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INTRODUCTION
Reclaiming the discourse of Camp
Moe Meyer
In the last decade, Camp, or queer parody, has become an activist strategy for
organizations such as ACT UP and Queer Nation, as well as a focus in utopian
movements like the Radical Faeries. As practiced by these contemporary groups,
Camp is both political and critical. Defying existing interpretations that continue
to define Camp as apolitical, aestheticized, and frivolous, the contributors to this
volume, prompted by its recently foregrounded political usages, attempt a
reappraisal of the phenomenon. These writers suggest that Camp is not simply a
“style” or “sensibility” as is conventionally accepted. Rather, what emerges is a
suppressed and denied oppositional critique embodied in the signifying practices
that processually constitute queer identities. Accordingly, the contributors to this
volume operate from shared beliefs concerning the construction of Camp. These
are: Camp is political; Camp is solely a queer (and/or sometimes gay and
lesbian) discourse; and Camp embodies a specifically queer cultural critique. 1
Additionally, because Camp is defined as a solely queer discourse, all un-queer
activities that have been previously accepted as “camp,” such as Pop culture
expressions, have been redefined as examples of the appropriation of queer
praxis. Because un-queer appropriations interpret Camp within the context of
compulsory reproductive heterosexuality, they no longer qualify as Camp as it is
defined here. In other words, the un-queer do not have access to the discourse of
Camp, only to derivatives constructed through the act of appropriation. 2
The use of the word “queer” to designate what is usually referred to as “gay
and lesbian” marks a subtle, ongoing, and not yet stabilized renomination. It is
used by some of the writers in this volume for various reasons. “Queer” does not
indicate the biological sex or gender of the subject. More importantly, the term
indicates an ontological challenge to dominant labeling philosophies, especially
the medicalization of the subject implied by the word “homosexual,” as well as a
challenge to discrete gender categories embedded in the divided phrase “gay and
lesbian.” Because Camp, as we are defining it in this volume, gains its political
validity as an ontological critique, and because its reconceptualization was
initiated by observations of queer activist practices, the term “queer” may be the
best descriptor of this parodic operation.
The reappropriation of the once derogatory term “queer,” and its contemporary
use as an affirmative self-nominated identity label, is far from clear in its current