ENGC15 Susan Sontag, Camp, Against Interpretation Camp ...
ENGC15
Susan Sontag, Camp, Against Interpretation
Camp:
Element of extravagance Over-the-top extravagance Not everything over-the-top is camp o If you gain some pleasure from it, it isn‟t considered camp Associated with the ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical and the effeminate behaviour o Effeminate = she talks about the androgyny of camp Virginia Woolf, androgyny in A Room of One‟s Own The male and the female together o Women‟s clothes of the twenties (feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses, etc.) Flashy and gaudy stuff o Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm, about a femme fatale prone to extravagance o Paintings by Audrey Breadsley Surplus of flesh, the clothes, cartoonish aspect o Greta Garbo Her androgyny makes her camp o King Kong the film It‟s campy because of its ostentatiousness “monstrous” = has element of showing, and we have that associated with camp, because it‟s ostentatious (ex. demonstrate) With the camp taste of androgyny, there‟s also the exaggeration of sexual characteristics and personality mannerisms
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.
11. Camp is the triumph of the epicene style. (The convertibility of "man" and "woman," "person" and "thing.") But all style, that is, artifice, is, ultimately, epicene. Life is not stylish. Neither is nature.
Epicene = one form to mean either female or male Dividing line in 18th century: the camp back then patronized nature or remade it into something artificial o Patronized the past Today‟s Camp: effaces nature/contradicts it outright o Taste to the past is sentimental The mannerism: in painting, imitated the manner of working, but not the essence and soul of it o Highly florid style and intellectual sophistication o Very flashy, excessive use of rhetoric o Could be example of camp o Highly stylized poses and no clear perspective
A person = a camp, a duplicity begins o Beyond public sense, surface, there‟s a “private zany experience of the thing” o People are influenced by their audiences, so camp corrupts the innocence of the people/performance Objects can‟t get influenced, but people do Camp: either totally naïve and unconscious o Démesuré = out of proportion, in the quality of ambition, not only the films itself o Cathedral of sagrada familia Stresses the relation between camp and homosexuals o Because camp can manifest in theatricality o But she also says it probs would‟ve come about even without them o Camp = there‟s good taste of bad taste as well as just good taste Camp in popular culture, it has a place in our lives Because it‟s enjoyable, so people aren‟t just restricting themselves to high-brow stuff Popular culture vs. high culture Camp is generous It finds success in certain passionate failures Things that aren‟t sophisticated, but that can be enjoyed because of that o She talks about Plato and the allegory of the cave Plato: world of forms vs. the object itself The actual bed is an imitation of the form of the bed A painting is an imitation of an imitation and doesn‟t have much utility „cause you can‟t sleep on the bed Aristotle: art in itself has merit She says there‟s always been debate about art, and in the past it didn‟t have much value Can‟t allocate a lot of value to texts unless you form an interpretation of it Story of exodus on its own had no merit on its own But people talked about how it was the story of the soul, giving it an interpretation Constructing a monument on a monument, and failing to appreciate the primary monument on its own Why art becomes excavated of its meaning Domesticating art for your own purposes, reducing subjective experience and placing limitations or certain rules upon a responder Can‟t appreciate art on its own, you try to impose your own meaning on it
Against Interpretation
We tend to give priority to the content not the form o Form has its own place
Susan Sontag, Camp, Against Interpretation
Camp:
Element of extravagance Over-the-top extravagance Not everything over-the-top is camp o If you gain some pleasure from it, it isn‟t considered camp Associated with the ostentatious, exaggerated, affected, theatrical and the effeminate behaviour o Effeminate = she talks about the androgyny of camp Virginia Woolf, androgyny in A Room of One‟s Own The male and the female together o Women‟s clothes of the twenties (feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses, etc.) Flashy and gaudy stuff o Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm, about a femme fatale prone to extravagance o Paintings by Audrey Breadsley Surplus of flesh, the clothes, cartoonish aspect o Greta Garbo Her androgyny makes her camp o King Kong the film It‟s campy because of its ostentatiousness “monstrous” = has element of showing, and we have that associated with camp, because it‟s ostentatious (ex. demonstrate) With the camp taste of androgyny, there‟s also the exaggeration of sexual characteristics and personality mannerisms
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.
11. Camp is the triumph of the epicene style. (The convertibility of "man" and "woman," "person" and "thing.") But all style, that is, artifice, is, ultimately, epicene. Life is not stylish. Neither is nature.
Epicene = one form to mean either female or male Dividing line in 18th century: the camp back then patronized nature or remade it into something artificial o Patronized the past Today‟s Camp: effaces nature/contradicts it outright o Taste to the past is sentimental The mannerism: in painting, imitated the manner of working, but not the essence and soul of it o Highly florid style and intellectual sophistication o Very flashy, excessive use of rhetoric o Could be example of camp o Highly stylized poses and no clear perspective
A person = a camp, a duplicity begins o Beyond public sense, surface, there‟s a “private zany experience of the thing” o People are influenced by their audiences, so camp corrupts the innocence of the people/performance Objects can‟t get influenced, but people do Camp: either totally naïve and unconscious o Démesuré = out of proportion, in the quality of ambition, not only the films itself o Cathedral of sagrada familia Stresses the relation between camp and homosexuals o Because camp can manifest in theatricality o But she also says it probs would‟ve come about even without them o Camp = there‟s good taste of bad taste as well as just good taste Camp in popular culture, it has a place in our lives Because it‟s enjoyable, so people aren‟t just restricting themselves to high-brow stuff Popular culture vs. high culture Camp is generous It finds success in certain passionate failures Things that aren‟t sophisticated, but that can be enjoyed because of that o She talks about Plato and the allegory of the cave Plato: world of forms vs. the object itself The actual bed is an imitation of the form of the bed A painting is an imitation of an imitation and doesn‟t have much utility „cause you can‟t sleep on the bed Aristotle: art in itself has merit She says there‟s always been debate about art, and in the past it didn‟t have much value Can‟t allocate a lot of value to texts unless you form an interpretation of it Story of exodus on its own had no merit on its own But people talked about how it was the story of the soul, giving it an interpretation Constructing a monument on a monument, and failing to appreciate the primary monument on its own Why art becomes excavated of its meaning Domesticating art for your own purposes, reducing subjective experience and placing limitations or certain rules upon a responder Can‟t appreciate art on its own, you try to impose your own meaning on it
Against Interpretation
We tend to give priority to the content not the form o Form has its own place
