Films On The Verge
While movies like Mommie Dearest and Barbarella didn’t initially set out to be camp, with time and cultural criticism, and the Official Conglomerate of Queers (or, OCQ) they have become the epitome of camp film classics. And there are other films that take a shot of camp straight— one of my favorite camp films is The Fifth Element. Its direction and costuming is impeccable, while also giving its audience beguiling and unique performances from the film’s actors. And this movie is less “camp” camp, if that makes sense. Luc Besson’s directorial visual is camp in the fact that he sought out to create a different kind of a sci-fi blockbuster— rather than that he thought was “good” and turned out to be just bad. As the multiple camp elements (ha) come together, one can’t help to think that this film is camp. One of the film’s best scenes (there are many) is of a multi-limbed blue opera diva with magical stones inside of her singing a perfect “Il dolce suono” interspersed with an incredible action scene. Are filmmakers purposefully moving towards a camp aesthetic in their endeavor to create a new and distinct kind of auteur film?
The most recent modern camp film that I can think of is Ma. Though Ma-mma Mia is a second runner up, even though it borrows most of its camp elements from simply being a movie musical featuring music by the Swedish pop band by ABBA and a cast of players that would rival any Oscar winning film. Ma, on the other hand, sets out to capitalize on the munchausen by proxy trend, a simple horror revenge plot, and maybe something to do with race— it tries at this but definitely fails miserably. An Oscar award winning actress takes on the role of a vengeful mouse-like woman who also is medically inducing her daughter to the use of a wheelchair. The plot is farfetched and laughable at times— while in its attempts to be a legitimate horror film, eases the viewer into watching further, to see how Spencer will torture a bunch of white teenagers in her basement. This film is celebrated on Twitter but has a 56 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And for those facts a lone, I have to say that this film is camp. With the previous mentioned components and my general love for this film, sets itself apart as one of those bad but “good” movies.
All this talk about camp films stems from me currently rewatching most of Pedro Almodovar’s films (a bunch are available on HBOMax— Queen of streaming!). Almodovar’s sense of camp is most likely birthed from being queer, growing up in a Francoist Spain that transitioned to a democracy— one socialist party and one more right-winged party, and the new sexual awakening within the counterculture of Spain. His first critical success came from the film Women on The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, my number one favorite Almodovar film— followed by Volver, Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, and Bad Education— okay, they’re all pretty good in their own ways. This film essentializes the auteur’s vision so spectacularly, it often leaves the viewer in a mild trance. Almodovar’s vision is involves mixing elements of counterculture, references to telenovelas, pop culture and then adding hints of absolutely absurd comedy, to create something so far out there— that either you enjoy all his films or you don’t. Which, I believe, that itself makes something camp. The culture that is picked up by the strays, the other half, the folks that are queer and often left out.
Other filmmakers tend to roam around in the territory of camp but never land squarely on the thing, purposefully. Paul Thomas Anderson’s films have a sense of camp— pressing their ways into high dramatics viewed through varying sizes of stories that radiates an almost fantastical element. And Anderson’ There Will be Blood and Magnolia seem like farces to me— that over-seriousness, the awe inspired cinematography and visual elements. Phantom Thread is serious storytelling in a way, I guess, but features a moody straight fashion designer who lives with his sister and takes younger woman as lovers— so how serious can it be. I’m always interested in how Anderson’s contrasts other element with the use of dialogue in his films. (Does anyone say anything in There Will Blood?) The language in Phantom Thread is simple but bubbly, plain but searing. It treats the viewer with a taste of what lies underneath, not only the characters and their situations but to the overall world of the films. An atelier, a fashion house, a torrid love affair— all these stories are seething through the dialogue. Daniel Day Lewis has some incredible one liners in Phantom Thread. The audience has to at the end of the film (spoiler, I guess) surmise that Reynolds Woodcock (I mean come on y’all) and Alma Edson are basically in love with the turmoil of their relationship. Oh, and poisonous mushrooms. Munchausen by proxy for the win!
The not much beloved Mank features camp in the fact that it’s a story about the telling of a story about a Hollywood film that is, also yes, a Hollywood film— though released on Netflix in their continued attempt for Oscars (sad). The film is about the writer of Citizen Kane and his journey of writing the screenplay. It’s all in black and white, the costumes are spectacularly period appropriate— but where it dwells into camp is the acting. The acting is a representation of the acting in the subject film’s era. Instead of giving the viewers a more realism version of the acting, David Fincher leans into the realism of old black and white Hollywood films. The movie was a bit boring but the acting was interesting!
I guess what I’m saying is almost all film, all art that has a deep and threaded history lends itself to creating a kind of multiplicity to the definition of camp. Films nowadays reference other cinematic works, other kinds of art (musical adaptations, Scott Pilgrim, comic books, etc.) to show its viewers that the films they’re watching are studied, nuanced and in their referentialism— these works are alive. This is how art evolves, knowing where and when it came from, who did it. It’s how we as artist we break rules, when the the rules were laid out for us before. In our reverence and deep cultural analyses of past artists and their work, we ventured towards camp.
Pop Culture Bites
Tamisha Iman is coming for you… The Drag Race queens are giving us all some good ol’ drama. It’s boring here in the house. Thank goodness every queen on the planet is giving us their opinion on other people’s opinions of other via their preferred social media platform. What if Rupaul is just orchestrating this all from his fracking ranch? What if we, the ultra consumers of Drag Race, are being duped by producers, once again?! Makes you think. Anyway, if you a very detailed account of all the drama— text me!
MrGrandeOfficial is my one of my favorite TikTok rappers. Yes, I just said that. Listen!
Rotsam is gay so you know this song is very good. Listen.
Check out Midst poetry journal— timelapse poetry for the win!
Maybe it’s gaybaiting, maybe it’s— yeah it’s gay baiting. But I love him! He makes being ripped look fun
Some new Gen Z word that means basic. Am I basic for not knowing what in the slightest this word means? Anyway, here’s an article to explain it, if you’re like over thirty. Here.
BREAKING: Bennifer is back!
“Camp is a vision of the world in terms of style—but a particular kind of style.”
-Susan Sontag“NO MORE WIRE HANGERS, EVER!”
-Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest“Looking good and feeling fine
Looking good and feeling fine
Looking good and feeling fine”
-FASHION by Lady GagaWhen White People Sing Blackness
Recently, I’ve been listening to the lastest musical outings from Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware, two British white woman who are giving us disco down with these amazingly produced albums. And then I was like, “wait a damn minute.” With the genre of disco coming up as an up beat from of soul music, the queer adoption, and the whole racist and queerphobic “Disco Sucks” movement, I started to wonder why the current disco scene looks so… white.
This isn’t the first time a white person has changed their sonic persona and glided firmly into genres that I would consider Black music (Elvis, rock and roll, etc). My first encounter with this was as a 14 year old in my family’s Chevy Rendezvous. The oldies station playing, I heard a woman’s soulful voice sing “Tell me, baby, how long has it been / Here you come and here I go again.” The song was Teena Marie’s “Still in Love.” Marie is sitting in the pocket vocally, with groovy lyrics and a groovy beat. Years later, to my surprise, I found out that this woman was not a 80s Black songstress but a white woman who was down. This left a lasting impression on how I looked at music, ethnicity and the tenor of other musical artists.
A week ago the British Vogue cover of recent musical sensation and Billie Eilish got major buzz when photos of a “lighter” version of singer dropped on the internet. Twitter went wild over the new look, praising her beauty and marked aesthetic difference which usually features Eilish in baggy shirts, colored hair and long acrylic nails. While she looks stunning and gives an insightful interview, I felt like something was off about the critiques of her new look.
Many pop stars have explored in “evolution” as they move from one genre to the next, working with different producers, and creating different visual aesthetics to go along with those and packaging them as “eras.” Madonna, the queen of this, comes to mind. And one probably most recently I can think of is Miley Cyrus and her use of queer and black people in her Bangerz era, not only for visual effect but vocal effect as well. And this is slightly different from Bieber and Timberlake, who have always profited off of Black music different, these “era artists” find ways to just dip their toes in the Black music waters, just for a little bit, to benefit briefly and then pivot, as the tweet implies above, back to what is coded in whiteness.
This isn’t specifically about Eilish but let’s talk about “Bad Guy.” The beat is syncopated featuring little snap-like sounds in the background. Eilish’s light, whispering voice is, to me, a bit reminiscent of a Janet Jackson style of singing. Though maybe a pop standard, it has a lilt that lets the listener know that Eilish is a good singer. Towards the end of the song, the beat switches, giving us a simplistic bass rocking sound, one you can jump around, move your body. As she sings in a hushed tone, the interesting contrast in this song comes from the lyrics. The lyrics insist that singer is actually the “bad guy,” playing on the cultural notions of “bad guys” in relationships. The turning of the phrase is a simple feminist device used in many songs, many songs by women of color. I’m not taking anything away from the song— it slaps. But we have to look a little deeper in its connect to the evolution of musicality in general. The many elements of the song are a pastiche of genres, cultures and aesthetics. Maybe, we have to recognize newness in art in its lineage to the past.
And also, this is my little gripe with the new-ish genre “hyperpop.” The genre features musical anomalies like sounds that aren’t music— Timbaland been doing this! Hello! A crying baby on a soft R&B track by Aaliyah. It also features bombastic beats likening to EDM which borrows from House music WHICH we all know was made by black people in Chicago— the category is MOPPING! And Charli XCX, who I loooove, is essentially rapping on all her tracks, right? The genre’s creations are really good and express, to me, the way in which we all want to escape our bodies and how we can do it sometimes through sound. While there are many black hyperpop artist (ShyGirl, That Kid, Rico Nasty), the individuals who get to speak for the genre are mostly white.
I’m not hating on any of these artists. Billie Eilish is a very talented songwriter and singer, unique in her style and form that is just addictive to the listener. Hyperpop is grungy, and at the same time, it’s moving. What I wish was talked about more, thought about critically and examined, is why white artists get “evolution” and black artists are often not gifted the same privilege. I know there’s more but Solange is one Black artists that comes to mind— who plays sonically in many genres in her latest album When You Get Home, pushing visuals, repetitive but thoughtful lyrics and vibes of a Houston rapper. Solange gives indie artist all the way, with her distinctive difference in sound from her sister. Black artists want to venture a little out. Look at Tina Turner’s struggle after her more classically Black music. Watch the doc! I think it’s just that many black artists have to make themselves viable to mainstream audiences before they’re allowed to deviate from their original sound to become a fully “evolved” artists. And even then, it’s a bit of battle— The Voice style.
Ok! That’s all! Next week some more kinda gay stuff and pop culture and camp. I’m going to go watch Mare of Easttown and pretend it’s not copaganda because Kate Winslet.