Six Notes From Susan: Sontag On Camp

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Susan Sontag

Susan Sontag’s essay ‘Notes on Camp’ was published in 1964.  It consisted of 58 bullet points in which Sontag attempted to define the camp sensibility, its origins, and even its rules.  She described herself as someone who was “strongly drawn” to camp, but “almost as strongly” offended by it.  

I have never been offended by camp, and while I would say I have an attraction to it, being strongly drawn to it isn’t really something I’ve done consciously – it just seems to work like an invisible magnet on me.

 

In this post-modern age of self-aware comedy, Sontag’s essay is well worth a read, (although some of her generalisations about gay men leave a lot to be desired).  So much of what passes for modern camp is calculated vulgarity and trash for its own sake, rather than the sincerity and pathos which Sontag argues are the essential elements of true camp.

 

Having made a film, ‘Quiet Night In’, which seems to have been almost universally acknowledged as camp, I’ve chosen six of Susan’s notes to reflect on in relation to my own work, and in the work I admire.

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10.  Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It’s not a lamp, but a “lamp”; not a woman, but a “woman.” To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role.  It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.

Stanley Kubrick once told Jack Nicholson that making a film was not about photographing reality, but photographing the photograph of reality.  This suggests both artifice (or heightened reality) and detachment, both of which are essential elements of camp for me. 

 

Did Kubrick make any camp films?  There is certainly evidence of characters and objects within his films that exist in quotation marks – the Sellers characters in ‘Dr Strangelove’, the carpet in ‘The Shining’, the drill sergeant in ‘Full Metal Jacket’, the streets of New York in ‘Eyes Wide Shut’, and most of the elements in ‘A Clockwork Orange’.

 

In ‘Quiet Night In’, writer Jess Bartlett apparently uses people from her own life to populate her book, but all of them exist in quotation marks.  The restricted setting of her home provides a stage for her low-budget life to be played out as theatre, for better or for worse.

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18. One must distinguish between naïve and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naive. Camp which knows itself to be Camp (“camping”) is usually less satisfying.

 

Deliberately setting out to “camp it up” is irritating, more often than not.  At its worst, it is sheer laziness.

 

It is the theatrical or film equivalent of “serious” musicians who think they can slum it in the world of pop music by churning out a piece of (to them) three-minute meaningless trash.  There is no sincerity behind any of the elements involved, which results in a hollow, cynical shell.  This approach is also illustrated in nudge-nudge, wink-wink, aren’t-we-clever “homages” to camp films of decades past (see ‘Down With Love’).      

 

Deliberate camp is often the realm of low-rent television comedy, where it is believed that accumulating enough kitsch objects and stereotypical characters and sticking them in a sketch or a sitcom is, in itself, amusing.  It isn’t. 

 

In some cases it is possible for deliberate camp to be turned into naive camp, which I believe to be the case in the long-running BBC sitcom ‘Are You Being Served?’. 

 

It’s clear from interviews with the writers, Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft, that the intention was to camp it up on purpose, and yet somehow the actors (Mollie Sugden, Arthur Brough and John Inman in particular) transcended the sexist, racist and homophobic scripts to create something quite sincere, funny, and touching. 

 

With ‘Quiet Night In’, all the elements which have been perceived as camp were approached with a total sincerity and love for either object (from lamps to kitsch wall hangings), or character.

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23. In naïve, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naïve.

All writers who aim to be dramatic are terrified of this – attempting seriousness but failing.  Failing in the attempt of seriousness is an underlying theme of ‘Quiet Night In’, and being my first film, something which was probably preoccupying me quite a bit!

 

Within the film there’s a heady mix of the exaggerated (Jess’s perception of her friends), the fantastic (Jess’s home/mind hybrid), the passionate (Jess’s obsession for her writing) and the naive (her characters themselves).

 

Jess desperately wants to be taken seriously as a writer, yet her characters and the situation she finds herself in is clearly farcical.  Rob the footballer wants to be taken seriously as a lover and an intellectual, but is completely unaware of how his self-centred nature and limited intelligence hinders him in both goals.  Lawrence is both a celebrated literary figure and the ultimate emperor with no clothes. 

 

However, the most epic example of failure in the film would be Rebecca.  She has such a capacity for love and sincerity – her feelings for Jess, her career in radio and television, her sisterly advice – but somehow it all just comes out wrong.

 

Rebecca is probably the most polarising character in ‘Quiet Night In’ – audiences either love or hate her, which probably makes her a perfect camp character.  As Sontag says, “It’s too much” is a “standard phrase of camp enthusiasm”, which Rebecca would embrace wholeheartedly.

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41.  The whole point of Camp is to dethrone the serious.  Camp is playful, anti-serious.  More precisely, Camp involves a new, more complex relation to “the serious.”  One can be serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious. 

 

One of Woody Allen’s most under-rated films is ‘Melinda and Melinda’, the story of two playwrights using the same character and elements to spin two different tales, one comic and one tragic. 

 

What I love about ‘Melinda and Melinda’ is how often the line becomes blurred.  Despite Will Ferrell’s farcical nature (some reviewers wrote off his Hoby as a bad Woody-substitute), you genuinely feel for him when he misses his big opportunity to tell Melinda how he feels about her.  Conversely, when tragic-Melinda outlines her litany of woes on her first night in Laurel and Lee’s apartment, they’re so over-the-top – yet delivered with utter sincerity – that it’s hilarious.

 

I took several opportunities in ‘Quiet Night In’ to deliberately hijack serious moments with frivolity, and use comic moments to reveal something quite sincere about a character’s nature.  Experimenting was fun, and also dangerous – luckily I only had myself to answer to.

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51. Homosexuals, by and large, constitute the vanguard — and the most articulate audience — of Camp.

Gay men in the Western world are now much more assimialted into mainstream society.  For Generation X men, they have experienced a transition from marginalisation to relative acceptance in their lifetimes; however, the gap in experience between Generation X and Y is much larger.

 

The point being that I don’t think this statement applies so much to gay men any longer – we no longer have the monopoly on aestheticism and irony, as I’m sure any viewer of ‘Queer Eye For The Straight Guy’ would agree.

 

Camp sensibility used to be a secret language and culture for gay men, but there is evidence to suggest that much of this has been lost.  I interviewed Colin McLean (aka Pollyfilla), a popular New Zealand drag queen, a few years back for GayNZ.com and he made an interesting point on this which I’ll excerpt here: 

 

McLean was mortified to find when putting together a “Rocky Horror” drag ensemble recently that most of his fellow performers had never seen the film. “People just didn’t get it,” he says. “When I did my ‘Mommie Dearest’ show at the opening of Out Takes a couple of years ago, I had a whole load of twinks come up to me saying, “Oh my god, your show is so camp, we loved it”. I said thank you, I’m really flattered. “But why were you chasing that girl with a coathanger?” they asked. No idea.”

Perhaps true camp is a dying art form…

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58. The ultimate Camp statement: it’s good because it’s awful . . .

 

This needs some qualification.  Here’s another excerpt from the Pollyfilla interview: 

 

The new young assimilated generation, McLean frets, is growing up with little or no knowledge of queer history or culture. Labels like “camp” now get assigned to bland mainstream fare like Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera. “Why are they camp?” he asks. “Oh they’re camp, girl, people say to me. Yes, but what makes them camp? There’s no irony in what they’re doing! They’re dancing round in scanty undies covered in glitter with shirtless boys. That’s not camp! Camp is the lie that tells the truth. There needs to be a splash of irony in it. What these pop stars are doing isn’t camp, it’s just trying to get the gay audience.”

Sontag was keen to make a similar point back in 1964.  Not everything bad can be considered camp:

When something is just bad (rather than Camp), it’s often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn’t attempted to do anything really outlandish.

So how do I define Sontag’s ultimate camp statement?  It’s good because it’s awful – so outlandishly awful, so close to the bone in its ridiculous presentation of truth, that you can’t look away.  You just have to keep watching, and returning to it over and over. 

And enjoying it.

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Tags: a clockwork orange, are you being served, arthur brough, camp, christopher banks, colin mclean, cult film, david croft, dr strangelove, eyes wide shut, film analysis, full metal jacket, gay film, jack nicholson, jeremy lloyd, john inman, melinda and melinda, mollie sugden, pollyfilla, queer eye for the straight guy, quiet night in, stanley kubrick, susan sontag, the shining, will ferrell, Woody Allen