Prompt on Camp

 Camp is an intentionally, over the top form of performance that trivializes the

content for form. It is a parody of society in an over the top offensive way. T

is a part of gay subculture, and it is a result of their repression. Dyer says that

camp originates from the adaptability of gay people. The reason style is their

expertise is because they mastered it to hide in plain view. It is also their way

of fitting in with society, marginally contributing to society. Camp is not

masculine; instead it rejects what is traditionally viewed as masculine.

According to Dyer, it is a way of being human, witty and vital, without

conforming to the drabness and rigidity of the traditional male role.

 According to Sontag, Camp is a view of the world in terms of style and

aesthetics. It is the “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. Camp

is a cheerful self parody that “reeks of self-love.”

 Dyer and Babuscio say that Camp is the one thing that expresses and

confirms being a gay man, in a world that expresses and confirms the

rightness of heterosexuality.

 Babuscio discusses Camp as a relation between something and the observer’s

gayness(?). He says it is “ a heightened awareness of certain human

complications of feeling that spring from the fact of social oppression.

 4 main features of camp:irony, aestheticism, theatricality and humor.

 “Camp irony is a highly incongruous contrast between an individual, and a

context or association. The most common of incongruous elements is that of

masculine/feminine.”

 Aesthetically, camp is an appreciation of “ style as a means of self-projection,

a conveyor of meaning and an expression of emotional tone.”

 Camp humor is a strategy for reconciling conflicting emotions. It deals with a

hostile environment and in the process defines a positive identity. Babuscio

argues that Camp humor relies n involvement, and being able to identify with

a situation while comically appreciating its contradictions.

 Camp originates from the gay perception that gender is socially constructed,

artificial and performed as opposed to being natural, or biologically

determined.

 Camp pushes a poorly done form to the extent that its badness is what the

work is about.(trash)

 Thundercrack as an example of gay camp.

 Camp as parody has an ability to expose what people in power would like to

keep out of sight.

 Dyer says camp is a part of gay culture since it was a way for gay people to

make fun of themselves to avoid the real awfulness of their situation.

 Identity and togetherness, fun and wits06

self protection and thorns in the flesh of straight society are the pluses of

camp
 It is a way of prising the form of something away from its content, of reveling

in the style while dismissing the content as trivial.

 Sontag suggests that camp is the way gay people have sought to make an

impression on the culture of the society they live in.

 Camp does not merely consist of the disproportion of form and content, but

also in the creation of an attitude by which the whole relation can be seen

with new eyes. This lies in the eyes of the spectator.

 Relation between camp and kitsch: Kitsch is meant to be taken at face value,

and is a form of entertainment