Camp (style) - International Aspects

International Aspects

Thomas Hine identified 1954–64 as the campiest period in modern U.S. history. During this time, Americans had more money to spend, thanks to the post-war economic boom; but they often exercised poor taste.

In the U.K., on the other hand, camp is an adjective, often associated with a stereotypical view of feminine gay men. Although it applies to gay men, it is a specific adjective used to describe a man that 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 U.K. culture, and many so-called gay-icons and objects are chosen as such because they are camp. People like Kylie Minogue, John Inman, Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen, Lulu, Graham Norton, Mika, Lesley Joseph, Ruby Wax, Dale Winton, Cilla Black, and the music hall tradition of the pantomime are camp elements in popular culture.

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, Kafka and most recently – on 9 September 2006 – his eight-hour production for the Sydney Theatre Company The Lost Echo, based on Ovid's Metamorphoses and Euripides' The Bacchae. In the first act ("The Song of Phaeton"), for instance, the goddess Juno takes the form of a highly stylised Marlene Dietrich and the musical arrangements feature Noël Coward and Cole Porter. Kosky's use of camp is also effectively employed to satirise 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 practise if I want to be on Australian Idol.

Lately, in Europe, the Eurovision Song Contest, an annually televised competition of song performers from different countries, has shown an increased element of camp in their stage performances, at least during the televised finale, which is screened live across Europe. Many of the performers therein are strongly influenced by American-school camp artists. 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.