Camp (style)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
"Campy" redirects here. For other uses, see Campy (disambiguation).

Camp is an

high art by inverting aesthetic attributes such as beauty, value, and taste through an invitation of a different kind of apprehension and consumption.[2]

Camp can also be a social practice and function as a style and performance identity for several types of entertainment including film, cabaret, and

gay culture.[2]

Camp art is related to and often confused with

effeminate or homosexual"[3] behavior, and by the middle of the 1970s, camp was defined by the college edition of Webster's New World Dictionary as "banality, mediocrity, artifice, [and] ostentation ... so extreme as to amuse or have a perversely sophisticated appeal".[4] The American writer Susan Sontag's essay Notes on "Camp" (1964) emphasized its key elements as: "artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness, and shocking excess".[5]

Origins and development

In 1870, the

crossdresser Frederick Park referred to his "campish undertakings" in a letter produced in evidence at his examination before a magistrate at Bow-street, London, on suspicion of illegal homosexual acts; the letter does not make clear what these were.[6] In 1909, the Oxford English Dictionary
gave the first print citation of camp as

ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; . So as a noun, 'camp' behaviour, mannerisms, et cetera. (cf. quot. 1909); a man exhibiting such behaviour.

Carmen Miranda in the trailer for The Gang's All Here (1943)

According to the dictionary, this sense is "etymologically obscure". Camp in this sense has been suggested to have possibly derived from the French term se camper, meaning "to pose in an exaggerated fashion".[7][8] Later, it evolved into a general description of the aesthetic choices and behavior of working-class gay men.[9] The concept of camp was described by Christopher Isherwood in 1954 in his novel The World in the Evening, and then in 1964 by Susan Sontag in her essay Notes on "Camp".[10]

The rise of

faux queens), as in the exaggerated Hollywood character of Carmen Miranda. 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.[clarification needed] Moe Meyer[who?] still defines camp as "queer parody".[11][12]

Contemporary culture

Television

The

ASS Studios began making a series of short, no-budget camp films. Their feature film Satan, Hold My Hand (2013) features many elements recognized in camp pictures.[16][17]

Film

Famous representatives of camp films are, for example,

cult status.[18][19]

Music

Cher performing during her Living Proof: The Farewell Tour
Madonna in 1987 during the Who's That Girl World Tour dressing an "exaggerated" costume

American singer and actress Cher is one of the artists who received the title of "Queen of Camp" through her outrageous on-stage fashion and live performances.[20] She gained this status in the 1970s when she launched her variety shows in collaboration with the costume designer Bob Mackie and became a constant presence on American prime-time television.[21][22] Madonna is another example of camp and according to educator Carol Queen, her "whole career up to and including Sex has depended heavily on camp imagery and camp understandings of gender and sex".[23] By some point of her career, Madonna was also named "Queen of Camp".[24]

Dusty Springfield is a camp icon.[25] In public and on stage, Springfield developed a joyful image supported by her peroxide blonde beehive hairstyle, evening gowns, and heavy make-up that included her much-copied "panda eye" look.[25][26][27][28][29] Springfield borrowed elements of her look from blonde glamour queens of the 1950s, such as Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve, and pasted them together according to her own taste.[30][31] Her ultra-glamorous look made her a camp icon and this, combined with her emotive vocal performances, won her a powerful and enduring following in the gay community.[29][31] Besides the prototypical female drag queen, she was presented in the roles of the "Great White Lady" of pop and soul and the "Queen of Mods".[27][32]

South Korean rapper Psy, known for his viral internet music videos full of flamboyant dance and visuals, has come to be seen as a 21st-century incarnation of camp style.[33][34] Geri Halliwell is recognised as a camp icon for her high camp aesthetics, performance style and kinship with the gay community during her time as a solo artist.[35][36] Lady Gaga, a contemporary exemplar of camp, uses music and dance to make social commentary on pop culture, as in the Judas video. Her clothes, makeup, and accessories, created by high-end fashion designers, are integral to the narrative structure of her performances.[37] Katy Perry is another example of camp with outlets like Vogue describing her as the "Queen of Camp".[38]

Distinguishing between kitsch and camp

The words "camp" and "kitsch" 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, as Susan Sontag observed, is always a way of consuming or performing culture "in quotation marks".[39]

Sontag also distinguishes between "naive" and "deliberate" camp,[40] and examines Christopher Isherwood's distinction between low camp, which he associated with cross-dressing practices and drag performances, and high camp, which included "the whole emotional basis of the Ballet, for example, and of course of Baroque art".[41]

According to sociologist Andrew Ross, camp combines outmoded and contemporary forms of style, fashion, and technology. Often characterized by the reappropriation of a "throwaway Pop aesthetic", camp works to intermingle the categories of "high" and "low" culture.[42] Objects may become camp objects because of their historical association with a power now in decline. As opposed to kitsch, camp reappropriates culture in an ironic fashion, whereas kitsch is indelibly sincere. Additionally, kitsch may be seen as a quality of an object, while camp "tends to refer to a subjective process".[43] Those who identify objects as "camp" commemorate the distance mirrored in the process through which "unexpected value can be located in some obscure or exorbitant object."[44]

In the Western World

Comedian

gay movement in California or a Peter Greenaway film.[50]

The Australian theatre and opera director Barrie Kosky is renowned for his use of camp in interpreting the works of the Western canon, including Shakespeare, Wagner, Molière, Seneca and Kafka; his 2006 eight-hour production for the Sydney Theatre Company The Lost Echo was based on Ovid's Metamorphoses and Euripides's The Bacchae. In the first act ("The Song of Phaeton"), for instance, the goddess Juno takes the form of a highly stylized Marlene Dietrich, and the musical arrangements feature Noël Coward and Cole Porter. Kosky's use of camp is also effectively employed to satirize the pretensions, manners, and cultural vacuity of Australia's suburban middle class, which is suggestive of the style of Dame Edna Everage. 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 practice if I want to be on Australian Idol." Australian writer/director Baz Luhrmann, in particular "Strictly Ballroom", constitutes another example.[citation needed]

Since 2000, the

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.[51]

The 2019 Met Gala's theme was Camp: Notes on Fashion, co-chaired by Anna Wintour, Serena Williams, Lady Gaga, Harry Styles, and Alessandro Michele.[52] Lady Gaga's entrance took 16 minutes, as she arrived to the gala alongside an entourage of five dancers carrying umbrellas, a make up artist, and a personal photographer to snap pictures of Gaga's poses.[53] Gaga arrived in a hot pink Brandon Maxwell gown with a 25-foot train[54] and went through a series of four "reveals," paying homage to drag culture,[53] debuting a new outfit each time, until reaching her final look: a bra and underwear with fishnets and platform heels.[55] Other notable ensembles included Katy Perry wearing a gown that looked like a chandelier, designed by Moschino, and Kacey Musgraves appearing as a life-size Barbie, also by Moschino.[56]

Literature

The first post-World War II use of the word in print may be Christopher Isherwood'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 the American writer Susan Sontag's 1964 essay Notes on "Camp", Sontag emphasized artifice, frivolity, naïve middle-class pretentiousness, and shocking excess as key elements of camp. Examples cited by Sontag included Tiffany lamps, the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley, Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake, and Japanese science fiction films such as Rodan, and The Mysterians of the 1950s.[citation needed]

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 makes a distinction between genuine camp, and camp fads and fancies, things that are not intrinsically camp, but display artificiality, stylization, theatricality, naivety, sexual ambiguity, tackiness, poor taste, stylishness, or portray camp people, and thus appeal to them.[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ^ Babuscio (1993, 20), Feil (2005, 478), Morrill (1994, 110), Shugart and Waggoner (2008, 33), and Van Leer (1995)
  2. ^ a b Kerry Malla (January 2005). Roderick McGillis (ed.). "Between a Frock and a Hard Place: Camp Aesthetics and Children's Culture". Canadian Review of American Studies. 35 (1): 1–3. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  3. ^ Gipson, Ferren (23 April 2019). "Art Matters podcast: an introduction to the camp aesthetic | Art UK". Art UK. Retrieved 14 October 2022.
  4. ^ Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, 1976 edition, sense 6, [Slang, orig., homosexual jargon, Americanism] banality, mediocrity, artifice, ostentation, etc. so extreme as to amuse or have a perversely sophisticated appeal
  5. ISBN 978-1-4438-9429-6
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  6. ^ 'My "campish undertakings" are not meeting with the success they deserve. Whatever I do seems to get me into hot water somewhere;...':The Times(London), 30 May 1870, p. 13, 'The Men in Women's Clothes'
  7. ^ Harper, Douglas. "camp (adj.)". Online Etymology Dictionary. Archived from the original on 14 September 2016. Retrieved 21 August 2016.
  8. ^ Entry "camper" Archived 14 May 2011 at the Wayback Machine, in: Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, ninth edition (1992). "2. Fam: Placer avec fermeté, avec insolence ou selon ses aises.] Il me parlait, le chapeau campé sur la tête. Surtout pron. Se camper solidement dans son fauteuil. Se camper à la meilleure place. Il se campa devant son adversaire. 3. En parlant d'un acteur, d'un artiste: Figurer avec force et relief. Camper son personnage sur la scène. Camper une figure dans un tableau, des caractères dans un roman." (Familiar: To assume a defiant, insolent or devil-may-care attitude. Theatre: To perform with forcefulness and exaggeration; to overact; To impose one's character assertively into a scene; to upstage.)
  9. ^ a b Esther Newton (1978): Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America, University of Chicago Press. Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America in libraries (WorldCat catalog).
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  13. ISBN 9780312647001. Retrieved 9 August 2017.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link
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  14. ^ "'Strangers with Candy': After-school special, Sedaris style". Orange County Register. 6 July 2006. Archived from the original on 6 August 2017. Retrieved 19 May 2019.
  15. ^ "'Strangers with Candy': After-school special, Sedaris style". 6 July 2006. Archived from the original on 6 August 2017. Retrieved 6 August 2017.
  16. ^ filmmakermagazine.com/27295-courtney-fathom-sells-hi-8-hi...
  17. ^ "COURTNEY FATHOM SELL: SO YOU WANNA BE AN UNDERGROUND FILMMAKER?". Filmmaker Magazine. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015. Retrieved 23 March 2015.
  18. ^ "John Waters: King of Camp and Auteur of Cult Trash". Film Daze. 12 June 2019. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
  19. ISBN 9781571135957. Retrieved 5 March 2022. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  20. ^ "She's Reigned Pop Land since the 70s, She's the Queen of Camp, She Believes in Life after Love. She's Cher, and She's Still Fantastic". Sunday Mirror. Archived from the original on 29 May 2016. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  21. ^ White, Belinda (24 July 2015). "Cher is Love magazine's latest cover 'girl' at 69". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 18 November 2018. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  22. ^ "Cher-ishing the Queen of Camp". Daily News. New York. Archived from the original on 4 November 2017. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
  23. ISBN 978-0-7660-2442-7
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  24. ISBN 978-1-4985-3777-3. Retrieved 31 March 2022 – via Google Books. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help
    )
  25. ^ a b Peter Silverton. "Dusty Springfield (British singer) – Encyclopædia Britannica". Britannica.com. Archived from the original on 28 September 2013. Retrieved 17 August 2013.
  26. ^ Annie J. Randall (Fall 2005). "Dusty Springfield and the Motown Invasion". Newsletter. 35 (1). Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. Archived from the original on 25 June 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2013.
  27. ^ a b Laurense Cole (2008) Dusty Springfield: in the middle of nowhere, Middlesex University Press. p. 13.
  28. ^ Charles Taylor (1997). Mission Impossible: The perfectionist rock and soul of Dusty Springfield, Boston Phoenix.
  29. ^ a b "Springfield, Dusty". glbtq – An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture. 2005. Archived from the original on 15 July 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2013.
  30. ISBN 9780199716302. Archived
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  31. ^
    ISBN 978-0-313-34044-4
  32. ISBN 978-0-415-92169-5
  33. ^ "Exploring Psy's Digital Dandy Appeal In 'Gangnam Style' " Archived 22 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine (3 October 2012) Rolling Stone (retrieved 21 April 2013)
  34. ^ Rauhala, Emily (13 April 2013), "Psy Unveils His New 'Gentleman' Video and Dance at Extravagant Seoul Concert", Time, archived from the original on 17 April 2013, retrieved 21 April 2013
  35. ^ "Geri Horner talks Spice Girls, solo regrets and her kinship with the gay community". Attitude. 5 January 2017. Archived from the original on 20 February 2021. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  36. ^ Kelly, Emma (11 December 2020). "Geri Horner threatened with assassination on stage by Admiral Duncan nail bomber". Metro. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  37. ISBN 978-1-134-07987-2
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  38. ^ Allaire, Christian (2 January 2022). "Katy Perry Is Still the Queen of Camp". Vogue. Retrieved 3 January 2022.
  39. ISBN 978-0-14-119006-8. Archived
    from the original on 2 June 2013. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
  40. ^ Susan Sontag. "Notes On "Camp"". faculty.georgetown.edu. Archived from the original on 1 October 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
  41. ISBN 978-1-4438-6779-5
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  42. ^ Ross, Andrew (1989). No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge. p. 136.
  43. ^ Ross, Andrew (1989). No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge. p. 145.
  44. ^ Ross, Andrew (1989). No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture. New York: Routledge. p. 146.
  45. ISBN 978-0-00-255023-9
  46. ^ Armstrong, Robert (23 May 2019). "Rock it, man — what Elton John teaches us about style". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 12 July 2021.
  47. ^ Compare: Miller, W. Watts (2002), "Secularism and the sacred: is there really something called 'secular religion'?", in Idinopulos, Thomas A.; Wilson, Brian C. (eds.), Reappraising Durkheim for the study and teaching of religion today, Numen book series, vol. 92, Brill, pp. 38–39,
    ISBN 9004123393, archived
    from the original on 2 June 2013, retrieved 21 November 2010, An English example of how the life has gone out of lieux de memoire concerns William Blake's hymn about the building of a New Jerusalem. it is still sung every year in London 's Albert Hall on the Last Night of the Proms. But it is in a fervor without faith. It brings tears to the eyes, only it is in a mixture of nostalgia, camp, 'post-modernism,' and pastiche.
  48. ^ Traff, Thea (29 March 2014). "Thomas Dworzak's Taliban Glamour Shots". The New Yorker. Archived from the original on 27 November 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2014.
  49. ^ "2000, Thomas Dworzak, 1st prize, Spot News stories". World Press Photo. 13 January 2014. Archived from the original on 29 November 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2014.
  50. ^ "Vom Nachttisch geräumt nachttisch 10.6.03 vom 10 June 2003 von Arno Widmann – Perlentaucher". perlentaucher.de. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 November 2015.
  51. S2CID 146449408
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  52. ^ Yang, Lucy (7 May 2019). "The 2019 Met Gala's theme is 'camp' — here's what you should expect to see on the red carpet". Insider. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
  53. ^ a b "Lady Gaga perfectly captured 'camp' at the Met Gala by paying homage to drag culture". British GQ. 7 May 2019. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
  54. ^ "See How Lady Gaga Pulled Off the Greatest Met Gala Entrance of All Time". Vogue. 10 May 2019. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
  55. ^ "Lady Gaga Just Had 4 Outfit Changes on the Met Gala Red Carpet and We're Deceased". Harper's BAZAAR. 6 May 2019. Retrieved 25 August 2022.
  56. ^ "Photos from Moschino's Most Memorable Met Gala Looks". E! Online. 13 September 2021. Retrieved 25 August 2022.

Sources

Further reading

External links
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