Camp!
About This Book
Paul Baker, author of the earlier books Fabulosa! and Outrageous!, turns to camp and follows it across roughly a century and a half in its many forms. He opens with a run of vivid examples drawn from his own experience: a doll whose body hides a toilet roll, a chair shaped like a peacock, a wig flushed down a lavatory, a fit of temper over wire coat hangers, a fallen Christmas tree, a 1950s bodybuilding magazine showing a young man dressed as a gladiator, a rat beneath a polished serving dish, and an estate agent with tiger stripes painted on his face. These moments all struck him, at one point or another, as extravagantly theatrical. The word may come from the French se camper, meaning to pose in a bold, provocative or exaggerated way. Over the years the label has been used to describe or mock young heterosexual men, the upper classes, Black people, older women and gay men, yet it has also been a significant force in campaigns for equality, where it served as protest and resistance. Baker surveys the key reference points of camp and how its meaning has shifted over time. His tour runs from the court of Louis XIV and the trials of Oscar Wilde, past the dandy Beau Brummell and the playwright Noel Coward, to The Valley of the Dolls, the drag balls of Harlem and Brazilian telenovelas, and finally to the pop divas Donna Summer, Madonna and Britney Spears. The book treats camp as an aesthetic, a sensibility and a way of living. It examines how camp has offered shelter and renewal, mixing heroism with hedonism, and argues that it matters more now than ever. It will appeal to readers curious about a phenomenon that is often dismissed.
ISBN: 9781804440322
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