Camp (style)

Camp is an aesthetic and sensibility that regards something as appealing or amusing because of its heightened level of artifice, affectation, and exaggeration, especially when there is also a playful or ironic element. Camp aesthetics often disrupted modernist understandings of high art by inverting traditional aesthetic judgements of beauty, value, and taste, and inviting a different kind of aesthetic engagement. Camp art is distinct from but often confused with kitsch. The big difference between camp and kitsch is mainly that camp is aware of its artificiality and pretense. The American writer Susan Sontag emphasized camp's key elements as embracing frivolity, excess, and artifice. Art historian David Carrier notes that, despite these qualities, it is also subversive and political. Camp may be sophisticated, but subjects deemed camp may also be perceived as being dated, offensive, or in bad taste. 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). While author and academic Moe Meyer defines camp as a form of "queer parody", journalist Jack Babuscio argues it is a specific "gay sensibility" which has often been "misused to signify the trivial, superficial, and 'queer'". 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. This camp style is associated with incongruity or juxtaposition, theatricality, and humour, and has appeared in film, cabaret, and pantomime. Both high and low forms of culture may be camp, but where high art incorporates beauty and value, camp often strives to be lively, audacious, and dynamic. Camp can also be tragic, sentimental, and ironic, finding beauty or black comedy even in suffering. The humour of camp, as well...