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98 REVAMPING THE GAY SENSIBILITY
critical difference) between an ostensible standard and a point of commentary.
Through this constitution of difference, irony erects an inflexible “presence.”
The stabilizing quality of irony, then, contradicts the destabilizing effect
ascribed to “camp-as-masquerade.” The use and deployment of irony in “camp
role playing” can only produce a reification of (hetero)sexual difference since
irony cements difference into a binary set of standards and commentaries. The
ironic role playing of “camp-as-masquerade” requires an a priori, present
standard to juxtapose against its point of commentary. Clearly, the notion of
Camp as ironic role playing falls short of any destabilizing function. If indeed the
subcultural queer discourse of Camp unfixes categories asserted as right,
inevitable, and natural, then irony, with its ties to discursive presence through its
investment in ostensible binary standards, is at odds with the queer operations of
Camp, creating a need to propose an alternative understanding of the operation
of Camp. This notion would, furthermore, need to respond to the peculiar
constitution of the desiring queer subject, as an absence known only by the trace
of its proscription.
GAY SENSIBILITIES: A REPLY TO SONTAG
Staging this alternative requires a move away from the tropics of masquerade
(that have nonetheless produced some of the most cogent work on Camp) and
necessitates a brief return to Susan Sontag’s thoroughly overrehearsed “Notes on
Camp.” As Gregory W. Bredbeck points out, Sontag’s “Notes” concede the
“slipperiness” of Camp through the articulation of an Aristotelian interest in
“division and classification” (275). The fifty-eight notes seek to identify,
investigate, and analyze the mysterious origins and inner workings of Camp. A
central point of interest for Sontag is the means whereby Camp simultaneously
asserts contradictory messages: the Camp object is so good, beautiful, and/or
wonderful, while and because it is also so bad, ugly, and/or awful. Unhappily,
Sontag’s entry into Camp discourse manifests itself in an effort to resolve the
discursive contradictions of Camp, a tactic which has burdened subsequent
critical discussions. On the other hand, Sontag’s efforts to achieve such
resolution fail. It is through Sontag’s demand for a stabilized definition of Camp
that its destabilizing function can be seen.
In trying to divide and conquer Camp, Sontag unwittingly describes Camp’s
disinterest in difference; Camp resists establishing the critical distance necessary
for separating statements, objects, and behaviors. But her Aristotelian
methodology seeks to produce such critical difference through its creation of a
classificatory scheme wherein something becomes present because it is not
something else, and conversely, something which cannot be differentiated cannot
“be.” This is not to say that Camp envisions all objects as homogenous, that all
things are the same; rather, Sontag’s essay correctly (if unknowingly) reveals the
“trouble” with Camp as a destabilization of the relations between things. In other
words, Sontag’s description of Camp symptomatically recognizes the investment