vol. 3, issue 2: camp Archives - cléo

Editor’s Note: Camp

kiva reardon — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:59:32 +0000

The only thing worse than writing an editor’s note is writing an editor’s note in the summer. It’s the season for escaping to cabins in the woods, reading on beaches, drinking in parks, and making out with crushes on humid nights. It is, above all, a time for fun. And while we always take great […]

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The Shared Faith of Bollywood’s Diasporic Camp Aesthetic

a. mistry — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:59:13 +0000

In diasporas across Canada, the U.S., Britain and beyond, Bollywood films have become crucial context for the inherited identities of generations of movie fans of Indian descent. My parents, also born in the diaspora – in East Africa – used Indian cinema as a way to maintain a link to a place that was only […]

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“How Can It Be? She’s a boy.” Transmisogyny in Sleepaway Camp

willow maclay — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:58:42 +0000

She’s a boy. My body trembles and shakes at the rupturing of self and the dissolution of my identity. Three words make me inhuman. Three words make me a monster. Three words make me something to be feared. She’s a boy. My skin is soft, running up my body, and shimmers in the sun. My […]

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Girl Fight: Bette Davis vs. Joan Crawford in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

sara black mcculloch — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:57:54 +0000

A feud functions differently than a fight: it lasts longer, it simmers, it requires more emotional effort, and it often outlives the two rivals. From the melodramatic weepies of the 1950s to current day reality TV, audiences have loved watching women feud, basking in the pseudo-sexual woman-on-woman contact. But before The Real Housewives, or the […]

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Holding Out for a Hero: Mad Max: Fury Road’s new action hero[ine]

kiva reardon — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:57:06 +0000

“A man reduced to a single instinct: survive.” – Max “You want to get through this? Do as I say.” – Furiosa Not since Nicholas Ray’s Johnny Guitar (1954) has there been such a blissfully misleadingly titled movie as George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road (2015). In the former melodrama-Western fusion, the titular cowboy is […]

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The Camp Fashion World of Portfolio

abbey bender — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:56:27 +0000

A pretty young thing comes to the big city to make it. It’s the stuff of countless Hollywood films, and the narrative structure of Portfolio, a 1983 direct-to-video fictionalized documentary described as a “sizzling exposé of the inside world of modeling.” The film—which stars a cornucopia of contemporary supermodels, with guest appearances by well-known photographers […]

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Wet Hot Lesbian Summers

so mayer — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:56:02 +0000

In 2015, girl camp finally had the coming-out party it had been waiting for. While touring her low-budget cult film fave, All About Evil (2010), Peaches Christ—drag queen, filmmaker and tour de force—turned her PR tour into an all-singing, all-dancing screening of But I’m a Cheerleader (Jamie Babbit, 1999) along with Natasha Lyonne, the star […]

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The Star-Crossed Stars of Showgirls, Crossroads, and Glitter

simran hans — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:55:29 +0000

No film is born camp. Instead, the designation of camp is bestowed upon the film once it has tried and—likely—failed at being taken seriously as art or entertainment. There is pleasure to be found in the earnestness of camp’s floundering sincerity; purity in its lack of self-awareness as it falls flat on its face. No […]

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Powdering Her Face: Queen Elizabeth I and Camp Iconography From Quentin Crisp to Beyoncé

davina quinlivan — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:54:46 +0000

At the end of Shekhar Kapur’s Elizabeth (1997), Cate Blanchett’s face finally transforms into the portraiture that we firmly associate with this famous Queen of England. The face that is adorned with an ivory mask of white make-up and framed by the waves of her majesty’s hair, pinned up by pearls. At this moment in […]

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Roundtable: Sex at Summer Camp!

cléo journal — Mon, 10 Aug 2015 11:53:02 +0000

Are you ready for the summer? Are you ready for the sunshine? Are you ready for the birds and bees, The apple trees, And a whole lot of fooling around? Sung by a chorus of young children, the theme song from juvenile comedy classic Meatballs promises summer camp as a hot and steamy (parent-free!) paradise […]

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