Camp (style) - Analysis

Analysis

As a cultural challenge, camp can also receive a political meaning, when minorities appropriate and ridicule the images of the dominant group, the kind of activism associated with multiculturalism and the New Left. The best known instance of this is the gay liberation movement, which used camp to confront society with its own preconceptions and their historicity. The first positive portrayal of a gay secret agent in fiction appears in a series, The Man from C.A.M.P. in which the protagonist is, paradoxically, effeminate yet physically tough. Female camp actresses such as Mae West, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Marilyn Monroe, and Joan Crawford also had an important influence on the development of feminist consciousness: by exaggerating certain stereotyped features of femininity, such as fragility, open emotionality or moodiness, they attempted to undermine the credibility of those preconceptions. The multiculturalist stance in cultural studies therefore presents camp as political and critical.

The Frankfurt School academic Theodor Adorno condemned pop culture as an instrument of capitalist oppression, with camp being part of the system. Camp, according to Frankfurt School theory, engenders unthinking consumerism.

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 recognised as valid art. In doing so, camp celebrates the trivial and superficial and form over content. This could be called the "yuck factor".

Camp-style performances may allow certain prejudices to be perpetuated by thinly veiling them as irony. Some feminist critics argue that drag queens are misogynistic because they make women seem ridiculous and perpetuate harmful stereotypes. This criticism posits that drag queens are the gay equivalent of the black and white minstrel. Some critics claim that camp comedians like Larry Grayson, Kenny Everett, Duncan Norvelle and Julian Clary perpetuate gay stereotypes and pander to homophobia.

As a part of its adoption by the mainstream, camp has undergone a softening of its original subversive tone, and is often little more than the recognition that popular culture can also be enjoyed by a sophisticated sensibility. Mainstream comic books and B Westerns, for example, have become standard subjects for academic analysis. The normalisation of the outrageous, common to many Vanguardist movements—has led some critics to argue the notion has lost its usefulness for critical art discourse.