Being able to describe the term ‘camp’ has proved an arduous task for a multitude of scholars. Following Susan Sontag’s seminal essay Notes on Camp, the queer film critic Jack Babuscio related Sontag’s definition of camp along with more contemporary understandings of the term to what he termed a “gay sensibility”. In brief, Babuscio’s understanding of this sensibility relates to how living as a minority colors, shapes, directs and defines “a perception of the world … by the fact of one’s gayness” (121). Babuscio, in turn, claims that camp is a helpful way to deal with the polarization of being gay.
Babuscio discerns four features that are essential to camp: irony, aestheticism, theatricality, and humor (122). This brought my attention to the inside jokes present in RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR), a show focused on showcasing drag queen contests and highlighting marginalised communities.
In itself, the show is emblematic of camp. The queens’ names are often ironic twists or puns on the “idea of gayness as a moral deviation” (122) as Babuscio puts it, or even many of the weekly themes for which the queens have to create costumes toy with humor. Yet, the queens must utilise the register of theatricality to embody their costumes, allowing excess and extravaganza rule their glamour. This glamour plays with the concept of gender reversals, artifice, or stylization, as Sontag expressed when referring to camp as a certain mode of aestheticism (277).
A recurring inside joke I loveis when RuPaul asks contestants “How’s your head?” as a reference to Elvira from Mistress of the Dark‘s (1988):
@ruruvision Fine . #rpdr #dragrace #rupaulsdragrace #ruruvision #rpdrseason7 #dragraceseason7 #missfame #missfamenyc #trixiemattel #katyazamolodchikova #gay #dragqueen #fyp #foryou
When contestants don’t get the joke, or rather, the reference, Ru tends to – comically enough – find this offensive and worthy of reprimanding. For RuPaul, as much as the supposedly queer audience watching, these jokes are obvious and a staple for the community. Hearing Elvira’s sassy response is a way of knowing who belongs to your own community, and knowing that therefore, understand you.
Worthy of mention is Mistress of the Dark as its own camp staple. As Babuscio introduces, the interrelationship between film and camp “implies a movement away from contemporary concerns into realms of exotic or subjective fantasies” (124). Elvira exudes sex appeal and wears robes of satin and velvet and many shimmering accessories. She is fascinating as herself as much as the role she plays. Consequently, it is apt that she would become a recurring joke in RPDR.
Jack Babuscio, “Camp and the gay sensibility,” Queer Cinema: The Film Reader ed. Harry M Benshoff and Sean Griffin (New York: Routledge, 2004), 121-136.
Susan Sontag, ‘Notes on Camp,” [1966], Against Interpretation and Other Essays (New York: Picador, 1996), 275-292.