Here’s the thing about camp today: pure examples of it are extremely rare. First of all, we know too much; Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” was published in 1964 and has been assigned in humanities courses at liberal arts colleges ever since, so the possibility for an uncritical reception of a “new” camp object is fairly limited. Then, of course, the descriptor “camp” is generally applied to older things; in the moment, we are too caught up in the seriousness of whatever it is that we will come to see as over-serious and excessive and exuding mostly style. But the real sticking point is the all-pervasive cynicism ruling so much of art, fashion, character, life today. Cynicism is the killer of camp, it is the self-knowledge, self-irony and most importantly, general disdain that refuses the possibility of the ebullience of camp.
