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badly to be campy that they're continually losing the beat. . . . Per–
haps, though, it's not so much a question of the unintended effect
versus the conscious intention, as of the delicate relation between
parody and self-parody in Camp. The films of Hitchcock are a
showcase for this problem. When self-parody lacks ebullience but
instead reveals (even sporadically) a contempt for one's themes
and one's materials-as in
To Catch a Thief, Rear Window, North
By Northwest-the
results are forced and heavy-handed, rarely Camp.
Perfect Camp--a movie like Carne's
Drole de Drame;
the film per–
formances of Mae West and Edward Everett Horton; chunks of
the Goon Show-even when it rests on self-parody, reeks of self-love.
21. So, again, Camp rests on innocence. That means, Camp
discloses innocence, but also, when it can, corrupts it. Objects, being
objects, don't change when they are singled out by the Camp
vision. Persons, however, respond to their audiences. Persons begin
"camping": Mae West, Bea Lillie, La Lupe, Tallulah Bankhead in
Lifeboat,
Bette Davis in
All About Eve.
(Persons can even be in–
duced to camp without their knowing
it.
Consider the way Fellini
got Anita Ekberg to parody herself in
La Dolce Vita.)
22. Considered a little less strictly, Camp is either completely
naive or else wholly conscious (when one plays at being campy).
An
example of the latter: Wilde's epigrams themselves.
"It's absurd to divide people into
good and bad. People are either
charming or tedious."
-Lady Windemere's Fan
23. In naive, or pure, Camp, the essential element is serious–
ness, a seriousness that fails. Of course, not all seriousness that fails
can be redeemed as Camp. Only that which has the proper mixture
of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the naive.
24. When Something is just bad (rather than Camp), it's
often because it is too mediocre in its ambition. The artist hasn't
attempted to do anything really outlandish. (It's too much," "It's
fantastic," "It's not to be believed," are standard phrases of Camp
enthusiasm. )
25. The hallmark of Camp is the spirit of extravagance. Camp
is a woman walking around in a dress made of three million feathers.