What is Camp?

[Michael]

From davidhare on Boom! thread:

As a homosexual I have a very strong aversion to the subject, preferring to view such artefacts as a form of shrieky "artifice", and camp to me has always been a symptom of self-denying/self hating homophobia. Certainly not Sontagian. I think it's totally a straight concept.

An eye opener for me. I think it makes a very interesting topic so I decided to start a new thread. I never really thought of camp as a symptom of "self-denying/self hating homophobia". As we all know that Mommie Dearest is the queen of all camp movies, gay men adopt this movie since it came out. Child abuse is no laughing matter but gay men laugh at the child abuse scenes in the movie. Why? Many straight friends ask me this and I always find myself struggling to explain to them. Saying that it's campy is not going to help them understand anything. Maybe I don't really understand it myself but yet I still laugh at Faye Dunaway beating her daughter with a wire hanger, then collapsing on the bathroom floor like a defeated sumo wrestler. The scene when Faye steps in the shower with a bunch of shower heads spurting water all over her, water "melting" her perfect hairdo as she waits for her man, gay men roar at that scene. Straight folks most likely think "what's so funny?".

How is this a straight concept?

[Lino]

What's funny about it is that Dunaway might be the first woman to be captured on film doing a complete drag-queen show from beginning to sorrowful end. And she is enjoying it immensely and is never afraid of going over-the-top. Like Adam and the Ants sang: "Ridicule is nothing to be scared of" and she certainly understands that to a "T". That's why it's so funny.

But Lord forbid me of knowing what's camp and what's not. I only know what I do like to see on the screen and if that involves women going mad with tantrums or men going bonkers in wigs, I don't care as long as it makes me laugh. Actually, an interviewee on the Valley of the Dolls DVD makes a good definition of what's camp: he says it's when someone is trying so hard to play it serious that you can't help laughing. That's the best kind of camp, according to him.

And you mustn't forget that what is camp for me may be not so for you. As an example, I showed the aforementioned DVD to a tranny friend of mine in hoping that she'd enjoy it. It turned out that she found the story deadly serious and whilst she could see why people would laugh at it, she felt kind of sorry that they did! And that could be said of a lot of films too. I think it goes down to the culture of each country.

For instance, if anyone asks which is the campiest movie around, I'd say without hesitation, Myra Breckinridge (and this one even has a message to boot!) but is it campy because the gay community has taken it to their hearts or is it campy because of its inherent story and values? For me, this is a much more important question to be asked than the mere definition of "camp".

[Michael]

Lino, we're on the same wavelength. But I'm utterly intrigued by davidhare's perspective of camp and I can't wait to read more about this from him. A symptom of homophobia? Straight concept? Damn, I'd fly to Australia just to have a wine chat with him.

[Rich Malloy]

An interesting question, and I've never really considered the "self-loathing" aspect (as a hetero influenced by gay fashion/culture).

In terms of acceptable aesthetic devices, I've always distinguished "camp" from "kitsch" - two concepts that often seem conflated together - considering the former to be an essentially harmless celebration of self-ridicule (sufficiently self-aware and reflexive, ironically distanced, and all that) but condemning the latter as a purely reactionary aesthestic, however candy-coated. Kitsch and sentimentalism are always suspect in my mind, stalking horses for a retrograde mentality and morality, and cheap modalities utilized (often unconsciously) to make virtuous the complacent provincialism of a less enlightened time.

I've never quite understood the appeal of "Mommie Dearest" to anyone, though I feel a bit guilty at the moment for having enjoyed certain drag queen revues in P-Town, that seem to truck in much the same campy dramatics and fashion as that film (though without the childhood trauma).

[Lino]

Re: davidhare's comment -- Maybe he's just tired of labels. Maybe he just had enough homophobia thrown at him that he can't even stand when straight people are being totally PC to not be labeled homophobics. Maybe he's just (too!) old, who knows? Just kidding of course, but I am also interested in hearing his thoughts.

But from what I've been reading on this forum, I think he is indeed a bit tired of caricature-ish portrayals of gay people on the screen (Donen's Staircase comes to mind). And come to think of it, so am I but I still have a long way to go until I can't stand that sort of thing no more. In other words, I'm still (very!) young!

[starmanof51]

Actually, an interviewee on the Valley of the Dolls DVD makes a good definition of what's camp: he says it's when someone is trying so hard to play it serious that you can't help laughing. That's the best kind of camp, according to him.

I'm completely down with that. Although that could be read to imply it's only within the actor's control to be campy (trying too hard), when directors, screenwriters, composers, etc., are all capable of getting their 2 overwrought cents in. I think this covers Michael's example of why Joan terrorizing her children is funny (and you're right Michael, it's hysterical! I'm straight and find Mommie Dearest a riot from beginning to end).

Lots of melodrama automatically falls in this category. So all that 50s-60s Delmer Daves stuff is camp for me, most of the beloved Universal Sirk output is camp for me. Jon Pertwee playing Doctor Who. Reflections In A Golden Eye, currently getting a workout in another thread, is my Holy Grail of camp for this same sort of portentous quality. Second place is about a six-way tie between a bunch of other Liz Taylor vehicles - really, Liz is the patron saint of camp.

Your Valley of the Dolls source is also a good explanation of why the Adam West Batman show, perhaps the one thing most universally labeled camp - isn't. It's just funny.

[Lino]

Liz really is the patron saint of camp. And the Godmother of all trannies and faghags the world around.

Evidences? Well, she played in not one but two Tennesse Williams vehicles (one, with Monty Clift playing a straight doctor in a gay sub-text story - Suddenly Last Summer; and the other, with Paul Newman playing a sort of on the fence character, if you know what I mean - Cat on a hot tin roof); then, she even starred in a movie opposite Rock Hudson and James Dean - The Giant; later, she went on to star in other sexually devious and well, campy (for the lack of a better word) stories: the above-mentioned Reflections in a Golden Eye (playing opposite Marlon Brando, another actor with an on the fence attitude in real life and yes, you guessed it, playing a closeted gay in this one!) and Boom! (from yet another play by trusted Tennessee Williams and with Noel Coward in it too? Oh, Liz -- you spoil us! And you even brought your hubbie with ya'!).

Later still in her life, she took care of young Michael. The Jackson one, that is. And although his marriage with Ms Presley was a sham, it's better if we skip this subject altogether. That is, until he dies and someone makes a movie about him telling all the sordid truth and we can bitch all about it on this forum. What kind of a movie can you make about him, do you ask? A campy one, of course!

[Michael]

Liz was Divine's role model. If you can find the first pic of Divine in drag (that was when he was in high school), then you will see Liz was on his mind.

[Lino]

Forget Divine! And I love him, mind. Liz was the perfect human being for me when I first saw her in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in my early teens! I thought she looked like the most beautiful woman in the world! And I still get a kick out of seeing her in old movies. That woman had power!

But enough of campy antics! Back to topic, guys!

[Anonymous]

There is no single definition of Camp. A lot of people say Susan Sontag defined it in her famous essay, but she only defined it for herself. She says KING KONG is camp and I don't agree with that.

What's camp and what's not cannot be "officially" put down. I don't agree with starmanof51 at all, because for me the Douglas Sirk movies are not camp at all. I take them very seriously. Also, camp shouldn't be confused with trash. While good trash movies are so bad they're good, camp has nothing to do with that. Camp - at least for me - is a feeling, an atmosphere. For me Warhol's MARIO BANANA is camp while CHELSEA GIRLS is not. Jack Smith made a career out of camp (although career is the wrong word because he died in squalor). Camp is subjective, as all art is. And I actually view camp as a kind of art. It's really impossible to pin down. That's what makes it fascinating.

[bufordsharkley]

...I'm more or less indifferent to camp. Most of the examples, I don't see the appeal.

It's true that some movies, I appreciate for reasons other than their artistry-- (Ed Wood is great; I wouldn't call it "camp," though. It's just a fascinating experience, watching so many bad choices being made.) Other movies are watchable, though bordering on drivel-- The Manster, for instance.

And while some "camp" films are among, such as Beat the Devil, it's not because of their camp qualities. (Beat the Devil strikes me as a just very solid and very weird comedy-- something at the intersection of Ealing and Orson Welles, almost.) I enjoy seeing unnatural and over-the-top acting, at times. But I consider it a conscious comedic choice, most of the time, and not this after-the-fact reevaluation that "camp" entails.

If something's called camp, it's saying that it fails at art. And that's what really cheeses me off, and wishes the whole "camp" thing would self-immolate or something. When a beautiful, earnest movie, such as Sirk's masterpieces, or one of the other countless movies slurred with the "camp" label (Wellman's Battleground may be one of the egregious examples), it's a crying shame.

[starmanof51]

-- something at the intersection of Ealing and Orson Welles, almost.

Now that's an intersection!

[Anonymous]

I agree that Ed Wood's films are great, but they are trash, not camp (in my opinion). Wood actually made bad films, like Oscar Micheaux. They show no expertise in craftsmanship, yet entertain in their trashy ways. Jack Smith, John Waters and some other examples made well-crafted films with an atmosphere that was intentionally camp (even though they certainly didn't have that exact word in mind when they made the films). I would never consider camp to be failed art. Smith and Waters always succeeded with their art, yet they made camp art. FLAMING CREATURES is a masterpiece in every way, yet has a camp aesthetic. The same for FEMALE TROUBLE.

Now unintentional camp is something else. MOMMIE DEAREST would be a fine example. But again, thinking in such criterias is ridiculous. When I view camp from my perspective, I really have to say that I love and live camp. It functions perfectly with my artistic sensibilities. I love both intentional camp and unintentional. BOOM! is one of my favorite films of all time, as is FLAMING CREATURES.

[David Ehrenstein]

Camp is in no way a straight concept. Dismissal of gay artists on the grounds that they're camp most definitely is one. John Simon wrote off Robert Wilson thitry years ago as a mere camp poseur, though Wilson's taste has little to do with camp outside of his admiration for Jack Smith.

Back when it was a fully fundtioning phenom (see James McCourt's Queer Street for all the juicy details) camp was gay lingua franca that funtioned by never being named as such. To come right out and declare something camp was crossing the line (though Isherwood gave it ago in The World in the Evening ) One loved Maria Montez of Ronald Firbank or Ivy Compton-Burnett because they were "divine." And that was that.

Then along came that noxious killjoy Susan Sontag -- with notes cribbed from Elliot Stein and Alfred Chester -- to spoil everything. Needless to say she had no idea of what she was talking about. McCourt tells me that when Esquire called her "The Natalie Wood of the avant-garde" she burst into tears. It took everything in his considerable powers to calm her down and explain that they were making a compliment!.

[Michael]

The last real camp I remember enjoying is things like the old Charles Ludlum Ridiculous Theatrical Company productions of Camille, Stage Blood, Irma Vep and more during the 80s and early 90s. (Ludlum of course is dead and the company is now effectively a memory.)

Oh Ludlam! I performed as Lord Edgar in Irma Vep for a year run in the early 90s. One of the best times of my life. Anyway, take a look at this.

[David Ehrenstein]

Yes - she also calls the Sternberg Dietrich pictures for camp! (She was trying but got that one wrong too.)

No she's absolutely right. One of the most perfect camp moments in Sternberg can be found in The Devil is a Woman. Atwill is pouring out his love for Dietrich who's busy arranging a spit-curl while staring at herself rapturously in the mirror. "Just a minute and I'll give you a kiss," she says.

Sirk is camp too, but in a different, far more serious, mode.

Briefly there are three forms of camp:

Unconscious: Maria Montez, Valley of the Dolls, Carry On

Conscious: Charles Ludlam, Noel Coward, Joe Orton.

Serious: Wilde, Firbank, Ken Russell, Derek Jarman.

[Anonymous]

I really don't see any hint of camp in Douglas Sirk. For me his most brilliant films are intimate portraits of the human condition and subversive satires of society. He perfectly mixed all kinds of themes into his films and thus created both melodramas and essays.

A camp melodrama that is highly influenced by Sirk is Waters' delightful POLYESTER with Divine in his most tender role. Now that is intentional camp, while Sirk is not.

[David Ehrenstein]

Certainly Rock's dialogue with Jane in All that Heaven Allows about being a "man" is a knowing code from director and actor which only gay audiences would have picked up at the time.

What about the film's target audience -- suburban fag-hags longing to marry gay men? There were tons of them then as now.

In the wonderful autobiography Sternberg seems almost too guarded about any hint of bisexuality.

Almost as guarded as Paul Bowles in his autobiography Without Stopping, which Burroughs said "should have been called Without Telling."

His only cryptic reference to the subject is his description of Eisenstein's gay porno skectches done during the shoot of Que Viva Mexical as "only possibly being seen by a very understanding audience."

A camp statement if there ever was one.

The color sequence of Ivan the Terrible Part Two is great camp.

[starmanof51]

I really don't see any hint of camp in Douglas Sirk. For me his most brilliant films are intimate portraits of the human condition and subversive satires of society. He perfectly mixed all kinds of themes into his films and thus created both melodramas and essays.

A camp melodrama that is highly influenced by Sirk is Waters' delightful POLYESTER with Divine in his most tender role. Now that is intentional camp, while Sirk is not.

What about Magnificent Obsession? What did cartoon John Waters say in The Simpsons? - that camp is the ludicrously tragic and the tragically ludicrous? Isn't Magnificent Obsession both?

[David Ehrenstein]

Chuck Walters is very campy. Look at Joan McCracken checking out the butts of the chorus boys in the opening number of Good News.

He is of course a historical figure in that he not only directed Easter Parade and personally choreographed "A Couple of Swells," he performed it with her onstage at the Palace. (Later Paul Sand took over that role, touring with Garland.)

Judy adored him. he danced the "Embraceable You" number with her in Girl Crazy and partnered her in the Minnelli-directed finale of Presenting Lily Mars.

When he shot the "Freindly Star" number in Summer Stock -- which ends with a big fat close-up -- he yelled out "Somebody throw me a towel, I've just come!"

"A Great Lady Has An Interview" in Ziegfeld Follies is a masterpiece of camp. Once when I saw it at theTheater 80 St. Marks, a guy sitting necxt to me turned to his friend as the number began and said "And now the National Anthem!"

[Guest]

What about Magnificent Obsession? What did cartoon John Waters say in The Simpsons? - that camp is the ludicrously tragic and the tragically ludicrous? Isn't Magnificent Obsession both?

Well see, it depends on one's personal definition of camp yet again. If you define camp as Waters did in the Simpson episode, then maybe you're right about MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (although not all of Sirk's films).

[Lemmy Caution]

I've always thought there were two strains: intentional camp (such as Adam West in Batman, delivering the most ludicruous of material in an especially earnest manner), and unintentional camp (say, Liz), which is often only deduced by a later audience after tastes, acting styles or perceptions have changed.

William Shatner always struck me as an interesting case, because he blurred the line between intentional/unintentional so much. Check out his version of Rocket Man. Is he in on the joke, or is he the joke?

Anyway, I just dropped in this thread to mention that Van Smith passed on. Was the costume and makeup designer for John Waters (and Divine).

[Anonymous]

Rest in Peace Van Smith. Truly a great designer for Waters, from PINK FLAMINGOS up to A DIRTY SHAME.

Well Queen Liz (Taylor), Maria Montez, Noel Coward, Tura Satana, Judy Garland were all unintentional camp. I love them for it.

[Tom Peeping]

Each and every scene of the too rare Sylvia Lopez qualifies as camp. Her teaming with Steeve Reeves in Hercules Unchained is the icing on the cake (especially the one scene where she grabs his right leg and looks straight into the camera with moist lips and glycerine tears).

Maria Montez and Sylvia Lopez are both buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris, a couple of blocks from where I live. I never miss a chance to go pay my tribute to those two queens of camp. Strangely enough, the tomb of Susan Sontag is exactly at mid-distance between theirs.

[domino harvey]

asked and answered