quoms:

i’ve been thinking and talking about camp pretty frequently lately since nina west is on drag race this season (she runs the columbus drag scene, i’m obligated) and there’s just such a vast gulf between her and yvie on one hand and everyone else on the other, and that difference boils down in part to nina’s age but it also boils down to camp, camp, camp

and one thing that’s incredibly central to camp, as performed by nina on the show every week, but which i haven’t seen talked about much in the met gala thinkpieces, is the element of the grotesque. there’s part of camp that is fantasy, but there’s also part of camp that’s taking the culture and spitting it back in everyone’s faces and telling them to go suck on that

john waters, folks! john waters! anyway maybe there’s less appetite for that kind of open, radical confrontation as LGBT people’s position in society shifts compared to where it was in the ‘70s. but it’s also hard to be grotesque on instagram. which is a shame, it’s a loss

this also helps explain why as a female celebrity the only thing you need to do to attend a camp-themed gala and look like you belong there is just, like, be more than 40 years old and show up. society’s already decided you’re grotesque!