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SUNDAY_CONVENTION

                                              January  1-18, 2005

Why would "The Maltese Falcon"
be taken as mere camp?
                                              SUNDAY_CAMP
Because of the implausibility
of the detective genre's conventions?

But such things receede
into the background
with familiarity.

The connoisseur does not giggle
at the ballerina's tights and
tutu, not because they're not
ridiculous, but because the joke
is too obvious, and the joke is
not the whole story-- someone
who can see the joke and only the       The *Pow!* *Bang!* *Bop!*
joke is as limited as someone who       business of the Adam West
can see the serious and only the        "Batman" is a clear sign
serious.                                that the creators were out
                                        of touch with the material.

                                            To the fan of superhero
                                            comics, those visually
                                            rendered sound effects are
                                            practically subliminal.

Possibly a problem:
kitsch corrupts taste.

Sontag understands that the merely
bad is not "camp", but the devotee
of kitsch often seems to lose the
ability to distinguish.

For example, queer culture has
spent so much time wallowing in
disco that it often seems to have             Heavy metal fans can't
no musical taste left at all.                 seem to make up their minds
                                              if it's all a joke, but they
You begin with "ha, isn't this funny",        can always dodge by
then it just becomes the soundtrack of        claiming that it is.
your life, and then giggling at it is
as inane as laughing at a ballerina's
tutu.

The familiar is beneath contempt.



          The camp stance is that you
          are better than the material,
          above it.

          You're not really touched by
          something as low brow and
          formulaic as a private eye
          movie, you're don't really take
          such things *seriously*.

                                    NULL_HINGED

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