Editing Camp (style)

{{Short description|Ostentatious style and sensibility}}
{{Redirect|Campy}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=June 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2024}}

'''Camp''' is an [[Aesthetics|aesthetic]] and sensibility that regards something as appealing or amusing because of its heightened level of artifice, affectation and exaggeration,<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-08-01 |title=Definition of CAMP |url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/camp |access-date=2024-08-09 |website=www.merriam-webster.com |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite web |title=Definition of 'camp' |url=https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/camp |access-date=2024-08-09 |website=Collins Dictionary |publisher=HarperCollins Publishers}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite web |title=What does it mean to be camp? |url=https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190503-what-does-it-mean-to-be-camp |access-date=2024-08-09 |website=www.bbc.com |date=7 May 2019 |language=en-GB}}</ref> especially when there is also a playful or [[Irony|ironic]] element.<ref>"Camp, Adj., Sense 3." ''Oxford English Dictionary.'' Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/1024137863</nowiki>.</ref><ref name=":10">{{Cite web |date=2012-02-08 |title=glbtq >> literature >> Camp |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/camp.html |access-date=2024-08-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120208193238/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/camp.html |archive-date=8 February 2012 }}</ref> ''Camp'' is historically associated with [[LGBTQ culture]] and especially [[gay men]].<ref name=":1" /><ref name="MallaMcGillis2005" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> Camp aesthetics disrupt [[modernism|modernist]] understandings of [[high art]] by inverting traditional aesthetic judgements of beauty, value, and taste, and inviting a different kind of aesthetic engagement.<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 art is distinct from but often confused with [[kitsch]]''.'' The American writer [[Susan Sontag]] emphasized its key elements as embracing frivolity, excess and artifice.''<ref name="Eiss2016">{{cite book |author=Harry Eiss |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=17f6DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA26 |title=The Joker |date=11 May 2016 |publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing |isbn=978-1-4438-9429-6 |page=26}}</ref>'' Art historian [[David Carrier]] notes that, despite these qualities, it is also subversive and political.<ref name=":20" /> ''Camp'' may be sophisticated,<ref name=":5">{{Citation |last=Sontag |first=Susan |title=Notes on 'Camp' |date=2022-02-15 |work=Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader |pages=53 |orig-date=1999 |url=https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781474465809-006/html |access-date=2024-08-09 |place=Edinburgh |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |language=en |doi=10.1515/9781474465809-006 |isbn=978-1-4744-6580-9|url-access=subscription }}</ref> but subjects deemed ''camp'' may also be perceived as being dated, offensive or in [[Bad taste (aesthetics)|bad taste]].<ref name=":14">Babuscio (1993, 20), Feil (2005, 478), Morrill (1994, 110), Shugart and Waggoner (2008, 33), and Van Leer (1995)</ref><ref name=":10" /> ''Camp'' may also be divided into ''high'' and ''low'' ''camp'' (i.e., camp arising from serious versus unserious matters), or alternatively into ''naive'' and ''deliberate camp'' (i.e., accidental versus intentional camp).<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /><ref>Harry Eiss (11 May 2016). ''The Joker''. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p.&nbsp;11. {{ISBN|978-1-4438-9429-6}}.</ref><ref name=":6">Dansky, Steven F. "On the persistence of camp." ''The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide'' 20, no. 2 (2013): 15-19.</ref> While author and academic Moe Meyer defines ''camp'' as a form of "queer parody",<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":3" /> journalist [[Jack Babuscio]] argues it is a specific "gay sensibility" which has often been "misused to signify the trivial, superficial and 'queer'".<ref>Babuscio, J., 1999. The cinema of camp (aka camp and the gay sensibility). ''Camp: Queer aesthetics and the performing subject: A reader'', pp.117-35.</ref>

''Camp'', as a particular style or set of mannerisms, may serve as a marker of identity, such as in ''camp talk'', which expresses a gay male identity.<ref name=":17" /> This ''camp style'' is associated with [[Theories of humor#Incongruity theory|incongruity]] or [[juxtaposition]], theatricality, and [[humour]],<ref name=":16">{{Cite web |date=2011-10-08 |title=glbtq >> literature >> Camp |url=http://www.glbtq.com/literature/camp,2.html |access-date=2024-08-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111008150300/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/camp,2.html |archive-date=8 October 2011 }}</ref> and has appeared in film, [[cabaret]], and [[pantomime]].<ref name=":7" /><ref name=":18" /><ref name="CampWaters" /> Both [[High culture|high]] and [[Low culture|low forms of culture]] may be ''camp'',<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":8">{{Cite book |last=Baker |first=Paul |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/ocm55587437 |title=Fantabulosa: a dictionary of Polari and gay slang |date=2004 |publisher=Continuum |isbn=978-0-8264-7343-1 |location=London |pages=18 |oclc=ocm55587437}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> but where high art incorporates beauty and value, ''camp'' often strives to be lively, audacious and dynamic.<ref name="MallaMcGillis2005" /> ''Camp'' can also be [[Tragedy|tragic]], [[Sentimentality|sentimental]] and ironic, finding beauty or [[black comedy]] even in suffering.<ref name=":7" /> The humour of ''camp'', as well as its frivolity, may serve as a [[Coping|coping mechanism]] to deal with [[Homophobia|intolerance]] and [[Social exclusion|marginalization]] in society.<ref name=":10" /><ref name=":15">{{Cite web |last=Brett |first=Philip |title=Queer Musical Orientalism |url=https://echo.humspace.ucla.edu/issues/queer-musical-orientalism-2/ |access-date=2024-08-09 |website=ECHO |publisher=University of California |language=en}}</ref>

== Origins and development ==
The ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' notes that the word ''camp'' was used as a verb since at least the 1500s.<ref name="OED camp adj" /> Writer Bruce Rodgers also traces the term ''camp'' to the 16th century, specifically to British theatre, where it referred to men dressed as women ([[Drag (entertainment)|drag]]).<ref name=":10" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rodgers |first=Bruce |title=Gay Talk: a (sometimes outrageous) dictionary of gay slang |date=1979 |publisher=Paragon books |isbn=978-0-399-50392-4 |edition=Reprint |series=A Paragon book |location=New York}}</ref> ''Camp'' may have derived from the gay slang [[Polari]],<ref>"camp". ''Oxford English Dictionary'', Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989.</ref> which borrowed the term from the Italian ''campare,''<ref name=":11">{{Cite web |last=Luu |first=Chi |date=2018-06-06 |title=The Unspeakable Linguistics of Camp |url=https://daily.jstor.org/unspeakable-linguistics-camp/ |access-date=2024-08-09 |website=JSTOR Daily |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":8" /> or 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 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914223354/http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=camp |archive-date=14 September 2016 |access-date=21 August 2016 |website=Online Etymology Dictionary}}</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 personage sur la scène. Camper une figure dans un tableau, des caractères dans un roman''." ('''Familiar:''' To assume a defiant, insolent or [[wikt:devil-may-care|devil-may-care]] attitude. '''Theatre:''' To perform with forcefulness and [[wikt:exaggeration|exaggeration]]; [[wikt:overact|to overact]]; To impose one's character assertively into a scene; [[wikt:upstage|to upstage]].)</ref> A similar sense is also found in French theatre in [[Molière]]'s 1671 play ''[[Les Fourberies de Scapin]]''.<ref name=":6" />

Writer [[Susan Sontag]] and linguist [[Paul Baker (linguist)|Paul Baker]] place the "soundest starting point" for the modern sense of ''camp'', meaning ''flamboyant'', as the late 17th and early 18th centuries.<ref name="Sontag2009" /><ref name=":23">{{Cite book |last=Baker |first=Paul |title=Camp! |date=2023 |publisher=Footnote Press |isbn=978-1-80444-032-2 |location=London Stockholm |pages=15}}</ref> Writer [[Anthony Burgess]] theorized it may have emerged from the primary sense of the word'','' as in a military encampment, where gay men would subtly advertize their sexuality in all-male company through a particular style and affectation.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Camp |url=http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa-cam1.html |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=www.worldwidewords.org |language=en-gb}}</ref>

By 1870, British [[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]], 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 1874, the ''Manchester Courier'' printed the description of a ticket for a Salford [[drag ball]], called the "Queen of Camp" ball.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Maidment |first=Adam |date=2021-06-06 |title=How Salford's Victorian drag queens led to Manchester 21st century scene |url=https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/how-camp-masquerade-ball-nearly-20729624 |access-date=2025-02-26 |website=Manchester Evening News |language=en}}</ref><ref>Rictor Norton (Ed.), "Queen of Camp, 1874", ''Homosexuality in Nineteenth-Century England: A Sourcebook'', 4 December 2018; expanded 30 October 2019 http://rictornorton.co.uk/eighteen/1874camp.htm</ref>{{efn|The paper, reporting on the arrest of a man attending the event in drag, said: "Upon searching Mack, he found upon him...a ticket upon which was printed—'Her Majesty Queen of Camp will hold a levee and grand bal-masque on Wednesday, Oct 21st, 1874. Dancing to commence at ten o'clock'".<ref name="OED camp adj" />}} According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', the first definitive use of ''camp'' as an adjective in print occurred in the writing of J. R. Ware in 1909.<ref name="OED camp adj">''Oxford English Dictionary'', s.v. "camp (adj. & n.5)", December 2024, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7181450905.</ref> In the UK's pre-[[gay liberation|liberation]] [[gay culture]], the term was used as 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><ref>{{Citation |last=Leslie |first=Esther |title=Schlock, Kitsch, and Camp |date=2022 |work=The Cambridge Companion to American Horror |pages=91–104 (95) |editor-last=Storey |editor-first=Mark |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-american-horror/schlock-kitsch-and-camp/AFE723D2952473D1887BF2BB9487F771 |access-date=2024-08-09 |series=Cambridge Companions to Literature |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/9781009071550.008 |isbn=978-1-316-51300-2 |editor2-last=Shapiro |editor2-first=Stephen|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The term ''camp'' is still sometimes used in the UK to describe a gay man who is perceived as outwardly garish or eccentric, such as [[Matt Lucas]]' character [[Daffyd Thomas]] in the English comedy skit show ''[[Little Britain (sketch show)|Little Britain]]''.<ref>{{Citation |last=Lindner |first=Oliver |title=The Comic Nation: Little Britain and the Politics of Representation |date=2016 |work=British TV Comedies: Cultural Concepts, Contexts and Controversies |pages=326–340 |editor-last=Kamm |editor-first=Jürgen |url=https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137552952_22 |access-date=2024-08-09 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9781137552952_22 |isbn=978-1-137-55295-2 |editor2-last=Neumann |editor2-first=Birgit|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

From the mid-1940s, numerous representations of ''camp speech'' or ''camp'' ''talk'', as used by gay men, began to appear in print in America, France and the United Kingdom.<ref name=":17">{{Cite journal |last=Harvey |first=Keith |date=1998-01-31 |title=Translating Camp Talk: Gay Identities and Cultural Transfer |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13556509.1998.10799024 |journal=The Translator |language=en |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=295–320 |doi=10.1080/13556509.1998.10799024 |issn=1355-6509|url-access=subscription }}</ref> By the mid-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>[[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)]]In America, the concept of camp was also described by [[Christopher Isherwood]] in 1954 in his novel ''[[The World in the Evening]]'', and later by [[Susan Sontag]] in her 1964 essay '[[Notes on "Camp"]]'.<ref name="Sontag2019">{{cite book |author=Susan Sontag |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gcqcDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT4 |title=Notes on "Camp" |date=14 June 2019 |publisher=Picador |isbn=978-1-250-62134-4 |page=4}}</ref> Two key components of the "radical spectacle of camp" were originally feminine performances: [[Swish (slang)|swish]] and [[Drag (entertainment)|drag]].<ref name=":11" /> With swish's extensive use of superlatives and drag's exaggerated female impersonation, camp occasionally became extended to all things "over the top", including women posing as female impersonators ([[AFAB queen|faux queens]]) such as [[Carmen Miranda]], while also retaining its meaning as "queer parody".<ref name=":2">Moe Meyer (2010): ''An Archaeology of Posing: Essays on Camp, Drag, and Sexuality'', Macater Press, {{ISBN|978-0-9814924-5-2}}.</ref><ref name=":3">Moe Meyer (2011): ''The Politics and Poetics of Camp'', Routledge, {{ISBN|978-0-415-51489-7}}.</ref><ref name=":92">Cohan, Steven. ''Incongruous entertainment: Camp, cultural value, and the MGM musical''. Duke University Press, 2005. p.11, 274.</ref>

In her study of [[Drag queen|drag]], cultural anthropologist [[Esther Newton]] argued that ''camp'' has three major features: incongruity, theatricality, and humour.<ref name=":16" /> In his 1984, writer George Melly argued that the camp sensibility allowed almost anything to be seen as a ''camp'', and that this was a way of projecting one's own queer sensibility upon the world to therefore reclaim it. Conversely, he argued, the biggest threat to camp wasn't heterosexuals ("who tend to accept it, although usually at a fairly broad and superficial level"), but "a neo-puritanism, a received conformism" emerging among gay people at the time.<ref name=":19">{{Cite book |last=Core |first=Philip |title=Camp: the lie that tells the truth |date=1984 |publisher=Delilah Books |isbn=978-0-933328-83-9 |location=New York |pages=5}}</ref>

The rise of [[postmodernism]] and [[queer theory]] has made ''camp'' a common perspective on aesthetics, not solely identified with gay men.<ref name="MallaMcGillis2005" /><ref name=":12">Morrill, Cynthia. "Revamping the Gay Sensibility: Queer Camp and ''dyke noir''." In Moe Meyer (ed). ''The Politics and Poetics of Camp''. Routledge, 2005. p.94.</ref> Women (especially [[lesbian]]s), trans people, and people of colour have described new forms of ''camp'', such as ''dyke camp'' (including subcategories such as ''cubana'' and ''high-femme dyke camp'')<ref>{{Cite web |last=Clements |first=Mikaella |author-link= |date=2016-11-25 |title=Notes on dyke camp |url=https://theoutline.com/post/4556/notes-on-dyke-camp |access-date=2024-08-09 |website=The Outline |language=en}}</ref><ref name=":13" /> and ''queer of color camp''.<ref name=":13">{{Cite journal |last=Lim |first=Eng-Beng |date=2015 |title=A Performative Presidency |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/583613 |journal=American Quarterly |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=301–307 |doi=10.1353/aq.2015.0021 |issn=1080-6490|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dominguez |first=Alessa |date=2015-05-01 |title="I'm Very Rich, Bitch!": The Melodramatic Money Shot and the Excess of Racialized Gendered Affect in the Real Housewives Docusoaps |url=https://read.dukeupress.edu/camera-obscura/article/30/1%20(88)/155/97575/I-m-Very-Rich-Bitch-The-Melodramatic-Money-Shot |journal=Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies |language=en |volume=30 |issue=1 |pages=155–183 |doi=10.1215/02705346-2885486 |issn=0270-5346|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

''Camp'' has also been a subject of [[psychoanalytic theory]], where it has been portrayed as a form of performance or ''masquerade''. Scholar Cynthia Morrill has argued that the conception of "camp-as-masquerade" ignores the specifically queer sensibility of ''camp'' by interrogating queerness through a [[Heteronormativity|heteronormative]] lens (i.e., solely in relation to the [[Phallogocentrism|symbol of the phallus]]).<ref name=":12" />

''Camp'' has become prevalent in mainstream [[Popular culture|popular entertainment]] such as theatre, cinema, TV and music.<ref name="MallaMcGillis20052">{{cite journal |author1=Kerry Malla |date=January 2005 |editor1-last=Roderick McGillis |title=Between a Frock and a Hard Place: Camp Aesthetics and Children's Culture |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/27477842 |journal=Canadian Review of American Studies |volume=35 |issue=1 |pages=1–3 |access-date=10 October 2019}}</ref><ref name=":92"/> In reaction to its popularisation, critics such as [[Jack Babuscio]] and Jeanette Cooperman have argued that ''camp'' requires the [[Social alienation|alienation]] of LGBTQ+ people from the mainstream to maintain its edge.<ref name=":212">{{Cite book |last=Philpot |first=Chris |title=Sontag and the camp aesthetic: advancing new perspectives |date=2017 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-1-4985-3777-3 |editor-last=Drushel |editor-first=Bruce E. |series=Media, culture, and the arts |location=Lanham |pages=66 |chapter=Diva Worship in a Queer Poetic of Waste in D. Gilson's ''Brit Lit'' |editor-last2=Peters |editor-first2=Brian M.}}</ref><ref name=":222">{{Cite web |last=Cooperman |first=Jeannette |date=2020-01-30 |title=Is Camp Still "Camp"? |url=https://commonreader.wustl.edu/c/is-camp-still-camp/ |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=Common Reader |language=en-US}}</ref> Poet and scholar Chris Philpot, like Cooperman, nevertheless argues that ''camp'' can still be a viable "survival strategy" for [[Social exclusion|marginalized]] queer people, so long as it evolves with them.<ref name=":212"/> Curator Andrew Bolton, after his show ''Camp: Notes on Fashion'' at the New York [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]], explains that context is also important for understanding the power and relevance of camp: "Camp tends to come to the fore through moments of social and political instability, when our society is deeply polarized. The 1960s is one such moment, as were the 1980s, so, too, are the times in which we're living."<ref name=":222"/>

== ''Camp'' in contemporary culture ==
=== Fashion ===
[[Patrick Kelly (fashion designer)|Patrick Kelly]]'s designs have been described as camp and "Radical Cheek" for his ironic use of bold colours, antiquated or incongruous styles, and reclaimed racist symbols.<ref name=":21">{{Cite web |title=Patrick Kelly's Radical Cheek (washingtonpost.com) |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3561-2004May30_2.html |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=www.washingtonpost.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Barnes |first=Sequoia |date=2017-12-20 |title="If You Don't Bring No Grits, Don't Come": Critiquing a Critique of Patrick Kelly, Golliwogs, And Camp as A Technique of Black Queer Expression |journal=Open Cultural Studies |language=en |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=678–689 |doi=10.1515/culture-2017-0062 |issn=2451-3474|doi-access=free }}</ref> He designed a banana dress in reference to [[Josephine Baker]] and dedicated a whole collection to her. He used mismatched buttons when creating his own take on a [[Chanel]] suit. By the time he died in 1990, he had dressed noted queer icons such as [[Grace Jones]] and [[Isabella Rossellini]]. His grave is marked with a stylized [[golliwog]]—a reclaimed symbol for his label—featuring big gold earrings and bright red lips.<ref name=":22" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Segran |first=Elizabeth |date=2019-02-13 |title=Rediscovering Patrick Kelly, the designer who made blackface his brand |url=https://www.fastcompany.com/90305316/rediscovering-patrick-kelly-the-designer-who-made-blackface-his-brand |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=Fast Company}}</ref><ref name=":21" />[[File:Camp - Notes on Fashion at the Met (73879).jpg|thumb|Clothing designs from ''[[Camp: Notes on Fashion]]'']]The 2019 [[Met Gala]]'s theme was [[Camp: Notes on Fashion]], co-chaired by [[Anna Wintour]], [[Serena Williams]], [[Lady Gaga]], [[Harry Styles]], and [[Alessandro Michele]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Yang |first=Lucy |date=2019-05-07 |title=The 2019 Met Gala's theme is 'camp' — here's what you should expect to see on the red carpet |url=https://www.insider.com/met-gala-2019-camp-theme-co-chairs-2018-10 |access-date=2022-08-25 |website=Insider |language=en-US}}</ref> The show featured tributes to [[queer]] and camp figures, including a bronze statue of [[Vatican Museums|the Vatican]]'s [[Hermes (Museo Pio-Clementino)|Belvedere Antinous]], portraits of [[Louis XIV]] and [[Oscar Wilde]], and celebrations of Black and Latinx [[ball culture]] and the [[Harlem Renaissance]].<ref name=":222" /> [[Dapper Dan (designer)|Dapper Dan]]—whose luxurious fashion has been credited with camping up the [[Hip hop music|hip-hop]] genre—designed seven camp outfits for [[Gucci]], worn at the gala by [[21 Savage]], [[Omari Hardwick]], [[Regina Hall]], [[Bevy Smith]], [[Ashley Graham]] and [[Karlie Kloss]] (he wore the seventh).<ref name=":22"/><ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-05-06 |title=At the Met Gala, Dapper Dan Stands By Gucci and Stands Up to Cancel Culture |url=https://www.elle.com/fashion/a27369529/met-gala-dapper-dan-gucci/ |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=ELLE |language=en-US}}</ref>

Lady Gaga's entrance took 16 minutes, as she arrived to the gala alongside an entourage of five dancers carrying umbrellas, a make up artist, and a personal photographer to snap pictures of Gaga's poses.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |date=2019-05-07 |title=Lady Gaga perfectly captured 'camp' at the Met Gala by paying homage to drag culture |url=https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/lady-gaga-met-gala |access-date=2022-08-25 |website=British GQ |language=en-GB}}</ref> Gaga arrived in a hot pink [[Brandon Maxwell]] gown with a 25-foot train<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-05-10 |title=See How Lady Gaga Pulled Off the Greatest Met Gala Entrance of All Time |url=https://www.vogue.com/article/lady-gaga-met-gala-2019-entrance-behind-the-scenes-video |url-access=registration |access-date=2022-08-25 |website=Vogue |language=en-US}}</ref> and went through a series of four "reveals," paying homage to [[Drag show|drag culture]],<ref name=":0" /> debuting a new outfit each time, until reaching her final look: a bra and underwear with fishnets and platform heels.<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=2019-05-06 |title=Lady Gaga Just Had 4 Outfit Changes on the Met Gala Red Carpet and We're Deceased |url=https://www.harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/red-carpet-dresses/a27358784/lady-gaga-met-gala-2019/ |access-date=2022-08-25 |magazine=Harper's BAZAAR |language=en-us}}</ref> Other notable ensembles included [[Katy Perry]] wearing a gown that looked like a chandelier, designed by [[Moschino]]; and [[Kacey Musgraves]] appearing as a life-size [[Barbie]], also by Moschino.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-09-13 |title=Photos from Moschino's Most Memorable Met Gala Looks |url=https://www.eonline.com/photos/33191/moschinos-most-memorable-met-gala-looks |access-date=2022-08-25 |website=E! Online}}</ref>

=== Film ===
[[File:Rock Hudson and Dorothy Malone in Written on the Wind.jpeg|thumb|Several [[melodrama film]]s, like [[Douglas Sirk]]'s ''[[Written on the Wind]]'' (1956), have acquired [[Cult film|cult status]] because of their unintentional camp content.<ref name="melodrama"/>]]
[[Melodrama film]]s have been celebrated for their unintentional camp content by [[gay male culture]] long before critics and academics first defined the genre in the 1970s.<ref name="melodrama">{{cite book|title=Melodrama: Genre, Style, Sensibility|isbn=978-0-231-50306-8|type=eBook|year=2013|orig-year=2004|publisher=Wallflower, [[Columbia University Press]]|location=London; New York|series=Short Cuts|last1=Mercer|first1=John|first2=Martin|last2=Shingler|chapter=Introduction; Camp; Gay cinema and the gay auteur}}</ref><ref name="melodrama2">{{cite book|editor-first=Christine|editor-last=Gledhill|title=Home is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Woman's Film|publisher=[[British Film Institute]]|year=1987|location=London|isbn=0-85170-200-7|page=7}}</ref> Some writers have even considered the genre to be "cinema made for and by [[gay men]]."<ref name="melodrama"/> In addition to the films of [[Douglas Sirk]] (the greatest exponent of melodrama), several works by Minnelli, [[Nicholas Ray]], [[George Cukor]], [[Billy Wilder]] and [[Joseph Losey]] acquired [[cult status]] among gay men because of the "very excessiveness, extreme emotionality, mannered performances, style and very direct sentimental form of address that these films demonstrate".<ref name="melodrama"/> Several features of the family melodrama, later emphasized by film theorists as integral to the subversive and progressive essence of the genre, were precisely the attributes that gay men found humorous.<ref name="melodrama"/> Several later exponents of [[gay cinema]], like [[John Waters]], [[Pedro Almodóvar]], [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]] and [[Todd Haynes]], among others, have cited campy melodramas as a major influence.<ref name="melodrama"/>

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, and who created films which achieved [[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|publisher= [[Camden House Publishing]]|isbn = 9781571135957|access-date=2022-03-05|last1 = Kapczynski|first1 = Jennifer M.|last2 = Richardson|first2 = Michael David|year = 2012}}</ref> The 1972 musical ''[[Cabaret (1972 film)|Cabaret]]'' is also seen as an example of the aesthetic, with film critic Esther Leslie describing the camp in the film thus:<blockquote>Camp thrives on tragic gestures, on lament at the transience of life, on an excess of sentiment, an ironic sensibility that art and artifice is preferable to nature and health, in a Wildean sense.<ref name=":7">{{Citation |last=Leslie |first=Esther |title=Schlock, Kitsch, and Camp |date=2022 |work=The Cambridge Companion to American Horror |pages=91–104 (96) |editor-last=Storey |editor-first=Mark |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-american-horror/schlock-kitsch-and-camp/AFE723D2952473D1887BF2BB9487F771 |access-date=2024-08-09 |series=Cambridge Companions to Literature |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/9781009071550.008 |isbn=978-1-316-51300-2 |editor2-last=Shapiro |editor2-first=Stephen|url-access=subscription }}</ref></blockquote>Australian writer/director Baz Luhrmann's [[Red Curtain Trilogy]], in particular the film ''[[Strictly Ballroom]]'' (1992), has been described as camp.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gluyas |first=Sophia Davidson |date=2014-03-01 |title=Dancing Federation Steps: A (queer) lesbian reading of Strictly Ballroom |journal=Intersectional Perspectives: Identity, Culture, and Society |language=en-US |volume=4 |issue=1 |page=24 |doi=10.18573/ipics.66 |issn=2042-387X|doi-access=free }}</ref>
The term camp is also used prominently in the horror genre, with examples including ''[[Killer Klowns from Outer Space]]'', or [[The Evil Dead]] franchise.

=== Literature ===
''[[Dandy]]ism'' is often seen as a precursor to camp, especially as embodied in [[Oscar Wilde]] and his work.<ref name=":6" /><ref>{{Citation |last=Mills |first=Victoria |title=Dandyism, Visuality and the 'Camp Gem': Collections of Jewels in Huysmans and Wilde |date=2010 |work=Illustrations, Optics and Objects in Nineteenth-Century Literary and Visual Cultures |pages=147–166 |editor-last=Calè |editor-first=Luisa |url=https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230297395_8 |access-date=2024-08-10 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1057/9780230297395_8 |isbn=978-0-230-29739-5 |editor2-last=Di Bello |editor2-first=Patrizia|url-access=subscription }}</ref> The character of Amarinth in [[Robert Hichens (writer)|Robert Hichens]]'s ''[[The Green Carnation]]'' (1894), based on Wilde, uses "camp coding" in his "effusive and inverted" use of language.<ref name=":16" />

The scene where Anthony Blanche arrives late to Sebastian Flyte's lunch party in [[Evelyn Waugh]]'s ''[[Brideshead Revisited]]'', has been described by writer George Melly as an example of ''camp''<nowiki/>'s "alchemical ability" to project a [[queer]] sensibility upon the world and unite one's peers in that sensibility.<ref name=":19" />

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."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Lowder |first=J. Bryan |date=2013-04-15 |title=Can Camp Be Taken Seriously? |url=https://slate.com/culture/2013/04/midnight-in-the-garden-of-good-and-evil-serious-camp.html |access-date=2024-08-10 |work=Slate |language=en-US |issn=1091-2339}}</ref>

In the American writer [[Susan Sontag]]'s 1964 essay ''[[Notes on "Camp"]]'', Sontag emphasized the embrace of artifice, frivolity, naivety, pretentiousness, offensiveness, and 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.<ref name="Sontag1964" /> However, critics of Sontag's description, such as art historian [[David Carrier]], say that it is outdated and that "her celebration of its ecstatic marginality downplays its implicit subversiveness".<ref name=":20">{{Cite web |last=Carrier |first=David |date=1995-02-02 |title=CRITICAL CAMP |url=https://www.artforum.com/features/critical-camp-202706/ |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=Artforum |language=en-US}}</ref>

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".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Booth |first=Mark |title=Camp |date=1983 |publisher=Quartet Books |isbn=978-0-7043-2353-7 |location=London Melbourne New York |pages=18}}</ref> 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 camp people, and thus appeal to them.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Booth |first=Mark W. |title=Camp |date=1983 |publisher=Quartet |isbn=978-0-7043-2353-7 |location=London; New York |pages=20}}</ref>

In his 1984 book ''Camp: The Lie That Tells The Truth'', writer and artist [[Philip Core]] describes [[Jean Cocteau]]'s autobiography as "the definition of camp".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Core |first=Philip |title=Camp: the lie that tells the truth |date=1984 |publisher=Delilah Books |isbn=978-0-933328-83-9 |location=New York |pages=9}}</ref>

In 1993, journalist [[Russell Davies]] published comedian [[Kenneth Williams]]'s diaries. Williams's diary entry for 1 January 1947 reads: "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>

=== Music ===
{{multiple image
| align             = right
| total_width       = 360
| image1            = Cher at Farewell Tour.JPG
| alt1              = Cher
| image2            = Madonna II B 3a (cropped).jpg
| alt2              = Madonna
| image3            = Katyperry-cdt-californiagurls-edit.jpg
| alt3              = Katy Perry
| footer            = Camp costuming worn by American pop singers [[Cher]], [[Madonna]], and [[Katy Perry]]
}}

American singer and actress [[Cher]] is one of the artists who received the title of "Queen of Camp" through her colourful 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 [[Bob Mackie]] and became a constant presence on American prime-time television.<ref name="The Telegraph">{{cite news|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|date=24 July 2015 |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|last1=White |first1=Belinda }}</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 also considered camp and according to educator [[Carol Queen]], her "whole career up to and including ''[[Sex (book)|Sex]]'' has depended heavily on camp imagery and camp understandings of gender and sex".<ref name="Gnojewski">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JDGdVGWrjr8C&q=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> Madonna has also been 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, 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>

In public and on stage, [[Dusty Springfield]] developed an image supported by her peroxide blonde [[Beehive (hairstyle)|beehive]] hairstyle, [[evening gown]]s, and heavy make-up that included her much-copied "panda eye" look.<ref name="britannica.com">{{cite encyclopedia |title=Dusty Springfield (British singer) – Encyclopædia Britannica |encyclopedia=Britannica.com |url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/561395/Dusty-Springfield |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 |author=Peter Silverton |url-status=live}}</ref><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 [[Brigitte Bardot]] and [[Catherine Deneuve]].<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|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> This, her singing style and her sexuality made her a "camp icon" and won her a 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>

Rappers such as [[Lil' Kim]], [[Nicki Minaj]] and [[Cam'ron]] have all been described as camp, often because of the opulence and winking humour of their personas. [[Dapper Dan (designer)|Dapper Dan]] has been credited with introducing high fashion and camp to hip hop. In pop and rock, musicians [[Prince (musician)|Prince]] and [[Jimi Hendrix]] have also been called camp because of their flamboyance and playful use of artifice.<ref name=":22">{{Cite web |last=Newman |first=Scarlett |date=2019-05-03 |title=Who Are the Black Icons of Camp? |url=https://www.teenvogue.com/story/black-culture-and-camp |access-date=2024-08-10 |website=Teen Vogue |language=en-US}}</ref>

South Korean rapper [[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=https://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 recognized 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 |archive-date=20 February 2021 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20210220085620/https://attitude.co.uk/article/interview-geri-horner-talks-spice-girls-solo-regrets-and-her-kinship-with-the-gay-community/13210/ |url-status=dead }}</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>

Dancer, singer and actress [[Josephine Baker]] has been described as ''camp.'' Her famous banana dress has been noted as particularly camp for its flamboyant, humorous and ironic qualities, as well as the way it makes a political point using outdated but reclaimed imagery.<ref>Francis, Terri Simone. ''Josephine Baker's Cinematic Prism''. Indiana University Press, 2021. p. x</ref><ref>Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. "Spectacular Dress: Africanisms in the Fashions and Performances of Josephine Baker, 1925–1975". In ''African Dress: Fashion, Agency, Performance.'' London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013. pp.204-16.</ref><ref name=":23" />

[[Lady Gaga]], a contemporary exemplar of camp, uses music and dance to make [[social commentary]] on pop culture, as in the [[Judas (Lady Gaga song)|"Judas"]] music 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> [[Katy Perry]] has also been described as camp, with outlets like ''[[Vogue (magazine)|Vogue]]'' describing her as another "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|magazine=Vogue|access-date=January 3, 2022}}</ref>

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 |title=Reappraising Durkheim for the study and teaching of religion today |date=2002 |volume=92 |pages=38–39 |editor-last=Idinopulos |editor-first=Thomas A. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TZt_hMv3OqQC |access-date=21 November 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602203649/http://books.google.com/books?id=TZt_hMv3OqQC |archive-date=2 June 2013 |url-status=live |series=Numen book series |contribution=Secularism and the sacred: is there really something called 'secular religion'? |publisher=Brill |isbn=9004123393 |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. |editor2-last=Wilson |editor2-first=Brian C.}}</ref> ''Camp'' still forms a strong element in UK culture, and many so-called [[gay icon]]s and objects are chosen as such because they are camp, including musicians such as [[Elton John]],<ref>{{cite news |last=Armstrong |first=Robert |date=May 23, 2019 |title=Rock it, man — what Elton John teaches us about style |url=https://www.ft.com/content/e0b5072c-7bb1-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/https://www.ft.com/content/e0b5072c-7bb1-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560 |archive-date=10 December 2022 |access-date=12 July 2021 |work=[[Financial Times]]}}</ref> [[Kylie Minogue]], [[Lulu (singer)|Lulu]], and [[Mika (singer)|Mika]].{{Citation needed|date=September 2007}}

Musicologist Philip Brett has highlighted campness in the work of [[Benjamin Britten]] and has also argued for a camp reading of French composer [[Francis Poulenc]]'s ''Concerto for Two Pianos in D minor'', noting its combination of a Balinese [[gamelan]] with a sense of "musical resignation and longing".<ref name=":15" />

Musicologist Raymond Knapp has compared ''musical camp'' to jazz, especially in camp's playfulness and admiration for its subjects, which can seem mocking but often borders on veneration. He argues that musical camp draws attention to its performativity and inspirations, while engaging the audience interactively in the process of creating meaning.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Knapp |first=Raymond |title=Making light: Haydn, musical camp, and the long shadow of German idealism |date=2018 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-7240-0 |location=Durham London |pages=164–165}}</ref>

=== Photography ===
[[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 book, titled ''Taliban'',<ref>{{cite news |last=Traff |first=Thea |date=29 March 2014 |title=Thomas Dworzak's Taliban Glamour Shots |url=http://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/thomas-dworzaks-taliban-glamour-shots |url-status=live |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 |access-date=15 November 2014 |newspaper=[[The New Yorker]]}}</ref><ref name="gabriner-nat-geo">{{cite web |date=13 January 2014 |title=2000, Thomas Dworzak, 1st prize, Spot News stories |url=http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2014/01/13/thomas-dworzak-mining-for-memes-on-instagram/ |url-status=dead |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 |access-date=15 November 2014 |publisher=[[World Press Photo]]}}</ref> attests to a campy aesthetic, 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 |url-status=live |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 |access-date=2015-11-27 |publisher=perlentaucher.de}}</ref>

=== 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 |first1=Sonia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z-PAURpOlB8C&q=%22strangers+with+candy+which+was%22+camp&pg=PA328 |title=Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers |last2=Solomon |first2=Jack Fisher |date=2011 |publisher=Bedford/St. Martin's |isbn=9780312647001 |access-date=9 August 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |date=6 July 2006 |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/ |url-status=live |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 |access-date=19 May 2019 |newspaper=Orange County Register}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=6 July 2006 |title='Strangers with Candy': After-school special, Sedaris style |url=http://www.ocregister.com/2006/07/06/strangers-with-candy-after-school-special-sedaris-style/ |url-status=live |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 |access-date=6 August 2017}}</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 |title=COURTNEY FATHOM SELL: SO YOU WANNA BE AN UNDERGROUND FILMMAKER? |url=http://filmmakermagazine.com/29016-so-you-wanna-be-an-underground-filmmaker/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150627215406/http://filmmakermagazine.com/29016-so-you-wanna-be-an-underground-filmmaker |archive-date=27 June 2015 |access-date=23 March 2015 |work=Filmmaker Magazine |last1=MacAulay |first1=Scott }}</ref>

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 LGBTQ+ communities—in their stage performances. This is especially true 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 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.<ref name="Antes cursi">{{cite journal |last=Allatson |first=Paul |year=2007 |title='Antes cursi que sencilla': Eurovision Song Contests and the Kitsch-Drive to Euro-Unity |journal=Culture, Theory and Critique |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=87–98 |doi=10.1080/14735780701293540 |s2cid=146449408}}</ref>

=== Theatre ===
[[Andrew Holleran]]'s 1988 book of essays, ''[[Ground Zero (book)|Ground Zero]]'', includes an analysis of "smoldering anarchist of kitsch" [[Charles Ludlam]]—a theatre artist who produced what [[Garth Greenwell]] describes as "extravagant drag epics" with Ridiculous Theatrical Company, until his death of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1987. Greenwell writes: "Holleran's essay is the most concise and profound discussion of camp aesthetics I know."<ref>{{Cite news |last=Greenwell |first=Garth |date=2020-04-15 |title=“Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited” and the Inner Life of Catastrophe |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/second-read/chronicle-of-a-plague-revisited-and-the-inner-life-of-catastrophe |access-date=2025-05-09 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</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 [[William Shakespeare|Shakespeare]], [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], [[Molière]], [[Seneca the Younger|Seneca]] and [[Franz Kafka|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]] students: 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]]''."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smale |first=Alison |date=2015-04-22 |title=Australian director brings Berlin's complexity to the opera stage; Novel style wins acclaim and younger audiences for the Komische Oper. |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&sw=w&issn=22699740&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CA410540597&sid=googleScholar&linkaccess=abs |journal=International New York Times |language=English |pages=NA |access-date=2024-08-09 |via=Gale Academic OneFile}}</ref>

In the UK, the [[music hall]] tradition of [[pantomime]], which often uses drag and other features of ''camp'', remains a popular form of entertainment for families and young children. Most towns and cities in the UK stage at least one pantomime between November and February, drawing in an estimated £146 million in 2014.<ref name=":18">{{Cite book |last=Sladen |first=Simon |title=Popular performance |date=2017 |publisher=Bloomsbury Methuen Drama |isbn=978-1-4742-4734-4 |editor-last=Ainsworth |editor-first=Adam |location=London Oxford New York New Delhi Sydney |pages=179 |chapter='Hiya Fans!' Celebrity Performance and Reception in Modern British Pantomime |editor-last2=Double |editor-first2=Oliver |editor-last3=Peacock |editor-first3=Louise}}</ref>

== Distinguishing between kitsch and camp ==
The words ''camp'' and ''[[kitsch]]'' are often used interchangeably, though they are distinct. ''Camp'' is rooted in a specifically queer sensibility, informed by [[Queer|queer identity]] and [[Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures|culture]],<ref name=":14" /><ref name=":12" /> whereas ''kitsch'' is rooted in the rise of mass-produced art and [[popular culture]] for the mainstream.<ref>Menninghaus, Winfried (2009). "On the Vital Significance of 'Kitsch': Walter Benjamin's Politics of 'Bad Taste'". In Andrew Benjamin and Charles Rice (ed.). ''Walter Benjamin and the Architecture of Modernity''. re.press. pp. 39–58. {{ISBN|978-0-9805440-9-1}}.</ref> Both terms may relate to an object or work that carries aesthetic value, but ''kitsch'' refers specifically to the work itself, whereas ''camp'' is a sensibility as well as a mode of performance. A person may consume ''kitsch'' intentionally or unintentionally, but ''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 ''naïve'' 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 and drag performances—and ''high camp''—which 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> ''High camp'' has also been used to describe drag that is more subtle or ironic, as opposed to drag that is more parodic and obvious (and thus ''low camp'').<ref>{{Cite web |date=2011-06-04 |title=glbtq >> arts >> Drag Shows: Drag Queens and Female Impersonators |url=https://www.glbtq.com/arts/drag_queens.html |access-date=2024-08-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110604055547/https://www.glbtq.com/arts/drag_queens.html |archive-date=4 June 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Wren |first=Daniel |date=2014-07-25 |title=A fool's guide to drag 'types' |url=https://vadamagazine.com/features/opinions/guide-drag-types |access-date=2024-08-09 |language=en-GB}}</ref>

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 |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |publisher=Routledge |year=1989 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/136 136] |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist) |url-access=registration}}</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 |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |publisher=Routledge |year=1989 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/145 145] |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist) |url-access=registration}}</ref> Those who identify objects as "camp" note the distance often apparent in the process through which "unexpected value can be located in some obscure or exorbitant object."<ref>{{cite book |last=Ross |first=Andrew |url=https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross |title=No Respect: Intellectuals and Popular Culture |publisher=Routledge |year=1989 |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/norespectintellec00ross/page/146 146] |author-link=Andrew Ross (sociologist) |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In its subversiveness and irony, camp can also suggest the possibility of overturning the [[status quo]], making it a far more "radical spectacle" than ''kitsch''.<ref name=":11" /> Musicologist [[Philip Brett]] has described camp as:<blockquote>a strategy which confronts un-queer [[ontology]] [states of being] and [[homophobia]] with humor and which by those same means may also signal the possibility of the overturn of that ontology—as when, on a famous night in 1969, the evening of the funeral of [[Judy Garland]], the mood of a group of gays and drag queens reveling in the spectacle of their own arrest by members of the New York City Vice Squad at the [[Stonewall Inn|Stonewall Bar]] turned to one of rage and produced the event that solidified the lesbian and gay movement.<ref name=":15" /></blockquote>

== See also ==
{{Portal|Philosophy|Society|Fashion|LGBTQ}}
<!-- Please keep entries in alphabetical order & add a short description [[WP:SEEALSO]] -->
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Avant-garde]]
* [[Asemic writing]]
* [[Collection de l'art brut]]
* [[Glam rock]]
* [[Horror vacui (art)|Horror vacui]]
* [[Lille Métropole Museum of Modern, Contemporary and Outsider Art]]
* [[Lowbrow (art movement)]]
* [[Neo-pop]]
* [[Pop art]]
* [[Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments]]
* [[Surrealism]]
* [[Vernacular architecture]]
{{div col end}}
<!-- please keep entries in alphabetical order -->

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

== 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}}
* Baker, Paul (2023). ''Camp! The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World''. London: Footnote Press. {{ISBN|978-1804440339}}
* 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: Farrar, 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]]

{{Aesthetics}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1900s neologisms]]
[[Category:Fashion aesthetics]]
[[Category:Gay effeminacy]]
[[Category:LGBTQ terminology]]
[[Category:Gay working-class culture]]
[[Category:Cultural trends]]
[[Category:Postmodernism]]
[[Category:Concepts in aesthetics]]