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Paul Grieguszies Schäfer on Notes on “Camp”
28 March, 2022
“I’ll tell you what to do. Tear down that bitch of a bearing wall and put a window where it ought to be!”
Joan Crawford bellows with eccentric energy on the construction site of her home under renovation, played by Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest, 1981. I use this film to contextualize the words of Sontag.
A camp masterpiece for all the wrong reasons, the film was inspired by the biography of the same name written by Joan’s adopted daughter Cristina Crawford, intended to show the truth behind their mother daughter relationship and her abusive childhood. But as we take from Sontag’s text, “in the world of Camp we see things for what they’re not, because they are simply too much”, and the over-acting by Faye creates a “character” rather than a true depiction of Joan. As John Waters once said, she was the first drag queen role played by a woman. Instead of a dramatic performance, we end up with an unintended comedy, because it’s so bad that it’s good or as Sontag describes “being frivolous about the serious and vice versa”.
This film and scene in particular bring up two main points to what we can aspire from camp. The female architect, having to punch her way through a situation, because she is according to the men surrounding her (especially in the 80’s) not supposed to be vocal or even there. Her eccentric character, stealthy energy and ferociousness all remind us what it sometimes takes to get somewhere in the first place.
And second, the medium to reading Camp. Sontag’s notes are only the guide, and are not the be all end all of the discourse. Camp is best expressed in film, because its extremity requires the most amount of attention from the viewer. This standard of captivation is achieved by the accumulation of all mediums: image, sound, stage/space and body/actor, all recorded and presented through the digital, which can be maximized by creative editing (added sounds, lights, special effects).
Answering the possible question “what is Camp architecture?” one needs to understand the space as an over-designed stage bearing furniture props for the character’s performances to unfold. An opening elevator, a steep, long staircase, a falling chandelier or a broken wine glass can all become dramatic turning points of the scene. The architecture doesn’t work alone and presenting camp as a mere image is overlooking and undermining its qualities, thus missing the point, because it should in fact be overwhelming, even when its being “objectively defined”.
In case you still feel any connection to the text, here is a short list of films to indulge into the topic, in which you can observe the spatial qualities alongside the performance, sound and editing, that are each very bright, colorful and “in your face”. The trinity of unintended Camp oeuvres are: Valley of the Dolls (1967), Mommie Dearest (1981) and Showgirls (1996). It is important to separate these from the self-aware films to which I have selected The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Clue (1985) and Death Becomes Her (1992), a film for each decade.
Of course, there are many other films and I would be interested in seeing your selection of film or interpretations of the text in your annotations.