In 1964, Susan Sontag
published “Notes on ‘Camp’”, considered the first attempt to discuss Camp in writing.
Sontag labels Camp as a sensibility, “distinct from an idea” (para. 2), she
notes, in that “any sensibility which can be crammed into the mold of a system,
or handled with the rough tools of proof, is no longer a sensibility at all. It
has hardened into an idea” (para. 4). As such, she remains skeptical in
applying concrete conclusions and definitions to Camp, choosing to forgo a
formal essay in favor of a series of notes. In these notes, Sontag describes
Camp as above all else the “love of the unnatural: of artifice and
exaggeration” (para. 2), then proceeding to elaborate on the ways in which Camp
manifests, operates, and differs from similar concepts.
“Notes on ‘Camp’” remains
influential for Sontag’s adept understanding of how Camp compiles itself from
cultural objects as a “logic of taste” (para. 4). In this article, I want to
begin to examine Sontag’s notes and try to present Camp’s usefulness in the
context of themed entertainment. To do so, I will be looking specifically at
Disney’s Hollywood Studios, where the broad themed focus on the movie industry
is construed through a lens of abstraction that, I argue, is Campy in
accordance with Sontag’s theory. From this case study, I hope to illuminate
ways in which the harnessing of Camp serves as a powerful attracting force for
the general public.
Figure 1: The Disney Hollywood Studios aesthetic: examples of park architecture suggest a humor and referentialism unique from other Disney properties. (Top to bottom) Dinosaur Gertie's Ice Cream of Extinction (n.d.), 50s Prime Time Cafe (n.d.), and Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater (n.d.).
First, I want to summarize some of the
important elements of Sontag’s Camp that I feel are relevant to themed
entertainment. She starts: “Camp is a certain mode of aestheticism. It is one
way of seeing the world as an aesthetic phenomenon. That way, the way of Camp,
is not in terms of beauty, but in terms of the degree of artifice, of
stylization” (Note 1). She elaborates: “The first sensibility, that of high
culture, is basically moralistic. The second sensibility, that of extreme
states of feeling, represented in much contemporary ‘avant-gard’ art, gains
power by a tension between moral and aesthetic passion. The third, Camp, is wholly
aesthetic” (Note 37). Sontag insists that Camp is depoliticized and disengaged;
it is unique in its stripping of all content from its references. A Tiffany
lamp ceases to hold a connection to the history of its design, manufacturing,
or proliferation; in the eyes of the Camp aesthetic it is only representative
of “artifice as an ideal, theatricality” (Note 43).
A cornerstone of Camp is that
this theatricality is entirely serious, often naïve. Says Sontag, “The Art
Nouveau craftsman who makes a lamp with a snake coiled around it is not
kidding, nor is he trying to be charming. He is saying, in all earnestness:
Voilà! the Orient!”(Note 19). This intentionality is an innocence, a
seriousness that falls short of its mark and becomes artifice. She makes
careful note that sincerity is not enough to constitute Camp: “Only that which has
the proper mixture of the exaggerated, the fantastic, the passionate, and the
naïve” (Note 23). In this way, Camp is underlain with a “spirit of extravagance”
(Note 25), in which an object falls short of its intentions and appears as pure
stylization.
Camp manifests easiest in a
realm of nostalgia and sentiment of objects of the past. This is largely
because time washes away the context and histories that objects carry, leaving
them open to Camp’s disengagement. Sontag elaborates, “Time may enhance what
seems simply dogged or lacking in fantasy now because we are too close to it,
because it resembles too closely our own everyday fantasies, the fantastic
nature of which we don't perceive. We are better able to enjoy a fantasy as fantasy
when it is not our own” (Note 30). Separated from the object’s meaning, the
viewer can evaluate it as an object of artifice, and conclude on the success of
its aesthetic intentions without being attached to the context in which those
intentions existed.
I now want to turn to
Disney’s Hollywood Studios and attempt to relate Sontag’s ideas on Camp to the
theming and design of the park. The presence of Camp within the park can be traced
back to the park’s central theme. Michael Eisner, Disney’s CEO at the time of
the park’s 1989 opening, described the park in its dedication address as a Hollywood
that is “not a place on a map, but a state of mind that exists wherever people
dream and wonder and imagine…a Hollywood that never was—and always will be”
(Spence 2012). This theme gave Disney Imagineering the freedom to access a
wealth of pop culture iconography with no responsibility to finer details of
realism. Guests wander through a hyper-dense version of Los Angeles, where the
Chinese Theater, Echo Lake, Sunset Boulevard, and studio backlots are steps
away from each other, and landmarks and icons defy time, realities of urban
decay, and scale and spatial relations.
The park’s relationship with
Camp is multifaceted, as both its theme of the park and the nature of its
structures share characteristics with Sontag’s theorizing. To start with the former,
Camp has long held connections with Hollywood. Sontag lists among the canon of
Camp at time of the publication of her “Notes”: The Maltese Falcon, Mae West, and Schoedsack's King Kong, placing a focus on the
“Golden Age” of Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s (Note 4). She also notes that
movies and their stars are particularly susceptible to Camp. The undertones of
theatricality, extravagance, and naivety run strong through film, from B-flicks
to monster movies to epics in foreign locales. The sentimentality for the
“Golden Age” further opens Hollywood as material for Camp to grow, detaching
much of the context of that era in favor of brute iconography. Disney’s
Hollywood Studios is located entirely in this “Golden Age”, and capitalizes on
its iconography to project nostalgia onto its guests. This is predominantly
done through the use of physical symbols, particularly built structures.
Figure 2: Examples of Camp in "Golden Age" Hollywood; (left to right) Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon (1941), Mae West (1936), and Schoedsack's King Kong (1933).
In
Disney’s Hollywood Studios, the intention of creating a Hollywood free from
historical repercussions allows its designers to create a “Disney-fied”
parallel universe, where Hollywood exists in a form of pure nostalgia, leisure,
and commercialism. Many buildings within the park are literally copied from
real-life examples in Hollywood, California. The Chinese Theater, the Brown
Derby Restaurant, the Crossroads of the World, these structures are part of the
arsenal of nostalgia that the park’s designers use to reference an idealized
“Golden Age” Hollywood. These structures make this Disney Hollywood itself a
piece of Camp: as a theme park that idolizes the aesthetic heritage of an age
of Camp, Hollywood Studios’ architecture is detached from the context of their
namesakes while still holding the deliberate role of acting as vehicles for
nostalgia.
Figure 3: Los Angeles buildings (top) with their Hollywood Studios replicas (bottom): (left to right) Chapman Park Market (2008) and Adrien and Edith's Head to Toe (2007b), 6424 Santa Monica Boulevard (2007a) and Disney & Co. (2007e), Crossroads of the World L.A. (2007d) and Crossroads of the World Disney (2007c). Note the stylization and saturation in the Disney replicas.
My
argument is that Camp is an inherent element of this arsenal, in fact the
primary process through which these symbols are received and interpreted by
guests to produce sentimentality, a desired outcome for Disney and their
merchandise sales. This is entirely to do with how Camp manifests in the
architecture and theme of the park, as described above. Hollywood Studios
provides a clear example of how harnessing the concepts of Camp can provide
access to consumer nostalgia in a way that may be more direct that other
methods. By removing context and exaggerating aestheticism, the architecture
and theme of the park pushes guests into a fantasy world far from the issues
and connotations that may be attached to their historic backgrounds. From
there, Disney can use this as a means to provoke a suspension of disbelief,
from which point it is an easy step to push retail and consumerist tendencies.
Thus,
through a subtle and multifaceted application of Camp, Disney accesses an
element of nostalgia that is entirely different from its traditional sources.
In a similar method to which I have analyzed Disney’s Hollywood Studios here,
Camp can be seen in a multitude of themed settings and should be treated as a
tool in their design. A word of caution: though Camp can (and I argue should)
be applied consciously and deliberately in a design setting, the underlying
characteristics of Camp as genuine and serious means that too deliberate a
design will read as fake and insincere, limiting the benefits of nostalgia to
be yielded as a result. It is only through a careful and authentic application
of the theory of Camp as described by Sontag that such benefits can be reaped.
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References
[Photograph of the Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://espanol.orlando-florida.net/restaurantes/americanos/Sci-Fi%20Dine-In-Theater-Restaurant.htm
[Screencap of The Maltese Falcon trailer]. (1941). Retrieved from https://200mghercianos.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/the-maltese-falcon-1941/
Sontag, S. (1964). Notes on Camp. Retrieved from http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Sontag-NotesOnCamp-1964.html
Spence, J. (2012, February 20). Disney Dedication Plaques. Retrieved from http://land.allears.net/blogs/jackspence/2012/02/disney_dedication_plaques.html
Weiss, W. (Photographer). (2007a). [Photo of 6424 Santa Monica Boulevard]. Retrieved from http://www.yesterland.com/replicas.html
Weiss, W. (Photographer). (2007b). [Photo of Adrian and Edith's Head to Toe]. Retrieved from http://www.yesterland.com/replicas2.html
Weiss, W. (Photographer). (2007c). [Photo of Crossroads of the World Disney Hollywood Studios]. Retrieved from http://www.yesterland.com/replicas.html
Weiss, W. (Photographer). (2007d). [Photo of Crossroads of the World Los Angeles]. Retrieved from http://www.yesterland.com/replicas.html
Weiss, W. (Photographer). (2007e). [Photo of Disney & Co.]. Retrieved from http://www.yesterland.com/replicas.html
Weiss, W. (Photographer). (2008). [Photo of Chapman Park Market]. Retrieved from http://www.yesterland.com/replicas2.html
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