You can't camp about something you don't take seriously. You're not making fun of it; you're making fun out of it. You're expressing what's basically serious to you in terms of fun and artifice and elegance.
—Christopher Isherwood
Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation — not judgment. Camp is generous. It wants to enjoy. It only seems like malice, cynicism. (Or, if it is cynicism, it's not a ruthless but a sweet cynicism.) Camp taste doesn't propose that it is in bad taste to be serious; it doesn't sneer at someone who succeeds in being seriously dramatic. What it does is to find the success in certain passionate failures... Camp taste is a kind of love, love for human nature. It relishes, rather than judges, the little triumphs and awkward intensities of "character." ... Camp taste identifies with what it is enjoying. People who share this sensibility are not laughing at the thing they label as "a camp," they're enjoying it. Camp is a tender feeling.
One must distinguish between naive and deliberate Camp. Pure Camp is always naïve. Camp which knows itself to be Camp ('camping') is usually less satisfying.
—Susan Sontag "Notes on 'Camp'
"
"When it comes to film and television production I think camp is often the accidental flame sparked by the friction between budget and ambition.
I think that any gay person in the world would be seduced at one point by a certain kind of camp. For certain people it's kind of a saving grace.
John: It's camp! (Beat) The tragically ludicrous? The ludicrously tragic?
Homer: Oh, yeah! Like when a clown dies.
John: Well, sort of.
Homer: Oh, yeah! Like when a clown dies.
John: Well, sort of.
Let's do it!
Let's do it — I've had a really good idea!
We'll revamp, make more camp, a sci-fi show from yesteryear!
Let's do it — I've had a really good idea!
We'll revamp, make more camp, a sci-fi show from yesteryear!
