Making Camp
Rhetorics of Transgression in U.S. Popular Culture
University of Alabama Press
The rhetorical power of camp in American popular culture
Making Camp examines the rhetoric and conventions of “camp” in contemporary popular culture and the ways it both subverts and is co-opted by mainstream ideology and discourse, especially as it pertains to issues of gender and sexuality.
Making Camp examines the rhetoric and conventions of “camp” in contemporary popular culture and the ways it both subverts and is co-opted by mainstream ideology and discourse, especially as it pertains to issues of gender and sexuality.
Camp has long been aligned with gay male culture and performance. Helene Shugart and Catherine Waggoner contend that camp in the popular media—whether visual, dramatic, or musical—is equally pervasive. While aesthetic and performative in nature, the authors argue that camp—female camp in particular—is also highly political and that conventions of femininity and female sexuality are negotiated, if not always resisted, in female camp performances.
The authors draw on a wide range of references and figures representative of camp, both historical and contemporary, in presenting the evolution of female camp and its negotiation of gender, political, and identity issues. Antecedents such as Joan Crawford, Wonder Woman, Marilyn Monroe, and Pam Grier are discussed as archetypes for contemporary popular culture figures—Macy Gray, Gwen Stefani, and the characters of Xena from Xena: Warrior Princess and Karen Walker from Will & Grace.
Shugart and Waggoner find that these and other female camp performances are liminal, occupying a space between conformity and resistance. The result is a study that demonstrates the prevalence of camp as a historical and evolving phenomenon in popular culture, its role as a site for the rupture of conventional notions of gender and sexuality, and how camp is configured in mainstream culture and in ways that resist its being reduced to merely a style.
This groundbreaking thesis on camp will be of most interest to gender studies scholars. Since the authors argue that popular media need not always reinforce mainstream culture, scholars interested in the rhetoric of popular media may also find the topic worthy of consideration. Introductory definitions, parallel chapter structure, and plentiful illustrations should help most readers understand the main arguments. Recommended.’ —CHOICE
Shugart and Waggoner have identified a significant arena of rhetorical and cultural critique.’ —Phaedra Pezzullo, author of Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Pollution, Travel, and Environmental Justice
Helene A. Shugart is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Catherine Egley Waggoner is an Associate Professor of Communication at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio.
Related Titles
Reframing Rhetorical History
Cases, Theories, and Methodologies
Edited by Kathleen J. Turner and Jason Edward Black; Preface by Kathleen J. Turner; Introduction by Jason Edward Black
