In Search of Camp

Food is a deep subject that can do multiple things. Not only can it bring back memories and take you to your happy place, it can also tell you a lot about cultures and maybe even lead to the understanding of art or yourself. Being in New York for almost a year, I miss Chinese food more than almost anything. Luckily, Chinese restaurants are all over the city. As desperate as I am for Chinese cuisines, there are some things that I cannot ignore as I enter a Chinese restaurant. These restaurants always try to recreate an authentic Chinese experience, but some of them seem to fail at the task. I am often overwhelmed by their atmospheres and intentions. There are always lanterns hanging around with the color red all over the place. The paper on the tables often contain information about Chinese zodiac and the paper that contains chopsticks teaches people how to hold chopsticks. If you want to order take out or bring your leftovers home, they always pack the food with white boxes with pictures of dragon or temples. At the end of the meal, they tend to offer fortune cookies in which I rarely see back home. There are too many intentional but unnecessary efforts put into the dining experience to make it “more Chinese,” yet, to a local like me, they seem to be trying too hard and not achieving what they hope. Interestingly, these failure in recreating Chinese rituals had eventually formed into their own American Chinese ritual and experience that is unique to the United States. Chinese people actually look forward for the fortune cookies and love the cute take out boxes when they first experience them. It seems that their failure in recreation turned out to be impressing after all.

The Met Gala is an annual fundraising gala for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute. Every year, celebrities dress for the gala according to that year’s exhibition, and it is a great time for celebrities to showcase their characteristics through fashion (Vogue). This year, I was particularly interested because I am in New York where the Gala takes place. However, when I was looking through articles and videos about the Gala outfits, I could not figure out what the theme was because everyone was dressing oddly and some, I would even say, ugly. Jared Leto wore a dress and held a head that looks like him, Ezra Miller has seven eyes, Katy Perry dressed like a chandelier, and Lady Gaga changed four outfits when she was walking the red carpet (Vogue). They are all so odd and extra, and I have no idea why the word “Camp,” which reminds me of boots and huge backpacks with shirts and shorts, is related to what I am seeing. Afterwards, I realized that “Camp” does not mean “camping.” Instead, the word is describing a specific style related to fashion, and I could not imagine what Camp could mean to be so unorganized and, to some extent, disastrous. 

The theme for this year’s MET Gala exhibition was “Camp: Notes on Fashion.” I accidentally caught the tail of the exhibition and went to it two days before it closes. The MET tried to explain what Camp means to the public through the exhibition. The exhibition was divided into sections where it first talks about the history and then about Susan Sontag’s Essay that inspired the whole exhibition. The word camp comes from the French word “se camper,” which means “to posture” (Camp: Notes of Fashion Gallery View). There are traces of Camp throughout history, such as the Greeks who embraces the beauty of male bodies and posture, Louis XIV and his brother who was bisexual, or Chevalier d’Eon who was a spy that infiltrated the courts of Europe disguised as a lady (Camp: Notes of Fashion Gallery View). They are all precursors of Camp because they all carry elements of Camp, such as the styles, cross dressing, and queer. Later on in the nineteenth century, Camp became associated to the queer community more directly because it was used to indicate the practice of female impersonators and prostitutes following military encampments to perform sexual services, and later aesthetic choices and behavior of homosexual man (LGBT Project). One of the first time the word Camp was first used to describe styles was by Christopher Isherwood, as he mentions low Camp, indicating something in the queer community that is more unknown, and high Camp, indicating baroque art or ballet that seems to be more high level (Camp: Notes of Fashion Gallery View). It is not until Susan Sontag wrote an essay on Camp that the idea became much more mainstream.

Notes on Camp is an essay written by Susan Sontag that included 58 points of what Camp is. It starts off by mentioning “Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility -- unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it -- that goes by the cult name of ‘Camp’". Camp is a type of sensibility rather than an idea, which is why it is so difficult to describe and capture. The essence of Camp is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. Camp can be artwork, films, literature, fashion, or anything else. It is a type of aestheticism because it is more focused on the style rather than the content, and is considered to be at least apolitical. “The androgyne is certainly one of the great images of Camp sensibility,” it promotes the idea of accepting contradictions or being in the grey area, rather than clear cut black or white. Therefore, in a sense, American Chinese restaurants can be described as Camp as well because they are all over the place with a lot of artificial decoration and materials. They focus a lot on keeping the styles Chinese rather than making sure their content, such as food, is the accurate representation. Also, they are a blend of both Chinese and American cultures instead of being an extreme of either. To me, Camp achieves this unique beauty and balance and acceptance of noting being in “either or,” but rather “and”. Just like how these restaurants formed a new style from the combination of Chinese and American cultures. Another essential element to Camp is “seriousness that fails”. It embraces the attitudes of failure and celebrates the extravagance of both attempts and outcomes. As Sontag proposed, Camp offers a new, complex relationship with “seriousness,” being frivolous about the serious. It acts like a science teacher that pats students on the back when they dedicated a lot of time into an experiment but end up failing. It motivates people to continue trying, and reminds that there are still elements of beauty and fun even when things seem to be unsuccessful. American Chinese restaurants is an example of seriousness that fails because they were trying to replicate authentic Chinese restaurants but end up overdoing it and creating this off point but new style and taste. 

There is a test that is very famous among Psychology related classes about selective attention by Simons and Chabris. There are people wearing both white and black and audiences are asked to count how many times people in white shirts have passed the ball. However, while they are passing, a man in a gorilla suit walks in and waves then leaves (Simons). Surprisingly, the existence of the gorilla goes unnoticed by most people. The experiment shows how some people have very good selective attention and focus on the ball so much that they unconsciously ignored what happened. This happens because people are very focused and serious about following the instructions and lose their attention to the surroundings. It is interesting to see how humans are able to filter what they want to see and not see in able to be more focused on what they consider to be more important. We think we know what is necessary, yet we miss out so many things going on in life. 

In the same year as her Notes on Camp, Sontag wrote another essay Against Interpretation, where she highlights the importance of preserving the original form of artworks when people interpret the content and discuss the meaning of them. She notes that interpretations can be liberating in some contexts, and Camp should be considered so because it encourages self-expression and being special. It liberates people by allowing them to show the world who they are. As we look deeper into the designs and figures of Camp, we should always the artist being true to him or herself, saying what they want to express. As Sontag noted, “One doesn't need to know the artist's private intentions. The work tells all”. People should not need to read into the work because the experience of seeing it should communicate what the artists convey. However, that is not always the case. Sontag argues in her essay that “interpretations make art manageable” and it is now a deep rooted behavior that people perform unintentionally. One problem that she highlights is that modern interpretations “excavates while it destroys,” unlike the old styles where they add meaning on top of the literal one . When we look at art, we tend to focus too much on trying to figure out what the artworks mean, why are the colors used, or what are the brush strokes used. We tend to select our attentions towards the meaning behind the artwork and forget that shock, the fear, and the confusions might all be a part of the essence designed by the artist. We then only talk about the representations and not the original messenger. Sontag concluded that transparence is the ideal form of criticism, which means to experience things the way they are. On the one hand, Camp is very transparent. Camp itself is the form and the content, it should not be explained but rather experienced and it is difficult to talk about either form or content alone because the two are connected very well together. However, on the other hand, Camp makes it is a lot easier to feel the emotions and not understand the context simply by looking at the designs. It is true that it took an exhibition and collection of designs and an essay for me to understand. Is Camp transparent after all? While it is true, as Sontag described, that interpretations can eliminate the form of art by only focusing on the meaning and forgetting about the original art, it is also a method for understanding and connecting (Sontag, “Interpretations” 1964). Without trying to interpret Camp, it is hardly clear what the extravagance stands for. I would not be able to appreciate the meaning of Camp without allowing myself to look deeper and interpret it.

In the opening of Gretel Ehrlich’s essay Looking for a Lost Dog, she quoted from Henry David Thoreau, “If I can only walk with sufficient carelessness I am sure to be filled,” and she then explored throughout her essay how she found something other than her dog during her search. She mentioned that people are often too stuck in their own minds and lose sight of what is close to us as we struggle between logic and reason. Our attentions are always selected to ourselves and we mute and push away everything else because we think figuring out our thoughts is the most important thing to do. Through her walk and reflection, Ehrlich realized that only when she “walks with a purpose but no destination” she is able to see that everything around her. It is a time when she wanted to “live multiple lives and love without limits”. Just like the quote she used in her beginning, only when we abandon the rules and restrictions, we are able to experience a bigger and richer world. We would not be able to see the gorilla walking all over the place if we only focus on what we were asked to do. When we limit ourselves into mindsets and refuse to new changes, we would only be able to live in this small and narrow world. I could of just focus on the food when I go to Chinese restaurants, but I would not have notice how they tried to recreate the native Chinese experience and got this new American Chinese taste. The Camp perspective promotes celebration of extraordinary failure. Thus, when we look at success and failure, we must to throw away the binary limit we put upon ourselves. Only when we open our minds and focus on something bigger than success or failure that we can be happier and see how there are so much more in the world. We do not have to always see failure as a negative thing because there can be beauty or specialty within the hard work. Camp challenges that binary status quo that society has pressured on us. “Camp taste turns its back on the good-bad axis of ordinary aesthetic judgment. It doesn't argue that the good is bad, or the bad is good. “What it does is to offer for art (and life) a different -- a supplementary -- set of standards”. 

Often we are restricted by our own minds, the way Ehrlich suggested. People focus on their phones on the subway and their music while walking. They pay very less attention to what is going on around them, yet they think they know everything they need to know. I am never into celebrities or fashion trends because I am not that interested in appearances, brands, or gossips. However, the understanding of the word Camp changed my world. The understanding of camp to me is like putting on a pair of glasses for a nearsighted or opening the curtains so the sunlight can enter a dark room. It showed me the reality that I was missing out on. Lady Gaga’s outfits and iconic characteristic throughout the years suddenly made so much sense to me. In the past, because I did not know anything about Camp, her odd outfits only seemed like a way to gain attention from the population, and I never really understood why she was an icon of the queer community except for her song. However, as I now know what Camp is, I understand that she was using her characteristics to advocate LGBTQ equality. Things that barely seems to connect actually go along together because of this new perspective. What used to seem so different suddenly became what I am genuinely interested in. Suddenly, Niki Minaj, Beyoncé, and RuPaul are all iconic campy celebrities. All their edgy and modern personalities are all trying to voice their attitudes of camp.

I have been searching for the meaning of Camp so hard, finding various definitions and interpretations to try to get closer to it, and I think I succeeded. I know its history background, the fashion taste, what it stands for, and how to spot it. However, these all seem so logical. Somewhere along with my systematic understanding, I was not able to experience the impactful and complex feelings I felt when I first encountered Camp. When I now see Camp, I look into the meaning and the purpose, and I care a lot less about the design or the form. It seems to me that I am falling into the interpretation trap that Sontag warned people about. I stopped experiencing the unique of each and contrast between. In other words, I failed to understand Camp in the best and most correct way. However, this happened because I was so serious about finding meaning and I limited myself to hearing what other people says instead of what I felt. In a way, this could be my seriousness that failed, and my acceptance of the fact is experiencing Camp after all.

I fell in love with the idea of Camp after the exhibition because it is very dramatic, glamour and brave. Overall, camp is being generous and kind of love and human nature. There are times where we might be blinded by the worlds and actions that we put ourselves in and miss out the rest, or we might read into something so much that we forget to experience the raw feeling that things intrigue. However, that is all a part of our journeys. The goal of interpreting art is to understand it. If we interpret who we are in a more transparent and accepting way that embraces all our truth and imperfection, we could break through the restrictions that we put on ourselves and see, hear, and feel more both inside and outside of ourselves. If we all live a little more campy, we might all be a little bit more who we truly are. A Chinese restaurant in New York does not need to pretend that it is an authentic Chinese restaurant in China. They get to add and present whatever they want to be an authentic American Chinese restaurant, being who they truly are.