Camp (style)
As an adjective, camp, or high camp, refers to an ironic appreciation of that which might otherwise be considered outlandish or corny, such as Carmen Miranda with her tutti frutti hats. The term is often applied to popular culture events that are particularly dated or inappropriately serious, such as the low-budget science fiction movies of the 1950s and 1960s and the multi-genre pop culture of the 1970s and 1980s.
Though camp is now a common "take" on aesthetics and not restricted to any group, the attitude was largely identified with pre-Stonewall male homosexual communities or culture where it was the dominant cultural pattern (Altman, 1982, 154-55) and originated from the acceptance of homosexuality as effeminacy. The two components of camp originally being feminine performances: swish and drag (Newton 1972, 34-37; West 1977; Cory 1951). With swish featuring extensive use of superlatives, and drag being (often outrageous) female impersonation (or lack thereof), camp became extended to all things "over the top", including female female-impersonators such as the above mentioned Carmen Miranda. (Levine, 1998)
As part of camp, drag meant (Newton, 1972, 34-36; Read 1980) "womanly apparel, ranging from slight makeup and a few feminine garments, typically hats, gloves, or high heels, to a total getup, complete with wigs, gowns, jewelry, and full makeup" (Levine, 1998, p.22). Also camp were feminine interests such as fashion (Henry, 1955; West, 1977), decoration (Fischer, 1972, 69; White, 1980; Henry, 1955, 304) "with fancy frills, froufrou, bric-a-brac and au courant kitsch," opera and theater (Karlen 1971; Hooker 1956; Altman 1982, 154), bitchy humor (Read 1980, 105-8), old movies (Dyer 1977), and celebrity worship (Tipmore 1975). (Levine 1998, p.23-4)
Another part of camp was dishing, a conversational style including, "bitchy retorts, vicious putdowns, and malicious gossip," (Levine 1998, p.72) associated with the entertainment industry (Leznoff and Westley 1956; Hooker 1956; Hoffman 1968; Read 1980) and also called "fag talk" or "chit chat" (Read 1980, p.106-8). Clones adapted dish, often keeping the feminine pronouns, expanding it to dirt, gossip and rumors, and dish, bitchiness and viciousness. (Levine 1998, p.72)
As a verb, the word in the above senses is closer to its apparent derivation from the French slang term camper, which means "to pose in an exaggerated fashion," as in "camping it up."
Camp is an ironical attitude, an explicit re-introduction of non-dominant forms. It claims legitimacy, but instead of aiming at timelessness, it wants to live only a short life. It does not want to present basic values, but precisely to confront culture with its waste, to show how any norm is historical. Camp, says Andrew Ross in No Respect (1989:149), such as produced by people like Andy Warhol, is a problematizing of taste itself. It rejects the imposition of arbitrary boundaries of taste presented as essential and transhistorical.
As a cultural challenge, camp can also receive a political meaning, when minorities appropriate and ridiculize the images of the dominant group. The best known instance of this is of course the gay liberation movement, which used camp to confront society with its own preconceptions and their historicity. But, as Andrew Ross (1989:160-161) convincingly shows, female camp actresses such as Bette Davis also had an important influence on the development of feminist consciousness: by exaggerating certain stereotyped features of femininity, they undermined the credibility of those preconceptions.
On the other hand, camp can be an aristocratic attitude when it is taken by intellectual elites towards lowbrow and middlebrow culture. It allows them to yield to the pressure of mass culture while at the same time taking distance from it. It is then a way of judging popular culture without having to take it seriously.
See also: Mystery Science Theater 3000, kitsch, drag queen, retro, popular culture, popular culture studies
Source
Jim Collins, 1989: Uncommon Cultures. Popular Culture and Post-Modernism, Mew York/London: Routledge.
Umberto Eco, 1986: Travels in Hyperreality, New York: Harcourt.
Umberto Eco, 1988 (1964, 1978): The Structure of Bad Taste, Amsterdam: Bert Bakker.
Martin P. Levine, 1998: Gay Macho. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 0814746942.
Tania Modleski, 1986: "The Terror of Pleasure. The Contemporary Horror Film and Postmodern Theory", in Tania Modleski (ed.), Studies in Entertainment. Critical Approaches to Mass Culture, Bloomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 155-167.
Thomas J. Roberts, 1990: An Aesthetics of Junk Fiction, Athens (Georgia)/London: University of Georgia Press.
Clem Robyns, 1991: "Beyond the first dimension: recent tendencies in popular culture studies", in Joris Vlasselaers (Ed.) The Prince and the Frog, Leuven: ALW, 14-32.
Andrew Ross, 1989: No Respect. Intellectuals and Popular Culture, New York/London: Routledge.