Every definition of pure, or naïve camp tells a different story of a failed seriousness—a sincere intention to be perceived as high-art, which is ironically vulgar in its bad taste, or that which implies an immoral transgression of the heterosexual pattern. This reminds me of a chapter I read in Jack Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure, which reimagines failure as a method of aesthetic resistance, embracing unconventional sources of knowledge—that of pop culture and low-art—as a legitimate site of politics. It is with this establishing ethos that I introduce a talent-show performance from Rupaul’s Drag Race, which I believe defines camp in camp’s own, tongue-in-cheek words.
As you have seen, although Tatianna (the drag-performer, pictured above) is initially derided for her faux-sincere attempt at a spoken-word piece—the audience quickly learns that her profound enunciation of her very un-profound poetry is where the irony is located, after all. As Sontag argues, “To camp is a mode of seduction—which employs flamboyant mannerisms susceptible to a double interpretation; gestures full of duplicity, with a witty meaning for cognoscenti and another, more impersonal, for outsiders.” Tatianna perverts the structures of this formal genre of oral literature; revealing that instead of reverence, it is the acerbic rhetoric of ridicule that is more exciting to watch. The exaggerated movements of revealing the exposing lingerie underneath her cape, or the almost comical length of her bowl-cut wig, are presented with a deadpan expression on her face, as if to intendedly invite that derisive laughter. This is why the colloquial notion of shade, what can be described as a form of performative critique that operates within this codified system of queer discourse, is essential to the culture of drag—subtextually, although blithely, addressing the subjugated position of the queer man.
As Andrew Ross asserts in his ruminations on camp, he who describes drag as benefitted by its “maudlin amateurism”, there is a “ritual self-deprecation, even fatalism, in the otherwise celebratory drag performance”. Of course, the incongruity of a man in woman’s clothing is where the camp aspect of drag is born—but it is the in-humour it generates and the ability to laugh at oneself that define it as a defence mechanism, or a means of survival. “What you see isn’t always the truth”, Tatianna whisphers, mirroring Susan Sontag’s definition of camp as “the love of the “off”, of things-being-what-they-are-not”. And so, in the grand tradition of camp, Tatianna doesn’t simply perform spoken-word—she aestheticises spoken-word, turning sincerity into artifice, and sharpening that artifice into a coy wink, aimed directly at the audience.
I love how you bring in outside readings to illustrate your point — Halberstam’s analysis brings welcome context that fleshes out your analysis. I definitely agree that this “failed sincerity” discussed in the readings need not (always) be written off, but understood as its own aesthetic.
So happy someone else wrote about RPDR. And I completely agree! Looking down on drag or putting it down as Ross says dismisses part of what has led the gay community to come to terms with their own sexuality. Indeed, there is the inherently paradoxical aspect of a man in woman’s clothing but you’re absolutely correct that by asserting it within the grounds of camp and irony, it becomes something entirely different.