
Camp often faces criticism from other political and aesthetic perspectives. For example, the most obvious argument is that camp is just an excuse for poor quality work and allows the tacky and vulgar to be recognised as valid art. In doing so, camp celebrates the trivial and superficial and form over content. This could be called the "yuck factor".
Camp-style performances may allow certain prejudices to be perpetuated by thinly veiling them as irony. Some feminist critics argue that drag queens are misogynistic because they make women seem ridiculous and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. This criticism posits that drag queens are the gay equivalent of the black and white minstrel. Some critics claim that camp comedians like Larry Grayson
Larry Grayson
Larry Grayson , born William Sulley White, was an English stand-up comedian and television presenter of the 1970s and early 80s...
, Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett was an English comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Born Maurice James Christopher Cole, Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for the Kenny Everett television shows.-Early life:...
, Duncan Norvelle
Duncan Norvelle
Duncan Norvelle is a comedian in the variety tradition who appeared on television from the early and mid-1980s. He is probably most famous for his catch phrase "Chase Me!", leading to him often being referred to as Duncan "Chase Me" Norvelle...
and Julian Clary
Julian Clary
Julian Peter McDonald Clary is an English comedian and novelist, known for his deliberately stereotypical camp style, with a heavy reliance on innuendo and double entendre.-Early life and education:...
perpetuate gay stereotypes and pander to homophobia.
As a part of its adoption by the mainstream, camp has undergone a softening of its original subversive tone, and is often little more than the recognition that popular culture can also be enjoyed by a sophisticated sensibility. Mainstream comic books and B Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
s, for example, have become standard subjects for academic analysis. The normalisation of the outrageous, common to many Vanguardist
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
movements—has led some critics to argue the notion has lost its usefulness for critical art discourse.
Further reading
- Core, Philip (1984/1994). CAMP, The Lie That Tells the Truth, foreword by George Melly. London: Plexus Publishing Limited. ISBN 0-85965-044-8
- Cleto, Fabio, editor (1999). Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-06722-2.
- Padva, Gilad (2008). "Educating The Simpsons: Teaching Queer Representations in Contemporary Visual Media". Journal of LGBT Youth 5(3), 57–73.
- Padva, Gilad and Talmon, Miri (2008). "Gotta Have An Effeminate Heart: The Politics of Effeminacy and Sissyness in a Nostalgic Israeli TV Musical". Feminist Media Studies 8(1), 69–84.
- Padva, Gilad (2005). "Radical Sissies and Stereotyped Fairies in Laurie Lynd's The Fairy Who Didn’t Want To Be A Fairy Anymore". Cinema Journal 45(1), 66–78.
- Padva, Gilad (2000). "Priscilla Fights Back: The Politicization of Camp Subculture". Journal of Communication Inquiry 24(2), 216–243.
- Meyer, Moe, editor (1993). The Politics and Poetics of Camp. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-08248-X.
- Sontag, Susan (1964). "Notes on Camp" in Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Farrer Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0-312-28086-6.
Sources
- Babuscio, Jack. 1993. "Camp and the Gay Sensibility." In Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality. Ed David Bergman. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P. 19-38. ISBN 978-0870238789.
- Feil, Ken. 2005. "Queer Comedy." In Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide. Ed. Maurice Charney. Vol. 2. Westport, CN: Praeger. 477-492. ISBN 978-0313327155.
- Levine, Martin P. 1998. Gay Macho. New York: New York UP. ISBN 0-8147-4694-2.
- Meyer, Moe, ed. 1994. The Politics and Poetics of Camp. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415082488.
- Morrill, Cynthia. 1994. "Revamping the Gay Sensibility: Queer Camp and dyke noir." In Meyer (1994, 110-129).
- Shugart, Helene A., and Catherine Egley Waggoner. 2008. Making Camp: Rhetorics of Transgression in U.S. Popular Culture. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P. ISBN 978-0817356521.
- Van Leer, David. 1995. The Queening of America: Gay Culture in Straight Society. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0415903363.
External links
- Why I hate 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy': And how camp became outdated by Johann HariJohann HariJohann Hari is an award winning British journalist who has been a columnist at The Independent, the The Huffington Post, and contributed to several other publications. In 2011, Hari was accused of plagiarism; he subsequently was suspended from The Independent and surrendered his 2008 Orwell Prize...
- The dark side of camp – analysis of camp style and society by Gareth CookGareth CookGareth Cook is an American journalist and editor. He was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for “explaining, with clarity and humanity, the complex scientific and ethical dimensions of stem cell research.” Cook is currently a Sunday columnist at the Boston Globe, and is also the editor of ,...