Sontag and the Camp Aesthetic: Advancing New Perspectives

269 Pages·2017·1.43 MB·English

by  Bruce E. Drushel

Sontag and the Camp Aesthetic
Media, Culture, and the Arts
SeriesEditor:TheresaCarilliandJaneCampbell,bothPurdueUniversityNorthwest
Media, Culture, andtheArts explorestheways culturalexpression takes shape through
themediaorarts.Theseriesinitiatesadialogueaboutmediaandartisticrepresentations
and how such representations identify the status of a particular culture or community.
Supporting the principles of feminism and humanitarianism, the series contributes to a
dialogueaboutmedia,culture,andthearts.
TitlesintheSeries
SontagandtheCampAesthetic:AdvancingNewPerspectives,editedbyBruceE.Drushel
andBrianM.Peters
Sontag and the Camp Aesthetic
Advancing New Perspectives
Edited by Bruce E. Drushel and
Brian M. Peters
LEXINGTONBOOKS
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Copyright©2017byLexingtonBooks
“Noteson‘Camp’”fromAGAINSTINTERPRETATIONbySusanSontag.Copyright©
1964,1966,renewed1994bySusanSontag.ReprintedbypermissionofFarrar,Straus
andGiroux,LLC.
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorbyany
electronicormechanicalmeans,includinginformationstorageandretrievalsystems,
withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptbyareviewerwhomayquote
passagesinareview.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationInformationAvailable
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationDataAvailable
ISBN:978-1-4985-3776-6(cloth:alk.paper)
ISBN:978-1-4985-3777-3(electronic)
TMThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsofAmerican
NationalStandardforInformationSciencesPermanenceofPaperforPrintedLibrary
Materials,ANSI/NISOZ39.48-1992.
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
Contents
Introduction:SomeNoteson“Notes” vii
BrianM.PetersandBruceE.Drushel
I:CampinLiterature 1
1 VoyagetoCampLesbos:PulpFictionandtheShameful
Lesbian“Sicko” 3
BarbaraJaneBrickman
2 QueerIdeologyintheNovelsofJoeKeenan 29
RobertKellerman
II:CampandCelebrity 45
3 AuthenticArtifice:DollyParton’sNegotiationsofSontag’s
Camp 47
EmilyDeeringCrosbyandHannahLynn
4 DivaWorshipasaQueerPoeticsofWasteinD.Gilson’s
BritLit 63
ChrisPhilpot
5 CampingintheCloset:SusanSontagandtheConstruction
oftheCelebrityPersona 77
TimCusack
III:CamponTelevision 91
6 ViciousCamp:Performance,Artifice,andIncongruity 93
BruceE.Drushel
7 “ExcuseMyBeauty!”:CampReferencingandMemory
ActivationonRuPaul’sDragRace 111
CarlSchottmiller
IV:CampandPlace 131
8 EverythingIsBiggerinTexas:CampandtheQueerly
NormalinGreaterTuna 133
ElizabethM.Melton
9 “I’sGottoGetMeSomeEducation!”:ClassandtheCamp-
HorrorNexusinHouseof1000Corpses 151
OliviaOliver-Hopkins
v
vi Contents
V:CampandAesthetics 169
10 BatmanandtheAestheticsofCamp 171
LaurenLevitt
11 PrisonCamp:AestheticStyleasSocialPracticeinOrangeIs
theNewBlack 189
ThomasPiontek
12 Camp,Androgyny,and1990:ThePost-GenderedSpacesof
Vogue 203
BrianM.Peters
13 PrettyIsNotEnough:NotesforaGrotesqueCamp 223
MichaelV.Perez
Index 243
AbouttheEditorsandContributors 249
Introduction
Some Notes on “Notes”
Brian M. Peters and Bruce E. Drushel
CanitreallybejustfiftyyearssinceSusanSontaglegitimizedtheanalysis
ofcampinher landmark1964essay, “Noteson‘Camp’?”Itisdifficultto
imageatimewhenatext,aperformance,oramomentcouldbedescribed
as“campy”and asizablenumbernotunderstandthesignificanceofthe
labeling.Butcamphasofcoursebeenwithusforaverylongtime,foras
long as over-the-top theatricality and irony have been used as commen-
taryandspectators weretheretograspitsmeaning.Broadawarenessof
that fact owes in great measure to Sontag’s writings. It’s time we were
caughtup.
Sontag, of course, invented neither the term nor the concept it de-
scribes; for that we are indebted to the French, whose verb se camper
means“toposeinanexaggeratedfashion.”Asaformofcodedlanguage,
camp is thought to have originated in the late nineteenth century as a
specificallyhomosexualMasonicgestureusedforcommunicatingpublic-
lyaboutone’spersonalorsexuallifewithoutfearofretribution(Bronski
1984, 43; Core 1999, 9). Forced to mask their gay identities while in
heteronormative places, queers developed a coded language that gave
commonwordsasecondmeaningonlytheycouldrecognize(Chauncey
1994, 286). The Oxford English Dictionary traces camp’s currently under-
stood meaning to 1909, where it appears as “ostentatious, exaggerated,
affected, theatrical; effeminate or homosexual; pertaining to, characteris-
ticof,homosexuals.”
If, as many have argued, camp is a reaction to both the excesses of
consumercultureandtoqueers’(andparticularlygaymen’s)frustrations
with their marginalization by the dominant order, the proliferation of
campintheearlyandmid-twentiethcenturyshouldcomeasnosurprise,
coinciding as it did with the burgeoning consumer economy following
World War I and the increasing visibility of, and backlash against, gay
men with the post–World War II growth in the visibility of LGBTQ cul-
ture,publicationofAlfredKinsey’sSexualBehaviorandtheAmericanMale
(1948), and the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s that targeted
gaysaswell.
vii
viii Introduction
Thegrowthofcamplikelywasnotlinear.DesigncriticThomasHine
(1986)effectivelydesignatedthedecade1954and1964tobethecampiest
decadeinAmericanhistoryinhisbookPopuluxe—atermhecreatedthat
fuses “popular” with “luxury.” He describes the great spending spree
fueled by economic boom years in the United States and attributes the
proliferation of camp to a period in post-war U.S. history when consu-
mershadanexcessofspendingability,wantedtoacquirestylishposses-
sions, but also wanted to demonstrate their wealth. Sadly, they often
lackedthetastetoknowonwhattheyshouldbespending.Ironically,the
decadeonwhichHinefocusesisbookendedbyChristopherIsherwood’s
novelTheWorldintheEvening(1954),famousfortheauthor’sobservation
that, “You can't camp about something you don't take seriously. You're
notmakingfunofit;you'remakingfunoutofit.You'reexpressingwhat's
basicallyserioustoyouintermsoffunandartificeandelegance”(214)at
itsstartandSontag’s“Noteson‘Camp’”atitsend.
Thisanthologythusmarksfiftyyearsofwritingandculturalproduc-
tion concerning camp as it questions, problematizes, theorizes, and
understandsstrategiesforitsreadingandinterpretation.Ourgoalwasto
assembleasolidcollectionofessaysaboutcampfromhistorical,theoreti-
cal, and cultural perspectives. A truly multi-dimensional and interdisci-
plinary anthology on camp had not been released since the mid-1990s
andmanychangesbothculturallyandtheoreticallyhavealterednotonly
thewayswethinkaboutcamp,butthenatureofcampitself,inthetime
since.
SONTAGANDSPECTATORSHIP
Sontag is important in understanding a critical discourse on camp be-
causesheisresponsiblefornotonlyinitiatingthefirstseriousdiscussions
ofits cultural impact butalsoforherattemptsatdescribing(thoughnot
defining) the phenomenon. Her understanding of camp (and somewhat
problematizedpositiononit)restsonthenotionthatwhatsomeconsider
tobealowerculturalformatbestandacelebrationofbadtasteatworst
can become incredible and certainly worthy of study. Scholarship on
camp from the 1990s, including Marcie Frank’s important “The Critic as
PerformanceArtist:SusanSontag’sWritingandGayCultures,”seesthis
aslimiting.FrankbelievesSontagrevealsan“ambivalenceaboutperfor-
mance” and by “rejecting the autobiographical mode as exhibitionism,
Sontagdoesnotidentifythecharacteristicsthatallowhertoknowcamp”
(Frank 1994, 177). Moreover, recent critical studies of contemporary ex-
amples of camp, grounded in matters of identity and performance theo-
ry, find in camp fluid examples of queer aesthetics. Sontag’s writing is
therefore both seminal and dated, given that it predated the Stonewall
Introduction ix
uprising and thus lacks the comparative pre-gay liberation/post-gay lib-
erationperspectiveoflatercriticsandscholars.
As Scott Long argues, the “spectator” is responsible for the actual
creation of camp (Long 1994, 80). Camp frequently is linked to college
culture and young adult culture; thus, Long’s spectator is now a very
different kind of cultural observer, given that camp examples have
evolved significantly over the decades. Sontag’s general position of an
absenceofpoliticalunderpinningsincampeasilycouldbelinkedtopre-
liberation understandings of the construct. However, as Andrew Ross
andotherqueertheoristshaveargued,oncethelate-1960sbecameacul-
turalmoment and turningpoint,everything becamepolitical.Notgoing
toschool,forexample,couldbeunderstoodasoppositiontoaparticular
systemandthusanactofinitialennuicouldbereadfurtherasareaction
to institutional systems of hegemony. Similarly, camp responds to sys-
temsofnormalcy,gayandstraight,anditsaestheticofexcessallowsitto
beinsomewayspoliticalwithoutbeingdreadful,asevidencedincoded
queercampofthe1960sandthe“out”gaycampofthe1970s(especially
thedisco years.)However,what wasonceunderstoodasawfulortaste-
less also can be read as reactionary, constructed, and often incredible.
Furthermore, Long understands the construction of the “dialectical and
not deconstructive” by-product that camp enunciates; reading redefines
not only a camp subject but also a camp moment (80). This moment has
evolvedandtheessaysinthiscollectionwillnotonlyquestioncampand
ways to read camp but also understand camp as a language, a mode, a
style, and a production/construction that goes beyond code and thereby
farbeyonditsinitiallinguistic/semioticguise.
BROADENINGTHELENSANDTHEPERSPECTIVE
Muchoftheworkoncampfromthe1990sestablishedanunderstanding
ofitthatmovesfromworkingclassyouthculture,withitsfoundationsin
Dick Hebdidge’s exploration of subculture, to ways of thinking about
camp in response to Sontag. The authors in this collection continue this
workwithafocusonthecurrencyofgenderperformance,sexuality,and
queerculture.Overthelasttwentyyears,scholarshavepushedbackthe
frontiersoftheexplorationofcamptoincludemultipletypologiesanda
lexicon that embraces leather camp, lesbian drag king camp, and Chica-
no/aCamp,tonamebutthreeexamples.WhileRossarguedfortheread-
ingofthecampsubjectaseitherpopcamporgaycamp,ourperspective
envisions a determined break from Ross’s binary to include modes of
culturalproductionthatforegroundamorefluiddefinition.
Theyear1994sawabreakinqueerculturefromsubculturetominor-
ity culture. Two decades later, camp readings have been greatly influ-
enced by the kinds of realities that surface in current media (both tradi-