I reread Sontag, and by the end, despite her brilliance in identifying it, she makes camp seem fairly large and elastic — and it’s become only more so. Camp also functions as a safe space for marginalized groups to engage in self-expression and cultural commentary. SMITH What would Sontag have cited as camp today, when we seem to be up to our necks in it? Still, even before rereading “Notes on ‘Camp,’” a thumb-through of the show’s lavish if cumbersome catalog excited me. Second, there was the notion that the Pre-Raphaelite painters were camp — innocent or inadvertent camp, according to Sontag .

Source: New York Times May 08, 2019 20:49 UTC