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 Lanham•Boulder•NewYork•London PublishedbyLexingtonBooks AnimprintofTheRowman&LittlefieldPublishingGroup,Inc. 4501ForbesBoulevard,Suite200,Lanham,Maryland20706 www.rowman.com UnitA,WhitacreMews,26-34StannaryStreet,LondonSE114AB Copyright©2017byLexingtonBooks “Noteson‘Camp’”fromAGAINSTINTERPRETATIONbySusanSontag.Copyright© 1964,1966,renewed1994bySusanSontag.ReprintedbypermissionofFarrar,Straus andGiroux,LLC. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorbyany electronicormechanicalmeans,includinginformationstorageandretrievalsystems, withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptbyareviewerwhomayquote passagesinareview. 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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-