Tony Kushner in Angels in America wastes no time being prude, as the idea of Camp appears as early as page 33 when Harper says to Joe, \u201cI heard on the radio how to give a blowjob\u2026 You want to try?\u201d The concept of \u201cCamp\u201d is described by Susan Sontag in \u201cNotes on \u2018Camp\u2019\u201d as \u201c\u2026the love of the exaggerated\u2026 Camp responds particularly to the markedly attenuated and to the strongly exaggerated (39).\u201d To connect these two ideas, begin by considering the audacity of Harper to outright suggest to Joe the idea of oral sex at the time or, in a realistic sense, why Kushner would write about it if not for stylistic purposes or the shock value that finds itself in Camp culture.
\nSpeaking to the linguistics of Sontag\u2019s definition of Camp and placing it in conversation with Joe\u2019s character, I am able to draw the parallel in the vocabulary of \u201clove of the exaggerated\u201d, as Joe\u2019s character and his excitement for sexual activity and willingness to vocalize such feelings shows an exaggerated, arguably liberated version of a gay male (2). To push further in analyzing Camp, specifically in parallel to this piece of text, Camp culture has taken elements of satire, shock value, and sex appeal to create a liberating movement in queer literature.
\nOverall, the Campiness of Joe\u2019s character lies within his outward sexuality and refusal to hide his gayness. Sontag makes the claim that, \u201cthe androgyne is certainly one of the great images of Camp sensibility,\u201d meaning that questioning the boundaries of gender norms is a large component of Camp culture (3). Joe\u2019s character does so in acting arguably feminine, which is another controversial concept as femininity and masculinity are also social constructs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Tony Kushner in Angels in America wastes no time being prude, as the idea of Camp appears as early as page 33 when Harper says to Joe, \u201cI heard on the radio how to give a blowjob\u2026 You want to try?\u201d The concept of \u201cCamp\u201d is described by Susan Sontag in \u201cNotes on \u2018Camp\u2019\u201d as … Continue reading untitled<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3220,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111423],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3220"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/lgbtqlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}