Babuscio explains that there are four key features of camp: irony, aestheticism, theatricality and humor. Irony represents “any highly incongruous contrast between an individual or thing and its context or association” (122), the aestheticism of camp is “subversive of commonly received standards” (123), theatricality is most commonly seen in highlighting “being versus role-playing, reality and appearance” (125) and camp humor arises as “ a means of dealing with a hostile environment and, in the process, of defining a positive identity” (127).
The scene that most strongly came to mind when reading this was the dinner sequence in The Birdcage (Nichols, USA, 1996). The scene comes at the end of the film, when Val’s fiancee and her parents come to meet Val’s parents. Throughout the film we have seen Val and Armand (his father) attempt to skirt the issue with Albert (Armand’s partner) in an attempt to prevent him from attending and sparing his feelings from Val’s fiancee’s very conservative parents. In the end Albert finds out and decides to surprise Val and Armand by arriving at the dinner in full drag as Val’s “mother”, Mrs Coleman.
This scene aligns with Babuscio’s conception of camp: the irony of Albert’s full drag getup at this formal dinner with the fiancee’s conservative parents; the drag getup itself plays into a certain camp aestheticism; the theatricality of the scene is evident in its highlighting of appearances and undercutting traditional gender- and sex-roles for queer families; and the humor arising from Albert’s bursting into the ‘hostile environment’ of conservative in-laws and Val/Armand’s wish for him not to be present and Albert forging his own place in their family with Val eventually accepting him and calling him family.
While this scene, and the film more broadly, can be understood as aligning clearly with this definition of camp, it also serves to emphasise a further point Babuscio makes, that for camp, “laughter, rather than tears, is its chosen means of dealing with the painfully incongruous situation of gays in society” (128). The film is comic throughout, while dealing with serious issues around shame, stigma, queer stereotypes and family. Albert’s feelings of uncertainty around his place in the family are reflective of wider queer uncertainty around their place in public spaces and finding community. I found this part of Babuscio’s argument to be particularly compelling, that camp, while able to be light-hearted and humorous, can also serve to highlight certain challenging facets of gay/queer experiences in a genuine and thought-provoking way.