View source for Camp (style)

{{short description|Ostentatious style (late 19th century - current)}}
'''Camp''' is an [[aesthetic]] style and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its bad [[taste (sociology)|taste]] and [[irony|ironic]] value.<ref>Babuscio (1993, 20), Feil (2005, 478), Morrill (1994, 110), Shugart and Waggoner (2008, 33), and Van Leer (1995)</ref> Camp aesthetics disrupt many of [[modernism]]'s notions of what art is and what can be classified as [[high art]] by inverting aesthetic attributes such as beauty, value, and taste through an invitation of a different kind of apprehension and consumption.<ref name="MallaMcGillis2005">{{cite journal |author1=Kerry Malla |editor1-last=Roderick McGillis |title=Between a Frock and a Hard Place: Camp Aesthetics and Children's Culture |journal=Canadian Review of American Studies |date=January 2005 |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=1–3 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27477842 |access-date=10 October 2019}}</ref> 

Camp can also be a social practice and function as a style and performance identity for several types of entertainment including film, cabaret, and [[pantomime]]. Where high art necessarily incorporates beauty and value, camp necessarily needs to be lively, audacious and dynamic. "Camp aesthetics delights in impertinence." Camp opposes satisfaction and seeks to challenge.<ref name="MallaMcGillis2005" /> The visual style is closely associated with [[gay culture]].

Camp art is related to—and often confused with—[[kitsch]], and things with camp appeal may also be described as "cheesy". When the usage appeared in 1909, it denoted "ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; [[effeminate]] or homosexual" 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".<ref>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</ref> 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".<ref name="Eiss2016">{{cite book|author=Harry Eiss|title=The Joker|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=17f6DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA26|date=11 May 2016|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-4438-9429-6|page=26}}</ref>

== Origins and development ==
In 1870, the [[crossdresser]] [[Boulton and Park|Frederick Park]] referred to his "campish undertakings" in a letter produced in evidence at his examination before a magistrate at [[Bow Street|Bow-street]], [[London]], on suspicion of illegal homosexual acts; the letter does not make clear what these were.<ref>
'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'</ref> In 1909, the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' gave the first print citation of ''camp'' as
{{quote|ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical; . So as a noun, 'camp' behaviour, mannerisms, et cetera. (cf. quot. 1909); a man exhibiting such behaviour.}}

[[File:Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here trailer.jpg|thumb|[[Carmen Miranda]] in the trailer for ''[[The Gang's All Here (1943 film)|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".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Harper|first1=Douglas|title=camp (adj.) |url=http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=camp|website=Online Etymology Dictionary|access-date=21 August 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914223354/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=camp|archive-date=14 September 2016|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>[http://atilf.atilf.fr/academie9.htm Entry "camper"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110514222153/http://atilf.atilf.fr/academie9.htm |date=14 May 2011 }}, 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 [[wiktionary:devil-may-care|devil-may-care]] attitude. '''Theatre:''' To perform with forcefulness and [[wikt:exaggeration|exaggeration]]; [[wiktionary:overact|to overact]]; To impose one's character assertively into a scene; [[wiktionary:upstage|to upstage]].)</ref> Later, it evolved into a general description of the aesthetic choices and behavior of working-class [[gay men]].<ref name=newton>Esther Newton (1978): ''Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America'', University of Chicago Press. {{worldcat|name=''Mother Camp: Female Impersonators in America''|oclc=257048012}}.</ref> 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 and book ''[[Notes on "Camp"]]''.<ref name="Sontag2019">{{cite book|author=Susan Sontag|title=Notes on "Camp"|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gcqcDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT4|date=14 June 2019|publisher=Picador|isbn=978-1-250-62134-4|page=4}}</ref>

The rise of [[post-modernism]] made ''camp'' a common perspective on aesthetics, not identified with any specific group.  The camp perspective was originally a distinctive aspect of pre-[[Stonewall riots|Stonewall]] [[gay culture]] , where it was the dominant idiom. It originated from the understanding of gayness as [[effeminacy]].<ref name=newton /> Two key components of camp were originally feminine performances: [[Swish (slang)|swish]] and [[drag (clothing)|drag]]. With swish featuring extensive use of superlatives, and drag being exaggerated female impersonation, camp became extended to all things "over the top", including women posing as female impersonators ([[faux queen]]s), as in the [[exaggeration|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. Moe Meyer{{who|date=May 2022}} still defines ''camp'' as "queer parody".<ref>Moe Meyer (2010): ''An Archaeology of Posing: Essays on Camp, Drag, and Sexuality'', Macater Press, {{ISBN|978-0-9814924-5-2}}.</ref><ref>Moe Meyer (2011): ''The Politics and Poetics of Camp'', Routledge, {{ISBN|978-0-415-51489-7}}.</ref>

== Contemporary culture ==
=== Television ===
The [[Comedy Central]] television show ''[[Strangers with Candy]]'' (1999–2000), starring comedian [[Amy Sedaris]], was a camp spoof of the ''[[ABC Afterschool Special]]'' genre.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Maasik, Solomon |first1=Sonia, Jack |title=Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers |date=2011 |publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's |isbn=9780312647001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-PAURpOlB8C&q=%22strangers+with+candy+which+was%22+camp&pg=PA328 |access-date=9 August 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title='Strangers with Candy': After-school special, Sedaris style |url=https://www.ocregister.com/2006/07/06/strangers-with-candy-after-school-special-sedaris-style/ |newspaper=Orange County Register |date=6 July 2006 |access-date=19 May 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170806100949/http://www.ocregister.com/2006/07/06/strangers-with-candy-after-school-special-sedaris-style/ |archive-date=6 August 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ocregister.com/2006/07/06/strangers-with-candy-after-school-special-sedaris-style/ |title='Strangers with Candy': After-school special, Sedaris style |date=6 July 2006 |access-date=6 August 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170806100949/http://www.ocregister.com/2006/07/06/strangers-with-candy-after-school-special-sedaris-style/ |archive-date=6 August 2017 |url-status=live }}</ref> Inspired by the work of [[George Kuchar]] and his brother [[Mike Kuchar]], [[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.<ref>filmmakermagazine.com/27295-courtney-fathom-sells-hi-8-hi...</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://filmmakermagazine.com/29016-so-you-wanna-be-an-underground-filmmaker/|title=COURTNEY FATHOM SELL: SO YOU WANNA BE AN UNDERGROUND FILMMAKER?|work=Filmmaker Magazine|access-date=23 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150627215406/http://filmmakermagazine.com/29016-so-you-wanna-be-an-underground-filmmaker|archive-date=27 June 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Film ===
Famous representatives of camp films are, for example, [[John Waters]] ''([[Pink Flamingos]], 1972)'' and [[Rosa von Praunheim]] ''([[The Bed Sausage]], 1971)'', who mainly used this style in the 1970s, created films which achieved a [[cult status]].<ref name="CampWaters">{{cite web|title=John Waters: King of Camp and Auteur of Cult Trash|url=https://filmdaze.net/john-waters-king-of-camp-and-auteur-of-cult-trash/|work=Film Daze|date=12 June 2019 |access-date=2022-03-05}}</ref><ref name="CampPraunheim">{{cite book|title=A New History of German Cinema|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98tvAwAAQBAJ&dq=waters+praunheim+camp&pg=PA538|work=Jennifer M. Kapczynski, Michael David Richardson, [[Camden House Publishing]]|isbn = 9781571135957|access-date=2022-03-05|last1 = Kapczynski|first1 = Jennifer M.|last2 = Richardson|first2 = Michael David|year = 2012}}</ref>

=== Music ===
[[File:Cher at Farewell Tour.JPG|thumb|upright=0.9|Cher performing during her ''[[w:Living Proof: The Farewell Tour|Living Proof: The Farewell Tour]]'']]
American singer and actress [[w:Cher|Cher]] is one of the artists who received the title of "Queen of Camp" through her outrageous on-stage fashion and live performances.<ref name="Sunday Mirror">{{cite web|url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-343551795.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160529072813/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-343551795.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2016-05-29|title=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|work=Sunday Mirror|access-date=2016-04-21}}</ref> She gained this status in the 1970s when she launched her [[variety show]]s in collaboration with the costume designer [[w:Bob Mackie|Bob Mackie]] and became a constant presence on American prime-time television.<ref name="The Telegraph">{{cite web|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/cher-is-love-magazine-cover-girl-at-69/|title=Cher is Love magazine's latest cover 'girl' at 69|work=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=2016-04-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118131220/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/cher-is-love-magazine-cover-girl-at-69/|archive-date=18 November 2018|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="NY Daily News">{{cite web|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/nydn-features/cher-ishing-queen-camp-article-1.493616|title=Cher-ishing the Queen of Camp|work=Daily News|location=New York|access-date=2016-04-21|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171104172524/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/nydn-features/cher-ishing-queen-camp-article-1.493616|archive-date=4 November 2017|url-status=live}}</ref> [[Madonna]] is another example of camp and according to educator [[Carol Queen]], her "whole career up to and including ''[[w:Sex (book)|Sex]]'' has depended heavily on camp imagery and camp understandings of gender and sex".<ref name="Gnojewski">{{cite book|url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Madonna/JDGdVGWrjr8C?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Madonna|title=Madonna: Express Yourself|first=Carol|last=Gnojewski|date=2007|access-date=March 31, 2022|publisher=[[Enslow Publishing]]|isbn=978-0-7660-2442-7|via=Google Books|page=114}}</ref> By some point of her career, Madonna was also named "Queen of Camp".<ref name="Madonna">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kHAKDgAAQBAJ&pg=PA216|title=Chapter 12, Camp, Androgyny, and 1990: Strike a Pose|work=Sontag and the Camp Aesthetic: Advancing New Perspectives|first1=Bruce E.|last1=Drushe|first2=Brian M.|last2=Peters|date=2017|access-date=March 31, 2022|publisher=[[Lexington Books]]|isbn=978-1-4985-3777-3|via=Google Books|page=216}}</ref>

[[Dusty Springfield]] is a camp icon.<ref name="britannica.com">{{cite encyclopedia |author=Peter Silverton |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/561395/Dusty-Springfield |title=Dusty Springfield (British singer) – Encyclopædia Britannica |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |access-date=17 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130928030405/https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/561395/Dusty-Springfield |archive-date=28 September 2013 |url-status=live }}</ref> In public and on stage, Springfield developed a joyful image supported by her peroxide blonde [[w:Beehive (hairstyle)|beehive]] hairstyle, [[w:evening gown|evening gown]]s, and heavy make-up that included her much-copied "panda eye" look.<ref name="britannica.com" /><ref>{{cite journal|url=http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/isam/NewsletF05/RandallF05.htm|title=Dusty Springfield and the Motown Invasion|journal=Newsletter  |volume=35 |issue=1|publisher=Institute for Studies in American Music, Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn College of the City University of New York|author=Annie J. Randall|date=Fall 2005|access-date=17 August 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120625073452/http://depthome.brooklyn.cuny.edu/isam/NewsletF05/RandallF05.htm|archive-date=25 June 2012}}</ref><ref name="Laurense Cole 2008 p. 13">Laurense Cole (2008) ''Dusty Springfield: in the middle of nowhere'', Middlesex University Press. p. 13.</ref><ref>Charles Taylor (1997). ''Mission Impossible: The perfectionist rock and soul of Dusty Springfield'', Boston Phoenix.</ref><ref name="glbtq.com">{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.glbtq.com/arts/springfield_d.html |title=Springfield, Dusty |encyclopedia=glbtq – An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Culture |date=2005 |access-date=17 August 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120715000630/http://www.glbtq.com/arts/springfield_d.html |archive-date=15 July 2012}}</ref> Springfield borrowed elements of her look from blonde glamour queens of the 1950s, such as [[w:Brigitte Bardot|Brigitte Bardot]] and [[w:Catherine Deneuve|Catherine Deneuve]], and pasted them together according to her own taste.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D2mCQpLstCkC&q=%22Dusty!%20Queen%20of%20the%20Post%20Mods%22&pg=PA18|title=Dusty! : Queen of the Post Mods: Queen of the Post Mods|author=Annie J. Randall, Associate Professor of Musicology Bucknell University|publisher=Oxford University Press|date=2008|isbn=9780199716302|access-date=17 August 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116234822/https://books.google.com/books?id=D2mCQpLstCkC&lpg=PA18&dq=%22Dusty!%20Queen%20of%20the%20Post%20Mods%22&pg=PA18#v=onepage&q&f=false|archive-date=16 January 2017|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=gulla>Bob Gulla (2007) ''Icons of R&B and Soul: An Encyclopedia of the Artists Who Revolutionized Rhythm'', Greenwood Publishing Group {{ISBN|978-0-313-34044-4}}</ref> 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.<ref name="glbtq.com" /><ref name=gulla /> 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 [[Mod (subculture)|Mods]]".<ref name="Laurense Cole 2008 p. 13" /><ref>Patricia Juliana Smith (1999) "'You Don't Have to Say You Love Me': The Camp Masquerades of Dusty Springfield", ''The Queer Sixties'' pp. 105–126, Routledge, London {{ISBN|978-0-415-92169-5}}</ref> South Korean rapper [[w:Psy|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.<ref name="Exploring Psy's ">[https://www.rollingstone.com/music/blogs/thread-count/exploring-psys-digital-dandy-appeal-in-gangnam-style-20121003  "Exploring Psy's Digital Dandy Appeal In 'Gangnam Style' "] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140122062943/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/blogs/thread-count/exploring-psys-digital-dandy-appeal-in-gangnam-style-20121003 |date=22 January 2014}} (3 October 2012) ''Rolling Stone'' (retrieved 21 April 2013)</ref><ref name="Psy Unveils">{{citation |url=http://world.time.com/2013/04/13/psy-unveils-his-new-gentleman-video-and-dance-at-extravagant-seoul-concert/ |title=Psy Unveils His New 'Gentleman' Video and Dance at Extravagant Seoul Concert |magazine=Time |access-date=21 April 2013 |date=13 April 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130417091115/http://world.time.com/2013/04/13/psy-unveils-his-new-gentleman-video-and-dance-at-extravagant-seoul-concert/ |archive-date=17 April 2013 |url-status=live |last1=Rauhala |first1=Emily}}</ref> [[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.<ref>{{cite web |title=Geri Horner talks Spice Girls, solo regrets and her kinship with the gay community |url=https://attitude.co.uk/article/interview-geri-horner-talks-spice-girls-solo-regrets-and-her-kinship-with-the-gay-community/13210/ |website=Attitude |date=5 January 2017 |access-date=10 January 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Kelly |first1=Emma |title=Geri Horner threatened with assassination on stage by Admiral Duncan nail bomber |url=https://metro.co.uk/2020/12/11/geri-horner-threatened-with-assassination-on-stage-by-admiral-duncan-nail-bomber-13736621/ |website=Metro |date=11 December 2020 |access-date=10 January 2021}}</ref>

[[w:Lady Gaga|Lady Gaga]], a contemporary exemplar of camp, uses musica and dance to make [[w:social commentary|social commentary]] on pop culture, as in the [[Judas (Lady Gaga song)|''Judas'']] video. Her clothes, makeup, and accessories, created by high-end fashion designers, are integral to the narrative structure of her performances.<ref name="IddonMarshall2014">{{cite book|author=Stan Hawkins|editor1=Martin Iddon|editor2=Melanie L. Marshall|title=Lady Gaga and Popular Music: Performing Gender, Fashion, and Culture|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LpN8AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA17|date=3 January 2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-07987-2|pages=17–18|chapter=I'll bring You Down, Down, Down'}}</ref> [[w:Katy Perry|Katy Perry]], is another example of camp, and some outlets have described her as the "Queen of Camp".<ref name="Vogue2022">{{Cite magazine|last=Allaire|first=Christian|date=January 2, 2022|title=Katy Perry Is Still the Queen of Camp|url=https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/katy-perry-las-vegas-residency-camp-fashion|url-status=live|magazine=Vogue|access-date=January 3, 2022}}</ref>

== 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".<ref name="Sontag2009">{{cite book|author=Susan Sontag|title=Against Interpretation and Other Essays|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HLdQPwAACAAJ|access-date=6 September 2011|date=2 July 2009|publisher=Penguin Modern Classics|isbn=978-0-14-119006-8|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602194813/http://books.google.com/books?id=HLdQPwAACAAJ|archive-date=2 June 2013|url-status=live}}</ref>

Sontag also distinguishes between "naive" and "deliberate" camp,<ref name="Sontag1964">{{cite web |author1=Susan Sontag |author-link1=Susan Sontag |title=Notes On "Camp" |url=https://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp-1964.html |website=faculty.georgetown.edu |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191001152759/https://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp-1964.html |archive-date=1 October 2019 |access-date=10 October 2019 |url-status=live}}</ref> and examines Christopher Isherwood's distinction between low camp, which he associated with cross-dressing practices and drag performances, and high camp, which he considered as part of a cultural heritage that included "the whole emotional basis of the Ballet, for example, and of course of Baroque art".<ref name="Stępień2014">{{cite book|author=Anna Malinowska|editor=Justyna Stępień|title=Redefining Kitsch and Camp in Literature and Culture|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OyRQBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA11|date=26 September 2014|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|isbn=978-1-4438-6779-5|page=11|chapter=1, section 1: Bad Romance: Pop and Camp in Light of Evolutionary Confusion}}</ref>

== In the Western World==
The comedian [[Kenneth Williams]] wrote in a diary entry for 1 January 1947: "Went to Singapore with Stan—very camp evening, was followed, but tatty types so didn't bother to make overtures."<ref>[[Russell Davies]] (1993) ''The Kenneth Williams Diaries'', Harper-Collins Publishers {{ISBN|978-0-00-255023-9}}</ref> Although it applies to gay men, it is a specific adjective used to describe a man who openly promotes the fact that he is gay by being outwardly garish or eccentric, for example, the character [[Daffyd Thomas]] in the English comedy skit show ''[[Little Britain]]''. "Camp" forms a strong element in UK culture, and many so-called [[gay icon]]s and objects are chosen as such because they are camp. Performers such as [[Elton John]]<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.ft.com/content/e0b5072c-7bb1-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560 |title=Rock it, man — what Elton John teaches us about style |work=[[Financial Times]] |first=Robert |last=Armstrong |date=May 23, 2019 |access-date=12 July 2021 }}</ref> [[Kylie Minogue]], [[John Inman]], [[Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen]], [[Lulu (singer)|Lulu]], [[Graham Norton]], [[Mika (singer)|Mika]], [[Lesley Joseph]], [[Ruby Wax]], [[Dale Winton]] and [[Cilla Black]], as well as the [[music hall]] tradition of the [[pantomime]] are camp elements in popular culture. The British tradition of the "[[Last Night of the Proms]]" has been said to glory in "nostalgia, camp, and pastiche".<ref>Compare:
{{citation |last=Miller |first=W. Watts |date=2002 |contribution=Secularism and the sacred: is there really something called 'secular religion'? |editor-last=Idinopulos |editor-first=Thomas A. |editor2-last=Wilson |editor2-first=Brian C. |title=Reappraising Durkheim for the study and teaching of religion today |series=Numen book series |volume=92 |pages=38–39 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9004123393 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TZt_hMv3OqQC |access-date=21 November 2010 |quote=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. |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602203649/http://books.google.com/books?id=TZt_hMv3OqQC |archive-date=2 June 2013 |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Thomas Dworzak]] published a collection of "last portrait" photographs of young [[Taliban]] soldiers about to depart for the front, found in Kabul photo studios. The '<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/thomas-dworzaks-taliban-glamour-shots|date=29 March 2014|access-date=15 November 2014|first=Thea|last=Traff|newspaper=[[The New Yorker]]|title=Thomas Dworzak's Taliban Glamour Shots|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141127171301/http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/thomas-dworzaks-taliban-glamour-shots|archive-date=27 November 2014|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="gabriner-nat-geo">{{cite web|url=http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/13/thomas-dworzak-mining-for-memes-on-instagram/|access-date=15 November 2014|publisher=[[World Press Photo]]|title=2000, Thomas Dworzak, 1st prize, Spot News stories|date=13 January 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141129013633/http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/13/thomas-dworzak-mining-for-memes-on-instagram/|archive-date=29 November 2014|url-status=live}}</ref> book attests to a campy esthetic, quite close to the [[Gay movement|gay movement in California]] or a [[Peter Greenaway]] film.<ref>{{cite web|title=Vom Nachttisch geräumt nachttisch 10.6.03 vom 10 June 2003 von Arno Widmann – Perlentaucher|url=https://www.perlentaucher.de/vom-nachttisch-geraeumt/nachttisch-10-6-03.html|publisher=perlentaucher.de|access-date=2015-11-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304090811/https://www.perlentaucher.de/vom-nachttisch-geraeumt/nachttisch-10-6-03.html|archive-date=4 March 2016|url-status=live}}</ref>

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 the Younger|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 (mythology)|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 [[Secondary school|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.

Since 2000, the [[Eurovision Song Contest]], an annually televised competition of song performers from different countries, has shown an increasing element of camp—since the contest has shown an increasing attraction within the gay communities—in their stage performances, especially during the televised finale, which is screened live across Europe. As it is a visual show, many [[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.

== 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 lamp]]s, the drawings of [[Aubrey Beardsley]], Tchaikovsky's ballet ''[[Swan Lake]]'', and Japanese science fiction films such as [[Rodan (film)|''Rodan'']], and ''[[The Mysterians]]'' of the 1950s.

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.

==Analysis==
According to sociologist [[Andrew Ross (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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist)|title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |url-access=registration |year=1989 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/136 136]}}</ref> 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".<ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist)|title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |url-access=registration |year=1989 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/145 145]}}</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist)|title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |url-access=registration |year=1989 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/146 146]}}</ref> The effect of camp's irony is problematic, insofar as the agents of cultural redefinition are often of upper- or middle-class standing who could, "afford, literally, to redefine the life of consumerism and material affluence as a life of spiritual poverty".<ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist)|title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |url-access=registration |year=1989 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/137 137]}}</ref>

In Ross's analysis, camp aesthetics became the site of personal liberation from the stranglehold of the corporate, capitalist state.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist)|title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |url-access=registration |year=1989 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/144 144]}}</ref>

Ross suggests that camp often faces criticism from other political and aesthetic perspectives. For example, the most obvious argument is that camp is just an excuse for poor quality work and allows the tacky and vulgar to be recognized as valid art. In doing so, camp celebrates the trivial and superficial and form over content. The power of the camp object may be found in its ability to induce this reaction. In a sense objects that fill their beholders with disgust fulfill Sontag's definition of the ultimate camp statement, "it's good because it's awful."<ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist)|title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |url-access=registration |year=1989 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/n173 154]}}</ref> From flea markets to thrift stores, the 'bad taste' of camp has been increasingly reinculcated with the cultural capital that it had intended to break away from. In an attempt to "present a challenge to the mechanisms of control and containment that operate in the name of good taste", the camp aesthetic has been appropriated by artists.<ref name="Ross 1989 153">{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Andrew |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist)|title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |url-access=registration |year=1989 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/n172 153]}}</ref> Their fame is only enjoyed at the expense of others, as Ross writes, "it [the pleasure of camp] is the result of the (hard) work of a producer of taste and 'taste' is only possible through exclusion and depreciation."<ref name="Ross 1989 153" />

== See also ==
{{Portal|Philosophy|Society|Fashion|LGBT}}
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description [[WP:SEEALSO]] -->
{{div col|colwidth=20em|small=yes}}
*[[Avant-garde]]
*[[Asemic writing]]
*[[Collection de l'art brut]]
*[[David Bowie's art collection]] and ''[[Outside (David Bowie album)|Outside]]'' (1995)
*[[Glam rock]]
*[[Horror vacui (art)|Horror vacui]]
*[[Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art]]
*[[Lowbrow (art movement)]]
*[[Neo-pop]]
*[[Neurodiversity]]
*[[Outsider art]]
*[[Outsider music]]
*[[Pop art]]
*[[Postmodernism]]
*[[Psychedelic art]]
*[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]
*[[Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments]]
*[[Surrealism]]
*[[Unilalianism]]
*[[Vaporwave]]
*[[Vernacular architecture]]
{{div col end}}
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Sources ==
{{refbegin}}
* Babuscio, Jack (1993) "Camp and the Gay Sensibility" in ''Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality'', David Bergman Ed., U of Massachusetts, Amherst {{ISBN|978-0-87023-878-9}}
* Feil, Ken (2005) "Queer Comedy", in ''Comedy: A Geographic and Historical Guide'' Vol. 2. pp.&nbsp;19–38, 477–492, Maurice Charney Ed., Praeger, Westport, CN {{ISBN|978-0-313-32715-5}}
* Levine, Martin P. (1998) ''Gay Macho'', New York UP, New York {{ISBN|0-8147-4694-2}}
* Meyer, Moe, Ed. (1994) ''The Politics and Poetics of Camp'', Routledge, London and New York {{ISBN|978-0-415-08248-8}}
** Morrill, Cynthia (1994) "Revamping the Gay Sensibility: Queer Camp and ''dyke noir''" (In Meyer pp.&nbsp;110–129)
* Helene A. Shugart and Catherine Egley Waggoner (2008) ''Making Camp: Rhetorics of Transgression in U.S. Popular Culture'', U of Alabama P., Tuscaloosa {{ISBN|978-0-8173-5652-1}}
* Van Leer, David (1995) ''The Queening of America: Gay Culture in Straight Society'', Routledge, London and New York {{ISBN|978-0-415-90336-3}}
{{refend}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin}}
* Core, Philip (1984/1994). ''CAMP, The Lie That Tells the Truth'', foreword by George Melly. London: Plexus Publishing Limited. {{ISBN|0-85965-044-8}}
* Cleto, Fabio, editor (1999). ''Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. {{ISBN|0-472-06722-2}}.
* Padva, Gilad (2008). "Educating The Simpsons: Teaching Queer Representations in Contemporary Visual Media". ''Journal of LGBT Youth'' 5(3), 57–73.
* Padva, Gilad and Talmon, Miri (2008). "Gotta Have An Effeminate Heart: The Politics of Effeminacy and Sissyness in a Nostalgic Israeli TV Musical". ''Feminist Media Studies'' 8(1), 69–84.
* Padva, Gilad (2005). "Radical Sissies and Stereotyped Fairies in Laurie Lynd's The Fairy Who Didn't Want To Be A Fairy Anymore". ''Cinema Journal'' 45(1), 66–78.
* Padva, Gilad (2000). "Priscilla Fights Back: The Politicization of Camp Subculture". ''Journal of Communication Inquiry'' 24(2), 216–243.
* Meyer, Moe, editor (1993). ''The Politics and Poetics of Camp''. Routledge. {{ISBN|0-415-08248-X}}.
* Sontag, Susan (1964). "Notes on Camp" in ''Against Interpretation and Other Essays''. New York: Farrer Straus & Giroux. {{ISBN|0-312-28086-6}}.
{{refend}}

== External links ==
* ''[https://classes.dma.ucla.edu/Spring15/104/Susan%20Sontag_%20Notes%20On%20-Camp-.pdf Notes on "Camp"]'' by [[Susan Sontag]]

[[Category:1900s neologisms]]
[[Category:Gay effeminacy]]
[[Category:LGBT terminology]]
[[Category:Gay working-class culture]]
[[Category:Postmodernism]]
[[Category:Concepts in aesthetics]]