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Notes on ‘Camp’
'The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful.'
These two classic essays were the first works of criticism to break down the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture, and made Susan Sontag a literary sensation.
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Stevie Smith; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outerspace.
These two classic essays were the first works of criticism to break down the boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture, and made Susan Sontag a literary sensation.
Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Stevie Smith; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outerspace.
57 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
527 people are currently reading
26652 people want to read
About the author
Susan Sontag
118 books5,431 followersSusan Sontag was born in New York City on January 16, 1933, grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and attended high school in Los Angeles. She received her B.A. from the College of the University of Chicago and did graduate work in philosophy, literature, and theology at Harvard University and Saint Anne’s College, Oxford.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
Her books include four novels, The Benefactor, Death Kit, The Volcano Lover, and In America; a collection of short stories, I, etcetera; several plays, including Alice in Bed and Lady from the Sea; and nine works of nonfiction, starting with Against Interpretation and including On Photography, Illness as Metaphor, Where the Stress Falls, Regarding the Pain of Others, and At the Same Time. In 1982, Farrar, Straus & Giroux published A Susan Sontag Reader.
Ms. Sontag wrote and directed four feature-length films: Duet for Cannibals (1969) and Brother Carl (1971), both in Sweden; Promised Lands (1974), made in Israel during the war of October 1973; and Unguided Tour (1983), from her short story of the same name, made in Italy. Her play Alice in Bed has had productions in the United States, Mexico, Germany, and Holland. Another play, Lady from the Sea, has been produced in Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, and Korea.
Ms. Sontag also directed plays in the United States and Europe, including a staging of Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the summer of 1993 in besieged Sarajevo, where she spent much of the time between early 1993 and 1996 and was made an honorary citizen of the city.
A human rights activist for more than two decades, Ms. Sontag served from 1987 to 1989 as president of the American Center of PEN, the international writers’ organization dedicated to freedom of expression and the advancement of literature, from which platform she led a number of campaigns on behalf of persecuted and imprisoned writers.
Her stories and essays appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary publications all over the world, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Art in America, Antaeus, Parnassus, The Threepenny Review, The Nation, and Granta. Her books have been translated into thirty-two languages.
Among Ms. Sontag's many honors are the 2003 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the 2003 Prince of Asturias Prize, the 2001 Jerusalem Prize, the National Book Award for In America (2000), and the National Book Critics Circle Award for On Photography (1978). In 1992 she received the Malaparte Prize in Italy, and in 1999 she was named a Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government (she had been named an Officier in the same order in 1984). Between 1990 and 1995 she was a MacArthur Fellow.
Ms. Sontag died in New York City on December 28, 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,373 reviews
April 2, 2021
not me reading all the books harry styles reccomended
March 4, 2019
Read this on my phone off georgetown.edu while also watching Beverly Hills 90210, the one where Steve gets detention and sits on a cupcake and then gets sucked into the world of drag racing on the streets of Beverly Hills 90210. A nice night here, they were calling for five inches of snow, but it’s too warm and we are just getting rain. I didn’t want to go to work tomorrow and thought I’d get off because of the snow but it looks like we’re not getting any. My wife is snoring gently here in bed, and I’m still thinking about something Susan Sontag said about Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, how she remarked on it as being laughably bad because it’s so intellectually narrow while also so troublingly serious, there being no room for fantasy within the work, and from there, no room for fantasy in the mind of the reader. She’s wise there, and wise all over the place in this happy car crash of a think piece. Maybe I’ll call out sick. Andrea has a big problem in that episode too, she has been seeing a hypnotherapist for two months, hoping to learn the identity of a person in a silver truck who nearly ran her over. At the drag race, she must confront the devil themself. Brenda and Kelly go on a blind date with two college boys from Princeton, NJ (!!!) and Donna cuts her teeth on being the school DJ. I wonder what my wife is dreaming. I hope it’s a dream of great relief. Her mother got two tumors cut out of her lungs just a few days ago by a robot. And wait, somehow, the snow is sticking, at least to the cars. Maybe I’ll wake up tomorrow and society will still be intact and I still won’t have to make anyone money. Susan Sontag says Oscar Wilde says, "Life is too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it." I hope they’re right.
October 1, 2021
It's pretty fascinating how such a vague text that feverishly circles around a phenomenon that is admittedly hard or even impossible to define could become a key essay on postmodern culture by pointing out the changing nature of sophistication and the growing need for ambiguous concepts that encompass aspects of postmodernism (especially as the ability to deal with ambiguity seems to be in decline, maybe exactly because the postmodern world has become so overcomplex). Typically for Sontag, the many examples and tangents make it fun to read, but that also means that the text requires a certain willingness to indulge these tangents.
Considering this text, it's interesting to see how authors like Christian Kracht explore the hybridity of camp, a factor that Sontag underlines by stating that camp can be a partial aspect of an artwork - Kracht shows that camp is indeed political (Sontag was never right in claiming that it isn't) and that by using it partially, the effect of insecurity underlines the challenges of postmodern identities.
Considering this text, it's interesting to see how authors like Christian Kracht explore the hybridity of camp, a factor that Sontag underlines by stating that camp can be a partial aspect of an artwork - Kracht shows that camp is indeed political (Sontag was never right in claiming that it isn't) and that by using it partially, the effect of insecurity underlines the challenges of postmodern identities.
March 26, 2018
A MESS of an essay - stuffed with value judgements, hazy, and defining something even vaguer than what Sontag claims the purpose of the notes are- I love it with all my heart
April 25, 2020
It makes me laugh thinking about the outfits from last May’s gala. I loved notes on camp, the second essay a bit less, but certainly worth the read. I love Sontag
December 23, 2018
Completely arbitrary, inconsistent, extravagant and a bit silly. Camp, in other words. I rather enjoyed it.
November 30, 2018
IL POTERE DELL'AMARE COSE BRUTTE.
Gioiellino assoluto.
Questo libricino da non perdere, che si legge nell'arco di un viaggio in treno e costa solo una sterlina contiene due bellissimi saggi di Susan Sontag che, qui, riflette sul "brutto che piace".
Il primo essay "Notes on camp" è un'illuminante riflessione sull'estetica camp e sul piacere dell'amare certi prodotti artistici che sono esagerati, pacchiani e brutti, ma carichi di un'anima sovversiva e portatori di una nuova sensibilità artistica.
Il secondo riflette sull'inutile lotta tra approccio scientifico e approccio artistico, tra cultura alta e cultura bassa e sul potere dell'arte di essere anche violenta e uncomfortable. Poche pagine che distruggono l'idea di divisione tra ciò che è avant-garde e ciò che è trash. D'altronde, è ipocrita il pittore colto di minimal art che è in grado di amare l'ultimo successo dell'estate? No, è semplicemente una persona che è stata in grado di avere un'ampia apertura sul mondo e un modo artistico di vivere la vita che abbatte le barriere dettate da una società sempre meno comunicante e sempre più snob.
Gioiellino assoluto.
Questo libricino da non perdere, che si legge nell'arco di un viaggio in treno e costa solo una sterlina contiene due bellissimi saggi di Susan Sontag che, qui, riflette sul "brutto che piace".
Il primo essay "Notes on camp" è un'illuminante riflessione sull'estetica camp e sul piacere dell'amare certi prodotti artistici che sono esagerati, pacchiani e brutti, ma carichi di un'anima sovversiva e portatori di una nuova sensibilità artistica.
Il secondo riflette sull'inutile lotta tra approccio scientifico e approccio artistico, tra cultura alta e cultura bassa e sul potere dell'arte di essere anche violenta e uncomfortable. Poche pagine che distruggono l'idea di divisione tra ciò che è avant-garde e ciò che è trash. D'altronde, è ipocrita il pittore colto di minimal art che è in grado di amare l'ultimo successo dell'estate? No, è semplicemente una persona che è stata in grado di avere un'ampia apertura sul mondo e un modo artistico di vivere la vita che abbatte le barriere dettate da una società sempre meno comunicante e sempre più snob.
June 7, 2019
‘'The ultimate camp statement: it's good because it's awful.''
To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up. - An Ideal Husband
I really wanted to buy this and I do not know why it took me so long to get it. The Met gala is kinda what pushed me to finally get it.
I adore simple pleasures.- A Woman Of No Importance
So I loooove Camp, I looove trash, I loooove weird shit. I love grotesque and over the top shit okay? Garbage brings me joy. Camp movies spark joy.
To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up. - An Ideal Husband
I really wanted to buy this and I do not know why it took me so long to get it. The Met gala is kinda what pushed me to finally get it.
I adore simple pleasures.- A Woman Of No Importance
So I loooove Camp, I looove trash, I loooove weird shit. I love grotesque and over the top shit okay? Garbage brings me joy. Camp movies spark joy.
February 28, 2019
3.5 stars
I was thrilled to find a hard copy of this essay for only £1 today as I've been meaning to read it for my dissertation anyway - can't argue with fate! I always enjoy Sontag's writing - she's so observant and articulate without ever getting bogged down in the jargon that plagues so many of my most-hated academics. I love so much of her take on camp, and she produces some incredible lines, like "The hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance."
But I can't help but be aware that cultural attitudes towards Camp have evolved greatly since this essay was originally conceived and published in the 60s. There's a mainstreaming of certain aspects of Camp sensibility (think Glee), and Sontag's insistence that the best Camp is unintentional doesn't seem to hold weight these days when deliberate Camp arguably outweighs the unintentional. I mean, John Waters films are undeniably deliberately campy, and I just can't agree that they're "less satisfying" as a result of their self-awareness. I also found it odd how the relation between the LGBTQ community and Camp was thrown in only as an afterthought, when that's a relationship that I find vitally important in discussing Camp as a concept and aesthetic practice. You really can't disentangle the two. Finally, I thought it was bizarre that Sontag argued that Camp is "depoliticized - or at least apolitical". Camp's relation to the LGBTQ community makes it inherently political, in my eyes, and anyway I think that any aesthetic mode (or sensibility, as she puts it) that challenges the norms and gives "high culture" the finger is absolutely political. But again, so much about Camp has changed since the essay was written that I can chalk it up to cultural evolution.
Despite these criticisms, this is a beautifully-written essay which I will absolutely be referencing heavily in my dissertation.
I was thrilled to find a hard copy of this essay for only £1 today as I've been meaning to read it for my dissertation anyway - can't argue with fate! I always enjoy Sontag's writing - she's so observant and articulate without ever getting bogged down in the jargon that plagues so many of my most-hated academics. I love so much of her take on camp, and she produces some incredible lines, like "The hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance."
But I can't help but be aware that cultural attitudes towards Camp have evolved greatly since this essay was originally conceived and published in the 60s. There's a mainstreaming of certain aspects of Camp sensibility (think Glee), and Sontag's insistence that the best Camp is unintentional doesn't seem to hold weight these days when deliberate Camp arguably outweighs the unintentional. I mean, John Waters films are undeniably deliberately campy, and I just can't agree that they're "less satisfying" as a result of their self-awareness. I also found it odd how the relation between the LGBTQ community and Camp was thrown in only as an afterthought, when that's a relationship that I find vitally important in discussing Camp as a concept and aesthetic practice. You really can't disentangle the two. Finally, I thought it was bizarre that Sontag argued that Camp is "depoliticized - or at least apolitical". Camp's relation to the LGBTQ community makes it inherently political, in my eyes, and anyway I think that any aesthetic mode (or sensibility, as she puts it) that challenges the norms and gives "high culture" the finger is absolutely political. But again, so much about Camp has changed since the essay was written that I can chalk it up to cultural evolution.
Despite these criticisms, this is a beautifully-written essay which I will absolutely be referencing heavily in my dissertation.
December 30, 2021
All of this went right over my head. I think I understood about one sentence in ten. Also, this really isn't an area of study I'm interested in at all. I got this simply because it was a theme for the Met Gala a few years ago and I thought it would be light-hearted and informative. It was not. I'm really not into philosophical debates on the merits of camp and it's aesthetic sensibility.
December 9, 2021
Notes on Camp - 4/5
How Sontag could have thought that Camp is "depoliticized/apolitical" is honestly beyond me.
One Culture and the New Sensibility - 5/5
One of the most brilliant essays I've ever read in my life, to be honest. A cultural landmark.
How Sontag could have thought that Camp is "depoliticized/apolitical" is honestly beyond me.
One Culture and the New Sensibility - 5/5
One of the most brilliant essays I've ever read in my life, to be honest. A cultural landmark.
July 20, 2018
Yeah, I didn’t really ‘get’ this one. It was just a bunch of pretentious essays that left a sour taste in my mouth. It was mostly nonsense, and when it wasn’t nonsense, I totally disagreed with it.
July 15, 2021
"Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy."
July 2, 2022
Did you ever wonder what "Camp" or campy really means? Sontag's essay "Notes on Camp" details 58 descriptors ending with "The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful...Of course, one can't always say that. Only under certain conditions, those of which I've tried to sketch in these notes." I'm not sure what the point of the essay is but it is mostly entertaining. The 2nd essay "On Culture and the New Sensibility" is on the gap between art and science and the difference between high and low culture. Ho hum.
Read
February 11, 2021No voy a darle un rating a este libro porque me resulta muy difícil ratear un essay sobre algo que sé poco y nada.
A pesar de que me interesa la ropa, no se nada sobre lo que es el mundo de la moda o de la moda en sí, realmente. En parte por eso este ensayo me pareció super interesante. Aunque el concepto es medio abstracto y difícil de definir, creo que Susan Sontag logra ponerlo en términos relativamente simples, haciendo que para el final hasta los lectores menos educados entiendan, más o menos, lo que es Camp.
“But since no authentic aristocrats in the old sense exist today to sponsor special tastes, who is the baerer of this taste? Answer: an improvised self-elected class, mainly homosexuals, who constitute themselves as aristocrats of taste.”
//
“Pero dado que hoy no existen auténticos aristócratas en el sentido antiguo para patrocinar gustos especiales, ¿quién es el principal portador de este gusto? Respuesta: una clase autoelegida improvisada, mayormente homosexuales, que se autoconstituyen como aristócratas del gusto.”
“The ultimate Camp statement: it’s good *because* it’s awful.”
//
“La declaración definitiva de Camp: es bueno *porque* es horrible.”
A pesar de que me interesa la ropa, no se nada sobre lo que es el mundo de la moda o de la moda en sí, realmente. En parte por eso este ensayo me pareció super interesante. Aunque el concepto es medio abstracto y difícil de definir, creo que Susan Sontag logra ponerlo en términos relativamente simples, haciendo que para el final hasta los lectores menos educados entiendan, más o menos, lo que es Camp.
“But since no authentic aristocrats in the old sense exist today to sponsor special tastes, who is the baerer of this taste? Answer: an improvised self-elected class, mainly homosexuals, who constitute themselves as aristocrats of taste.”
//
“Pero dado que hoy no existen auténticos aristócratas en el sentido antiguo para patrocinar gustos especiales, ¿quién es el principal portador de este gusto? Respuesta: una clase autoelegida improvisada, mayormente homosexuales, que se autoconstituyen como aristócratas del gusto.”
“The ultimate Camp statement: it’s good *because* it’s awful.”
//
“La declaración definitiva de Camp: es bueno *porque* es horrible.”
May 10, 2019
Leave it to Sontag to destroy every scrap of fun and joy present in camp. In her hands camp is a withering husk lit by Tiffany lamps and patrolled by Staffordshire dogs. I know she is counted a genius, but as far as I can tell she is shallow pedantic and humorless and her observations range from tortured, to silly, to things that may be true but which I would rather not see and do not benefit from thankyouverymuch.
March 3, 2024
Camp tai tikrai ne vien stovyklavimas, bet ir meno rūšis, požiūris, kultūra. Sontag svarsto kaip camp apibūdinti - kaip persistengimą, bet ne pajuoką, permainą, kai vienas dalykas tampa visiškai kitu (ir kitokiu!). Camp gali būti specialiai daromas arba netyčinis, naivus. Tik pastarasis, anot Sontag, yra tikras, nuoširdus. Camp menininkas nebando būti žavus, jis užtikrintas tuo, ką daro, jis į savo darbą žiūri kuo rimčiausiai! Melodramatiškumas, perdėjimas, absurdas - neatsiejama camp dalis. Negali būti camp SIEKDAMAS tuo būti. Camp žaismingas, "anti-rimtas", jis į gyvenimą žiūri komiškai, bet ne piktai. O kur dar camp ir homoseksualumo ryšys! Rekomenduoju.
October 4, 2018
This was interesting and kind of fun, but often also quite redundant.
Overall, I liked it, but I didn't really enjoy it.
I wish it was kind of less preachy, had less of a "we have a superior taste than you" type of voice.
January 30, 2021
I still have very little grasp on what Camp is, but Sontag is a very interesting writer and both the included essays were rather enlightening nonetheless.
November 26, 2022
I don’t think there’s anything Earth-shatteringly new to discover here, but a fascinating essay nonetheless!
September 18, 2025
Need to read more Sontag. She is a phenomenal writer. Truly some of the most enjoyable and fun non-fiction I’ve encountered. These two small essays deliver a lot without overstaying their welcome.
Especially the first essay on camp aesthetics was great fun. Highly intelligent perspectives on art and culture still applicable today.
Especially the first essay on camp aesthetics was great fun. Highly intelligent perspectives on art and culture still applicable today.
November 3, 2025
I think what best describes this text is the fact that it is "about everything and nothing at the same time". Everything that is formulated is very fragmentary, unfinished vague, and almost liminal (probably purposefully so to fit the "camp aesthetic" that it attempts to talk about).
While I do recognise this essay's importance and profound impact on postmodern studies and popular culture as well as appreciate the many examples provided by Sontag (especially in regards to intertextuality, which is one of my favourite topics as I consider it very fruitful for contextualizing discourses within history/culture/social studies and find it intellectually enriching), I was utterly confused during the read, as I found that Susan Sontag contradicts her own ideas almost immediately after making a claim... Nothing was really elaborated on (neither the examples), which left me second-guessing what was exactly meant or implied by Susan Sontag in pretty much every second sentence (which, once again, probably is the whole point of this style of narrative in order to fit this sensibility of camp).
P.S. The fact that I put 4 stars as a rating does not mean that I do not recommend the text or did not find it enjoyable, I just look at it from a more "academic" POV.
While I do recognise this essay's importance and profound impact on postmodern studies and popular culture as well as appreciate the many examples provided by Sontag (especially in regards to intertextuality, which is one of my favourite topics as I consider it very fruitful for contextualizing discourses within history/culture/social studies and find it intellectually enriching), I was utterly confused during the read, as I found that Susan Sontag contradicts her own ideas almost immediately after making a claim... Nothing was really elaborated on (neither the examples), which left me second-guessing what was exactly meant or implied by Susan Sontag in pretty much every second sentence (which, once again, probably is the whole point of this style of narrative in order to fit this sensibility of camp).
P.S. The fact that I put 4 stars as a rating does not mean that I do not recommend the text or did not find it enjoyable, I just look at it from a more "academic" POV.
May 9, 2022
It’s Good Because It’s Awful: Susan Sontag’s controversial essay Notes on Camp has been both a pleasure and torment for the refined reader. Many have tried and failed to interpret the meaning behind it and it feels like the more we peel the more it becomes cryptic. The famous essay circles around the phenomenon of Camp. But one wonders what it is: Is it a noun or an adjective? Is it an abstract concept fit for the imaginative minds, a philosophical approach to art, an absurd taste or a universally appreciated form of aesthetics?
It is excruciatingly hard to solidify the foundations of the concept and Sontag’s essay creates more questions than answers.
The way I understand it, Camp has to be unique in itself. According to Susan Sontag, it transforms the experience. She also states that Camp sensibility is represented in androgynous elements, there’s something feminine in men and masculine in women. There is sexuality but Camp does not arouse sexual desire. It can also be inferred from the essay that Camp is full of contrasting emotions. Sontag states that camp propagates double meaning, subject to double interpretation. Duplicity and contrasts are in the essence of Camp. Camp should also be smooth. Excessive effort is not acceptable in the nature of Camp. It can both be coarse and elegant. Vulgarity can be appreciated in camp, though its appreciation may change or evolve over time. Extravagance is a crucial aspect of camp, there’s nothing too much or overly exaggerated.
Overall, there is no judgment but enjoyment in camp. It is stripped off all moral indignations; it is there for the refined taste to enjoy but not restricted to high culture. It is daring and controversial, both old-fashioned and Avant Garde. Its intensity fluctuates but it is well-balanced, thus creating an appealing reflection. Though subjective, it is widely appreciated. Lovely isn’t it? But with all these criteria, what exactly is camp? It’s quite difficult to give an example and I do not understand the examples given by Sontag, thus leaving you to decide:
Random examples of Camp according to Sontag:
Zuleika Dobson
Tiffany lamps
Scopitone films
The Brown Derby restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in LA
The Enquirer, headlines and stories
Aubrey Beardsley drawings
Swan Lake
Bellini's operas
Visconti's direction of Salome and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
certain turn-of-the-century picture postcards
Schoedsack's King Kong
the Cuban pop singer La Lupe
Lynn Ward's novel in woodcuts, God's Man
the old Flash Gordon comics
women's clothes of the twenties (feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses, etc.)
the novels of Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett
stag movies seen without lust
It is excruciatingly hard to solidify the foundations of the concept and Sontag’s essay creates more questions than answers.
The way I understand it, Camp has to be unique in itself. According to Susan Sontag, it transforms the experience. She also states that Camp sensibility is represented in androgynous elements, there’s something feminine in men and masculine in women. There is sexuality but Camp does not arouse sexual desire. It can also be inferred from the essay that Camp is full of contrasting emotions. Sontag states that camp propagates double meaning, subject to double interpretation. Duplicity and contrasts are in the essence of Camp. Camp should also be smooth. Excessive effort is not acceptable in the nature of Camp. It can both be coarse and elegant. Vulgarity can be appreciated in camp, though its appreciation may change or evolve over time. Extravagance is a crucial aspect of camp, there’s nothing too much or overly exaggerated.
Overall, there is no judgment but enjoyment in camp. It is stripped off all moral indignations; it is there for the refined taste to enjoy but not restricted to high culture. It is daring and controversial, both old-fashioned and Avant Garde. Its intensity fluctuates but it is well-balanced, thus creating an appealing reflection. Though subjective, it is widely appreciated. Lovely isn’t it? But with all these criteria, what exactly is camp? It’s quite difficult to give an example and I do not understand the examples given by Sontag, thus leaving you to decide:
Random examples of Camp according to Sontag:
Zuleika Dobson
Tiffany lamps
Scopitone films
The Brown Derby restaurant on Sunset Boulevard in LA
The Enquirer, headlines and stories
Aubrey Beardsley drawings
Swan Lake
Bellini's operas
Visconti's direction of Salome and 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
certain turn-of-the-century picture postcards
Schoedsack's King Kong
the Cuban pop singer La Lupe
Lynn Ward's novel in woodcuts, God's Man
the old Flash Gordon comics
women's clothes of the twenties (feather boas, fringed and beaded dresses, etc.)
the novels of Ronald Firbank and Ivy Compton-Burnett
stag movies seen without lust
September 7, 2018
At this remove, the late critic/author Susan Sontag is probably best remembered for ILLNESS AS METAPHOR and AIDS AND ITS METAPHORS. However, this little essay had already put her on the map back in the Sixties, when it first appeared in book form as one chapter of AGAINST INTERPRETATION. Here's an inexpensive way to get Sontag's low-down on the emerging phenomenon known as "Camp," and why its artifacts can be viewed sympathetically, ironically, or dismissively. Since today's world is full of Camp, as witness the re-released Volkswagen Beetle, Elvira the bad-movie mocking queen, and Bruce Vilanch's t-shirts, it's great fun to check out "the source," Susan Sontag. The interested may also wish to ponder her **SPOILER** closing statement, that the modern world is shaped by Jewish moral earnestness and homosexual irony and playfulness.
March 5, 2023
Vague definitions of the indefinable that left me with more questions than answers—as all good critical essays tend to. That being said, this was clearly a white woman's attempt to bottle a phenomenon that does not have its origins in whiteness or affluence, and it shows. Unlike what would be considered good critical writing today, these pieces from the 60s use the word 'homosexual' way too many times for something that does not once go into looking at the queer history of Camp. From where I'm standing, Sontag's "ultimate Camp statement" could easily apply to at least the first essay in this volume: it's good because it's awful.
July 13, 2023
The experiences of Camp are based on the great discovery that the sensibility of high culture has no monopoly upon refinement. Camp asserts that good taste is not simply good taste; that there exists, indeed, a good taste of bad taste. [...] The discovery of the good taste of bad taste can be very liberating. [...] It is good for the digestion.
June 14, 2025
Very artsy. No todo era cuestión de estética, hay un mundo en estos cortos ensayos, me hubiera gustado que fuera más extensa la explicación de algunos tópicos.
March 30, 2021
I knew I enjoyed campy things, but I only really understood the idea of Camp in a nebulous sort of way. After having read this, I can confidently say that Camp is exactly what I love about all the things I love the most.
It's my very favorite thing about wrestling-- the OTT gimmicks, the enthusiastic ploys (i.e. the "slowmo bomb" at 321 Battle that had performers and audience alike acting out their various roles in full on slow motion), the exaggerated emotions, etc.
It's my very favorite horror movies-- why I thought the first Prom Night was a snoozefest, but Prom Night 2, with its animatronic carousel horse frothing at the mouth, its chalkboard turned into a black pool waiting to suck in its terrified lead, its rattling chest of doom, delighted me.
It's why I love the Fast and the Furious movies such an ungodly amount, with their ridiculously hulking men, sky jumping cars, and over earnestness.
It's the combination of the extravagant mixed with an abundance of passion and exuberance. It's ridiculousness that invites you too enjoy, have fun, to let go of your cynicism.
I'm still digesting for now, but I plan to revisit this very soon 😊
It's my very favorite thing about wrestling-- the OTT gimmicks, the enthusiastic ploys (i.e. the "slowmo bomb" at 321 Battle that had performers and audience alike acting out their various roles in full on slow motion), the exaggerated emotions, etc.
It's my very favorite horror movies-- why I thought the first Prom Night was a snoozefest, but Prom Night 2, with its animatronic carousel horse frothing at the mouth, its chalkboard turned into a black pool waiting to suck in its terrified lead, its rattling chest of doom, delighted me.
It's why I love the Fast and the Furious movies such an ungodly amount, with their ridiculously hulking men, sky jumping cars, and over earnestness.
It's the combination of the extravagant mixed with an abundance of passion and exuberance. It's ridiculousness that invites you too enjoy, have fun, to let go of your cynicism.
I'm still digesting for now, but I plan to revisit this very soon 😊
September 28, 2020
Penguin 60s ‘Notes on Camp’ contains two evergreen and thought-provoking Sontag essays which provide a beautiful introduction to her writing. Exhilarating, probing and deeply contemplative, they remain a historical time capsule of ideas, references and interwoven histories.
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April 24, 2023the most campy thing to me is the catholic church; golden naked ripped abs Jesus, nuns & priests, chastity, little children brides having their communion, THE VIRGIN MARY. so camp. i’m in italy btw and i love to stop in every church ⛪️💕
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