Camp Cinema: When Excess Becomes Art
From exaggeration to expression
The word camp comes from the French se camper, “to pose in an exaggerated way.” Within queer culture, it became a secret language of irony, extravagance, and performance.
In her 1964 essay Notes on ‘Camp’, Susan Sontag described camp as “love of the unnatural, of artifice and exaggeration.” What was once an underground sensibility soon shaped fashion, theatre, and, most vividly, cinema.
Hollywood discovers camp
Few genres reveal the queer imagination as clearly as camp cinema. In the early 1980s, Mommie Dearest (1981) — starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford — turned melodrama into cult legend. What began as a serious biopic became unintentionally hilarious through its theatrical intensity. Lines like “No wire hangers, ever!” were embraced by gay audiences for their excess, irony, and emotional truth.
Critics initially dismissed the film, but queer viewers recognized something deeper: a mirror of their own coded exaggeration, their survival through performance. Mommie Dearest transformed failure into art, a hallmark of queer fashion and fashion as protest.
Other classics like Pink Flamingos (John Waters, 1972), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) continued this rebellion. They blurred taste and trash, parody and sincerity, reminding audiences that excess itself could be revolutionary.
Trailer screenshot from Pink Flamingos (1972). Public domain (U.S.).
Camp as rebellion and survival
Camp cinema was never just about entertainment; it was about power. For decades, queer people were mocked for being “too much,” so they turned too much into art. Exaggeration became armor, and humor became protest.
That spirit survives today in queer streetwear — in the way people play with color, comfort, and irony. A pride t shirtcan still carry that same unapologetic attitude: bold, humorous, sometimes dramatic, always self-aware.
Camp isn’t about pretending. It’s about performing yourself — louder, freer, funnier, and prouder. And that’s exactly what queer fashion has always done: turn visibility into style, and style into identity.
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Cover image: UA Cinema marquee showing “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” 1978. Photo by Rhys A., via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Written by the Miltti Team | October 2025