Notes on Jewish Camp

The New York Times once described me as “foppish and superficial.” Naturally I was deeply flattered, and grateful. With one stroke of her pen, the old Gray Lady had catapulted me into the “Camp” firmament alongside King Ludwig of Bavaria, Boy George, and Liberace, proud superficial fops one and all. To use the naff parlance of today, I suddenly felt “seen.” But enough about me. Let’s talk about Susan Sontag.

This year marks the anniversary of Sontag’s famous “Notes on Camp,” first published in The Partisan Review 60 years ago. Sontag dedicated “Notes on Camp” to mega-fop Oscar Wilde. An early draft of Sontag’s scribblings was titled “Notes on Homosexuality.” Back in the day we homosexual fops led marginalized lives. Embracing our outsider status, we rejected convention, sentimentality and seriousness, while simultaneously decorating our groovy pads with whicker peacock thrones, ostrich feathers in art nouveau vases, zebra rugs and Beardsley posters. The Camp sensibility, the violet-tinted lens, the amused dandified gaze, the urban sensibility which we developed gave us a framework for survival, and daily amusement. As Sontag wrote in note No. 58, “Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, not judgment.” Camp torpedoes conventional attempts to differentiate good taste from bad, and high culture from low. Carmen Miranda is hilariously fabulous, but so is Swan Lake. The Sistine Chapel is impressive, but how about Busby Berkeley movies?

While broadly researching the subject of Camp over the last two years—my sizzling new book titled The CAMP 100: Glorious Flamboyance from Louis XIV to Li’l Nas X is about to hit the shelves—I was repeatedly struck by the ubiquity of Jews. Marginalized, smart, and intent on survival, the Jews were right there with us fops, most especially in Hollywood and on Broadway, the petri dish of the Camp sensibility. As Sontag stated—keep in mind this quote dates from 1964—in note No. 51, “Jews and homosexuals are the outstanding creative minorities in urban culture.”

Forced to decide whether to make their way through the world either laughing or crying, Jewish creative outsiders, just like we gays, chose to laugh with intelligent irony. As the late great Joan Rivers, an OG of Jewish campiness, once said, “Nothing is funny unless everything is funny.”

In homage to super-Jew Susan, let’s take a moment to enjoy the contribution made by a selection of Jews to the strange and slippery sensibility of Camp. As we wade into this lagoon, I ask you to keep in mind that Camp is a slippery two-faced bitch. There are two main subdivisions: Camp and campy.

Sontag saw campiness as being less important and appealing than Camp. I see them as equally fab, but clearly different. The former, Camp with a capitol C, is unintentional and unwitting. The latter, intentional and knowing. Queen Elizabeth II is Camp. But Bette Midler, the whip-smart fiery Jewess from Hawaii, who started her career belting out nostalgic faves in a gay steam bath, is knowingly and brilliantly campy.

“It’s embarrassing to be solemn and treatise-like about Camp,” states Sontag in her intro, adding,” One runs the risk of having, oneself, produced a very inferior piece of Camp.” J’agree, totally. Ponderous prose tends to suck the life out of Camp. In order not to “betray” Camp, Sontag eschewed an essay format in favor of those 58 legendary notes. Following Sue’s example I offer you one dozen “Notes on Jewish Camp,” a more appropriate number for the age of ADD. And, in keeping with our times, my notes are strewn with name droppings.

We gays and Jews have historically spent our lives impersonating someone, someone assimilated, accepted, secure and confident, all the while knowing the house of cards can come down at any time. In the meantime, we buy tchotchkes and schmattas and thereby refine our taste and our sensibilities. But we also struggle. As Oscar Wilde noted, “I find it harder and harder every day to live up to my blue china.”