Are you camp?

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If so are you straight or gay? What do people mean by camp? What do you think of campness?

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 29 August 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Is there a female equivalent?

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 29 August 2003 13:57 (twenty-two years ago)

Female equivalent = butch, surely?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark C to thread!

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't believe i am, ducky

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:05 (twenty-two years ago)

me either I guess, maybe I should have asked something like, what do people mean by a mans feminine side, since camp almost always has homosexual connotations and is a bit of a cliched adjective.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:08 (twenty-two years ago)

by some people's standards

― duane, Friday, 29 August 2003 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm great with Tents and cooking over an open fire.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:17 (twenty-two years ago)

for gods sake ed. this thread is so going to die.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:20 (twenty-two years ago)

i like campness as long as its not lowest common denominator type stuff and the innuendo is either fairly subtle, smart of both. on the other hand, Python, Dick Emery and burly men in drag is still quite a hoot.

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Do you like me, stevem?

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I come over as quite camp some of the time, depending on level of sobriety and who I'm talking to.

Mark C totally kicks my arse in the camp stakes, mind.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:26 (twenty-two years ago)

dont you mean totally pinches?

I don't think my mannerisms are camp but I like talking to close female mates about stupid girly things, er but don't quote me on that! I think it's mainly cos I like conversation and it's kind of a new thing to talk about and sort of liberating. I don't think guys are camp enough really.

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:31 (twenty-two years ago)

i think im not camp - maybe a little if i'm drunk, okay. Andrwe Sullivan in his book "Virtually Normal" describes camp as "The aestheticisation of pain". I think theres definately something in that.

― jed_e_3 (jed_e_3), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:39 (twenty-two years ago)

in what way does he mean that?

― Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark C isn't camp enough for my liking - i think he needs bigger hair

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:42 (twenty-two years ago)

Why do you hurt me, Steve?

― Mark C (Mark C), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Shouldn't that be "do you really want to hurt me?"

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:46 (twenty-two years ago)

*flounces off*

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Susan Sontag to thread

― rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 29 August 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Ronan i think he means that people who are camp are primarliy those who experienced pain in their earlier lives. I suppose that many gay people have to put up with oppression, hate and homophobia when they are growing up and this can manifest itself in different ways in later life - either a complete suppression of femininity - witness the obsession with "straight acting" among gay men - that is in a sense an extension of the oppression. It's a kind of self loathing and a loathing of femininity which is seen to be part of the gay psyche. The alternative to this is that that self loathing comes out as an extreme version of the femininity that has been suppressed. I think thats what he means by camp being aestheticised pain.

― jed_e_3 (jed_e_3), Friday, 29 August 2003 15:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I am not camp in the slightest. In fact I am a growling monument to all that is masculine.

― j0e (j0e), Friday, 29 August 2003 15:37 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah Sontag should get here to straighten *ahem* this all out.

― hstencil, Friday, 29 August 2003 15:42 (twenty-two years ago)

j0e and I watched Keeping Up Appearances on a Sunday lunchtime a few weeks back - if that's not camper than a week at Butlins then hose me down

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 29 August 2003 15:44 (twenty-two years ago)

it's boo-KAY

ok so I am flaming, roaring, mincing etc.

― j0e (j0e), Friday, 29 August 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Speaking of camp, I saw a movie about a year ago that had one of those spinning newspaper montages reminiscent of Citizen Cane or some other old movie - and when they did a close up on the headline that was the focus, there was also a smaller headline near the bottom that read "Camp isn't just a row of tents!" It's killing me - can anyone remember the movie?!

― Mandee, Friday, 29 August 2003 18:05 (twenty-two years ago)

Sontag's essay is pretty good, actually. I don't think camp has that much to do with being 'girly' as Ronan surmises, although directing your emotions through a filter of girlishness would probably result in camp.

http://pages.zoom.co.uk/leveridge/sontag.html

― Sean (Sean), Friday, 29 August 2003 18:06 (twenty-two years ago)

After a googling session I just now discovered the aforementioned headline was from the movie "Velvet Goldmine"

― Mandee, Friday, 29 August 2003 18:08 (twenty-two years ago)

camp does not equal swish! I think goths are camp, so yeah, I can totally be camp sometimes.

― teeny (teeny), Friday, 29 August 2003 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

"Indeed the essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration."

― Susan Sontag (jaymc), Friday, 29 August 2003 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I get accused of being camp sometimes. I don't have a camp voice or anything. Actually, I got accused today in an email of being camp.

― N. (nickdastoor), Friday, 29 August 2003 22:43 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought when RJG said "N was right about you Ronan", that he meant you had said I was camp. I have no rational reason why, it was a long time ago but I have a big ego and still think about it.

― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 30 August 2003 04:05 (twenty-two years ago)

oh, no, it was a lot more offensive and accurate than simply 'camp'.

j/k.

― RJG (RJG), Saturday, 30 August 2003 04:14 (twenty-two years ago)

female camp = Dusty Springfield. Or was that female drag? I forget.

― rosemary (rosemary), Saturday, 30 August 2003 04:16 (twenty-two years ago)

i'm camp, and i'm a female, yep. i'm not butch, i just like to be kinda out of this world. they don't call me Lady Lurex for nothing. i don't subscribe to the binary opposites "straight" and "gay" thanks. female butch can be camp, but isn't always. also ab fab is female camp, obv.

― The Lady Ms Lurex (lucylurex), Saturday, 30 August 2003 06:18 (twenty-two years ago)

i haven't reread sontag's essay for years, and i suppose i ought to b4 yattering, but i'd be surprised if it was really still totally OTM: it was written pre-Stonewall, when being gay was way harder than it is today (in many places, anyway), and i find it hard to believe that the culture hasn't got more complicated somewhat since then (just by virtue of being able to be more visible)

(eg is velvet goldmine a camp movie, or a movie about camp, or — even — a movie AGAINST Acamp?)

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 30 August 2003 09:57 (twenty-two years ago)

I watch Eurovision, love "Male Stripper", John Waters and the Shangri-las. My dancefloor technique has been described as "Camp Northern Soul dancing." Yet I like gurls.

― Tag (Tag), Saturday, 30 August 2003 14:27 (twenty-two years ago)

A few weeks ago I went to the preview screening of Party Monster, the Michael Alig/James St. James story with roles played by M. Culkin and Seth Green respectively, and felt that the film wasn't sufficiently camp because I know five gayboys and a Nick Momus at least that could do a better spin on nihilistic bitchy clubberboy types and it wouldn't actually be, y'know, obviously ACTING. My friends lamented the absence of:

That record 'If Madonna Calls, Tell Her I'm Out'
The complete absence of the epithet 'Miss Thing'
And the admonition, 'oh please, Mary!'

― suzy (suzy), Saturday, 30 August 2003 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

honey... moi? camp? don't be so absurd dah-ling.

― thuddd (thuddd), Saturday, 30 August 2003 20:36 (twenty-two years ago)

ooh, get her

― stevem (blueski), Saturday, 30 August 2003 23:38 (twenty-two years ago)

nine years pass...

A couple links from the gay thread on Bruce LaBruce's attempt to define camp for our age, inspired by how the Minnesotan thread is filled with straights who are more excited about gay marriage than gays are.

Quasi-Camp

Jerry Lewis’ sixties movies (The Ladies Man, The Patsy, The Big Mouth)
Midnight Cowboy
Looking For Mr. Goodbar
Luna
Cruising

Subversive Camp:

Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies
Roddy McDowell’s Tam Lin
Brett Anderson of Suede
Pee Wee Herman

Reactionary Camp:

Tyler Perry
Eddie Murphy
Heavy Metal

Liberal Camp:

Dr. Ruth
Rev. Al Sharpton
Shepard Fairey’s Obama "Hope" poster

http://natbrut.com/notes-on-camp-labruce

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-allen/bruce-labruce-camp_b_3230251.html

― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 14 May 2013 03:23 (twelve years ago)

Andrew Sullivan in his book "Virtually Normal" describes camp as "The aestheticisation of pain".

this (& subsequent explanation) is an interesting take on it. seems a bit too neat and simple but also makes sense

― NI, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 04:07 (twelve years ago)

didn't read that, but it makes sense. camp, to me, has to do with the re-appropriation of mass culture, and this is only an urgent task for those who have traditionally been excluded by mass culture.

― Treeship, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 04:16 (twelve years ago)

I run more to self-parody.

― Aimless, Tuesday, 14 May 2013 16:52 (twelve years ago)

only an urgent task for those who have traditionally been excluded by mass culture.

This is where that film Portrait of Jason comes in.

― ballin' from Maine to Mexico (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 14 May 2013 16:54 (twelve years ago)

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