Susan Sontag's 'Notes On Camp'

Camp is an aesthetic style that has long fascinated artists, writers, and cultural critics. In her essay "Notes on Camp," Susan Sontag argues that Camp is an apolitical sensibility, one that is defined by a love of the artificial, the exaggerated, and the outrageous. However, camp has become political over time due to it allowing the LGBTQ+ community to become mainstream, to break the boundaries of what is considered “normal” and “acceptable”, and to unfortunately marginalize groups of people. Canadian Filmmaker Bruce LaBruce argues that despite the fact that camp was originally intended for all audiences, it has transformed over time into a tool that was used for the LGBTQ community. In paragraph nine of Notes on Camp/Anticamp, LaBruce

He claims that this new form of camp lacks the sophistication and secret signification that was once characteristic of camp, and instead is a crude spectacle used to mock and deceive the masses (LaBruce p.11). In doing so, LaBruce asserts that camp has become increasingly tied to politics, with some conservatives even using it as a tool to undermine the LGBTQ+ community. LaBruce best describes conservative camp as “a crude spectacle that mocks the unwashed masses by pretending to be one of them while simultaneously offering them policies that are directly antithetical to their authentic needs” (LaBruce p.10). LaBruce argues that camp was something in which the queer community once took pride in, but as camp rose to a mainstream level, it has become a device used for deception. Gareth Cook has a similar take on camp like LaBruce, however, Cook states that camp has been used as a tool to marginalize every group of people, without a majority of people taking offense to it. Cook uses the example of poor white Americans on Page two of his work The Dark side of Camp. A college student said to him “…we're going to go to one of those `monster track shows…We were all going to wear NASCAR T-shirts…and we'd get baseball caps with mesh backs and something like `NAPA Auto Parts' written on it. Or `Black & Decker.' Or `Caterpillar.'” The “white trash” stereotype is one that a majority of individuals have no issue with, despite it being deeply problematic and offensive, as it reinforces harmful stereotypes and stigmatizes marginalized