I actually have a friend that's quite a big fan of RuPaul's Drag Race, but I never got into it myself. However, the episode that we were recommended, "Jocks in Frocks" did not leave me disappointed. It was a show! Which is what Camp is, according to Susan Sontag's article.
"10. Camp sees everything in quotation marks. It's not a lamp, but a "lamp"; not a woman, but a "woman." To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater."This is really interesting to me because the last time I blogged, I wrote about how Lady Gaga showed up to the VMAs as her alter ego, Joe Calderone. In her little monologue as Joe, she said, "I'm not real. I'm theater."
It was sort of strange to see all the drag queens without all the glitz and glam of their make-up and outfits in their downtime. They really are just "normal" guys you can meet anywhere, but then all of a sudden, they are transformed into entirely new people! It makes me wonder, with which role do they empathize most? Their real-life personas or their drag-queen personas? And of course, the jocks, bless their hearts. Even though all of them were surely uncomfortable with what they had to go through to become the sister, they all played the role as best as they could, because that was just it. They were beings playing a role. Life shouldn't be taken so seriously sometimes, and I think you have to step outside of yourself every once in a while like the jocks did, and explore different sides to your personalities. The reaction shots that were shown when the results were revealed showed how much they had learned to care about the process, and that was really touching to see.
It was sort of strange to see all the drag queens without all the glitz and glam of their make-up and outfits in their downtime. They really are just "normal" guys you can meet anywhere, but then all of a sudden, they are transformed into entirely new people! It makes me wonder, with which role do they empathize most? Their real-life personas or their drag-queen personas? And of course, the jocks, bless their hearts. Even though all of them were surely uncomfortable with what they had to go through to become the sister, they all played the role as best as they could, because that was just it. They were beings playing a role. Life shouldn't be taken so seriously sometimes, and I think you have to step outside of yourself every once in a while like the jocks did, and explore different sides to your personalities. The reaction shots that were shown when the results were revealed showed how much they had learned to care about the process, and that was really touching to see.
"28. Again, Camp is the attempt to do something extraordinary. But extraordinary in the sense, often, of being special, glamorous."
“To perceive Camp in objects and persons is to understand Being-as-Playing-a-Role. It is the farthest extension, in sensibility, of the metaphor of life as theater.”
ReplyDeleteThis resonated with the Drag Race, Jocks in Frocks in that every single person in the show seemed to be playing some type of role. This can be seen both in that the seasoned veterans were playing the role of teachers as well as drag queens. The jocks were playing the role of the students and learning how to play as drag queens. Both groups played the role of performers.
"To be natural is such a very difficult pose to keep up."
The jocks in the episode are the cultural expectation of what a man should be, of what a “natural” man is. Their success and enjoyment in participating in something other than the norm seemed to be a pleasant and needed release for many of them, supporting that what comes naturally may be hard to sustain indefinitely.
“The ultimate Camp statement: it's good because it's awful . . . Of course, one can't always say that.”
This sums up the video for me. This was not an episode I would watch on my own outside of class, but I was able to appreciate it for what it was because of that fact. The second thought in the statement suggests that sometimes Camp may not be “Camp,” which is somewhat confusing. However, when attempting to describe what something is without a concrete definition, maybe it does make sense that opposites can be the same.
I was also surprised to see the drag queens walk around without makeup and all that before their actual competition. I agree that it was interesting to see them like this because although they were dressed in male clothing and looked like most other guys, they referred to themselves as "she's." I liked this because this showed that they didn't feel like they always had to dress up like girls to actually be girls; they could just be comfortable with themselves.
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