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rj_readsbooks 's review for:
Notes on 'Camp'
by Susan Sontag
There isn’t much to be said about Notes on ‘Camp’ that hasn’t already been said. Camp is something that eludes description, eludes notes, and Sontag is very aware of this. For something to be Camp, it cannot be aware that it is Camp - the naïvity is part of it. Camp is about unironically shooting for the moon and missing - not to land among the stars but to come crashing back down to Earth in a fiery burst - but thinking that it has landed.
Notes on ‘Camp’ is an interesting read to see the highlighted pieces of culture from the mid ‘60s that made up the Camp canon at the time, the ideas and aestheticisms and moralisms that were being attempted at the time. I think that in the last sixty years the nature of Camp has changed somewhat, but in what ways specifically I couldn’t say. I think we embrace tragedy as Camp more, now - Sontag tells us that tragedy is the antithesis of Camp, but she didn’t know what was about to happen in the 70s and 80s with the AIDs crisis bringing gay tragedy to the forefront of media perception. In this way tragedy has become unavoidably Camp.
Ok now that no one else is reading - MASH has elements of Camp because of Alan Alda’s burlesque influence in playing Hawkeye, who is a character displaying conscious Camp and failing due to the inherently tragic nature of the show’s framing. David Ogden Stiers purposefully plays Charles as an old dandy who is opposed to all that is vulgar - and therefore to the Camp represented by Hawkeye. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.
Notes on ‘Camp’ is an interesting read to see the highlighted pieces of culture from the mid ‘60s that made up the Camp canon at the time, the ideas and aestheticisms and moralisms that were being attempted at the time. I think that in the last sixty years the nature of Camp has changed somewhat, but in what ways specifically I couldn’t say. I think we embrace tragedy as Camp more, now - Sontag tells us that tragedy is the antithesis of Camp, but she didn’t know what was about to happen in the 70s and 80s with the AIDs crisis bringing gay tragedy to the forefront of media perception. In this way tragedy has become unavoidably Camp.
Ok now that no one else is reading - MASH has elements of Camp because of Alan Alda’s burlesque influence in playing Hawkeye, who is a character displaying conscious Camp and failing due to the inherently tragic nature of the show’s framing. David Ogden Stiers purposefully plays Charles as an old dandy who is opposed to all that is vulgar - and therefore to the Camp represented by Hawkeye. Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk.