Guilty Pleasures
Feminist Camp from Mae West to Madonna
Pamela Robertson(Author)
I.B. Tauris (Publisher)
Published on 31. December 1996
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-1-86064-087-2 (ISBN)
Description
This text puts women back into the history of camp, a story long confined to gay male practice. Emphasizing the distinctive roles which women have played as producers and consumers of camp, Pamela Robertson links her subject to feminist discussions of gender, parody, performance, and spectatorship. She examines figures like Mae West, Joan Crawford and Madonna, located within a tradition of feminist camp - a female form of aestheticism related to masquerade and burlesque, parallel to but different from gay male camp. Analyses of film - notably "Gold Diggers of 1933" and "Johnny Guitar" - video and television, show how the gold digger is to feminist camp what the dandy is to gay male camp: its original personification and defining voice. The author shows how feminist camp flourishes during periods of anti-feminist backlash and how it reflects a working-class sensibility, attuned to changing attitudes toward women's work and sexuality.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
b&w halftones, bibliography, index
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-86064-087-2 (9781860640872)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Content
What makes the feminist camp?; "the kinda comedy where they imitate me"; Mae West's identification with the femininst camp; what Trixie and God know - feminist camp in "Gold Diggers of 1933"; camping under Western stars - Joan Crawford in "Johnny Guitar"; does feminist camp make a difference? or, what we talk about when we talk about Madonna; the queens are dead, long live the queens.