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This innovative study claims camp as a critical, yet pleasurable strategy for women's engagement with contemporary popular culture as exemplified by 30 Rock or Lady Gaga. In detailed analyses of lesbian cinema, postfeminist TV, and popular music, the book offers a novel take on its subject. It defines camp as a unique mode of detached attachment, which builds on affective intensity and emotional investment, while strongly encouraging a critical edge.
List of contents
1. Beyond Gay Men and After the Closet: Camp's New Politics and Pleasures.- 2. The History and Theory of Camp. I. Stonewall, Sontag, 'Sissies,' Sirk. II. Camp's Double Coding: Detachment / Attachment.- 3. The Great Dyke Rewrite - Lesbian Camp on the Big Screen. I. New Queer Cinema. II. Lesbian Chic. III. Girls Gone Camping - But I'm a Cheerleader and D.E.B.S.. IV. Subtext to Sincerity.- 4. TV in/vs. Postfeminism - Feminist Camp in 30 Rock. I. Contemporary Sitcoms and Meta-Reflection. II. Legacy of the Feminist Sitcom. III. Postfeminism in US (Media) Culture. IV. 30 Rock's Divergences in Comic Format and Narrative Formula. V. "I want to go to there!" - The Camp Routes of 30 Rock's Leading Ladies. VI. A Sitcom's Swan Song.- 5. Taking Pop Seriously: Lady Gaga as Camp. I. Gaga for Pop's Giants - Stars, Divas and the Intimacy of Pop. II. Internet Killed the Video Star - Narrating Metareferentiality across Media. III. "Followthe Glitter Way" - The Monster Ball and Camp Live in Concert. IV. Grotesquely Serious.- 6. Camp: A New, More Complex Relation to the Serious.
About the author
Katrin Horn is a postdoctoral fellow in American Studies at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany. She is co-editor of
Stimme, Kultur, Identität(2015) and author of several articles on US American popular music and television.
Summary
Provides an overview over the politics of camp across different formats in contemporary media landscapeProposes a new defintion of camp as detached attachment to account for the strategy's unique combination of critical distance and affective involvementInvestigates the uses of camp in popular culture as a form of parodic intervention by womenFeatures detailed analysis not only of the visual aspects of Lady Gaga’s music videos but connects these to her live performances and the use of voice for queer effectsAscertains camp's value in countering recent media trends such as lesbian chic and postfeminism
