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Camp - TV Tropes
"Batman (1966) became Camp. In those days, Camp was a fairly serious intellectual enterprise. When kids see it, they take it literally, but when adults see it, they realize it's comedic."
— Denny O'Neil, Superheroes: A Never-Ending Battle
Derives from the French gay community's slang term se camper, meaning "to pose in an exaggerated fashion." The term "Camp" morphed into referring to a sensibility that revels in artifice, stylization, theatricality, irony, playfulness, and exaggeration rather than content, as Susan Sontag famously defined the term in her short essay "Notes on Camp". Don't expect it to take itself the least bit seriously.
The main debates concerning the term are twofold:
- How such an aesthetic relates to intentionality: whether camp deliberately cultivated ("high" camp) is the same to that of the unintentional kind ("low" camp).
- Whether the term relies too much on the elitist notion that popular culture cannot also be enjoyed by a sophisticated sensibility, except through a condescending or distancing label.
Camp has always had a special connection with LGBT+ culture; the artificiality and performativity of camp allows it to express the artificiality of societal norms (such as those which enforce heterosexuality and gender norms), while also incorporating bad-taste but fun elements that allow it to express joy, authenticity, sexuality and the capacity to shock boring people (which is what many queer people feel about finding their own way of being within the oppressive world). There is a long tradition of queer art being camp, and queer subtext is often seen itself as a camp element of works. However, as queerness has become more socially acceptable and queer creators have become more diverse, queer art has become less camp as it is no longer automatically in opposition to the mainstream world. There is also plenty of non-queer art which is camp, because it's not just queer people who feel like outsiders in the mainstream. (For an example of 'straight' high camp, the rapper Eminem is well known for his campy, theatrical, artificial, cross-dressing aesthetic, but is often criticised for homophobia and misogyny — the social norms he feels he doesn't fit into aren't to do with gender or sexuality, but race.)
See also Camp Gay, Macho Camp, Camp Straight, Campy Combat, and Summer Campy. Compare So Bad, It's Good; Stylistic Suck, and Narm Charm. Related to Large Ham and World of Ham. Not to be confused with the movie Camp (2003), nor has anything to do with a Camping Episode.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- The opening theme to The Big O is an homage to the Flash Gordon theme.
- Re: Cutie Honey is deliberately rendered in a psychedelic, humorous 1970s-style exaggeration of the franchise's infamous violence and Fanservice. The live action movie is similar.
- Code Geass actually brings a rather large component of camp to everything from its voice acting (Lelouch, Lloyd and the Emperor are the most obvious examples), elaborate outfits and posing (see almost every time Zero gives a public speech), over-the-top events, crazy robot power-ups and many other elements. Not much of a surprise if you realize the director previously made s-CRY-ed and GUN×SWORD, plus was also part of the staff who worked on Mobile Fighter G Gundam.
- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The series initially started as low camp, with the story attempting to be a serious attempt at mixing Dracula with Fist of the North Star. However, Hirohiko Araki quickly caught onto how ridiculous the writing of Phantom Blood was and wholeheartedly embraced it with Battle Tendency, which shifted the series to high camp by mixing dramatic plotlines with flamboyantly outrageous characters and willfully absurd situations.
- Mobile Fighter G Gundam uses a hammy, posing, comically serious style from start to finish, all the more noticeable in a franchise that until then was known for being dramatic and semi-realistic. Where earlier designs were clean and sober, the giant robots here look like an American footballer with boxing gloves on a surfboard, Sailor Moon, or a windmill. The combatants pose in latex bodysuits that link their movements to their robots, making the melée fighting close and personal in contrast to the detached, calculating feel of other entries. Every aspect is exaggerated to the point of ridicule, from the absurdity of the premise, past the national stereotypes, ringing voices and power-ups by willpower that flash the whole robot red, to the finale that sees hundreds of different robots rally to save the world. Like it or not, it is a deliberate choice with fully intended comedy.
- Powerpuff Girls Z. More so than the original American show. Being a Magical Girl show, it's to be expected.
- Sailor Moon can fall under this trope sometimes, especially the first season. The Super Sentai-type fights are one indicator of this.
- Smile PreCure! (aka Glitter Force in America) is full of this. It's a Sailor Moon-like series complete with candy-colored superheroes, fairy tale villains, ridiculous monsters, cheesy dialog, and they beat the baddies with The Power of Friendship and Love.
- Star Driver, as one might expect from a Super Robot show produced by the Ouran High School Host Club team, is absolutely dripping in camp. The male lead is the only one with a Magical Girl-worthy Transformation Sequence, for example. It's just pure FABLUOUSness. But watch it for the gorgeous animation.
- Valvrave the Liberator seems to run purely on camp. One of the enemy factions is literally Space Nazis complete with Gratuitous German, and every episode seems to strive to add some twist even more insane than the one before.
- Pretty much every version of Yu-Gi-Oh! runs on camp to some degree, with ludicrous premises played entirely straight, flamboyant character designs, outlandish plot twists that veer between absurdity and pitch-black darkness, Duels Decide Everything and New Rules as the Plot Demands being laws of the universe, Ho Yay thicker than molasses, and heavily-censored hammy English dubs. Much of what gives the franchise an enduring reputation is the fact that it handles itself with almost complete sincerity despite being perceived as a card game commercial.
Fan Works
Films — Live-Action
Live-Action TV
Music
- Kevin Ayers features in possibly the gayest, most outrageously camp, music videos ever committed to tape. His 1973 hit Carribean Moon has all the gayness buttons deliberately racked up way past eleven. Julian Clary would look like a macho straight. The video is also hilarious.
- David Bowie's Glam Rock era was marked by flamboyant outfits, songs, and dance moves that merged rock music with the theatricality that he picked up from learning acting and mime. This is most vividly exemplified by his stage persona Ziggy Stardust, who sported a poofy, bright red mullet, painted a gold "astral sphere" on his forehead, and mimed oral sex with his guitarist while singing about hypersexual messianic aliens. Bowie kept much of the flamboyance after ditching the glam sound post-1974, though tempered it by abandoning the wild outfits (apart from his appearance in Labyrinth, which took the camp of the glam years and redressed it for the '80s).
- Everything Doctor Steel — or his fans — do is done consciously and conspicuously over the top.
- Ghost is known for a deliberately campy take on Hollywood Satanism; their overall schtick can be summed up as channeling the theatrical flair of Alice Cooper into a Satanic parody of Catholicism. The singer wears papal outfits and a skull-painted mask, the band is completely disguised and is only referred to as "a pack of Nameless Ghouls", stages often have backdrops like massive stained glass murals from cathedrals, and concerts are referred to as "rituals" in reference to a song on their debut album.
- The artist Gunther embodies camp, mullet and all. Witness the glory that is the Ding Dong Song.
- Michael Jackson sometimes was intentionally campy, most famously with the song and video for "Bad", where he dances in an elaborate leather outfit to impress some gang members that he is "bad" like them.
- Klaus Nomi, an eccentric pop star dressed in theatrical costumes who sings in an operatic voice on albums like Klaus Nomi and Simple Man.
- Lady Gaga, who claims inspiration from the above two. "He ate my heart, and then he ate my brain!"
- Kesha's early work is loaded with over-the-top teen party imagery, cheesy lyrics, silly youth slang, and an exaggerated Valley Girl accent autotuned up the wazoo.
- Kylie Minogue's career is practically built on this trope. See "Your Disco Needs You" and her Light Years album.
- Liberace, whose act was magnificent high camp, but who in life sucessfully sued newspapers for even hinting that he was gay, maintaining that he was straight despite the facade. After his death from AIDS, the truth was out.
- Queen's sound was essentially a camp take on Hard Rock. Lead singer Freddie Mercury was a decidedly Macho Camp variety of bisexual who loved to dress in fur and leather (and sported a Porn Stache for much of the '80s), and the band's music would often incorporate elements of cabaret and opera.
- Steps, even by The '90s pop standard. The three mains traits of the band were exaggerated dance moves, cheesey, happy music and bright colours and costume worn by the members. Like the Batman television series, it was intentionally camp.
- Rob Zombie. His stage act self-consciously uses every bad cliche ripped from B-Movie Slasher Flicks, and yet he obviously has an affectionate attitude towards the source material and puts genuine effort into using it. For more evidence, see the ''Dragula'' video.
- Andrew W.K.. His music is loaded with over-the-top, cheesy lyrics focused mostly on partying, along with Epic Rocking born from a wild combination of Alternative Metal and pop rock.
- The entire Hair Metal genre was practically born out of this trope. The four main things in common with the bands in the genre were: a combination of '80s Hair and outrageous outfits, cheesy lyrics, over-the-top Epic Rocking, and many, many power ballads. Their stage acts, especially in the genre's 80s heyday, involved over-the-top lighting and special effects (coupled with gratuitous pyrotechnics). Not even it's early 90s demise with the arrival of Grunge and the constant bashing of the genre's image and attitude by metal purists were able to snuff out the genre's legacy and long-term popularity.
- This trope was the bread and butter for several boy bands, especially in the 90s. Boy bands tend to feature exaggerated dance moves, coupled with cheesy, bright and happy music and (often matching) outfits worn by the members.
- The music videos for Boys Town Gang's Can't Take My Eyes Off of You and Armi ja Danny's I Wanna Love You Tender bleed camp.
- Eminem:
- Eminem often dressed as female characters in his videos and referred to it openly as "drag". He also voices them in his songs.
- Relapse. From the silly accents, to the 80s Exploitation Film-style strings in the background of the skits, to the ludicrous and Bloody Hilarious lyrical content, to the constant homoeroticism and crossdressing, to his obsessive idolisation of gay icon celebrity women like Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Madonna and Ellen DeGeneres, to rapping in 5/8 over a musical-theatre-style choir, to doing a Solo Duet with his Enemy Without about how much Slim Shady loves Marshall, this is the campiest Slim Shady has been or will ever get. It's a big part of his appeal to Relapse's cult-classic fandom.
- Both before and after this, Eminem always had a taste for using kitschy pop samples in his production, sampling people like Martika, Elton John and Haddaway for Sincerity Mode ballads.
Pinball
Podcasts
- Our Fair City, including an arc villain who is a human woman raised by giant ants, mole people, and an old man whose name is Old Man. Campy mad science/superscience also has a prominent presense throughout the series.
Professional Wrestling
- GLOW mixed Camp with Narm Charm/So Bad, It's Good.
- Argentinian promotion Titanes en el Ring. The best way to sum it is WWE's Golden Eighties mixed with CHIKARA's Y-7 approach. You have Large Ham commentators mixed with light-hearted storylines and characters such as El Gitano Ivanoff (an immigrant from Romania), Julio César (yep, that one) La Momia (a fighting mummy), Genghis Khan (yep, that one) high-flying luchador Caballero Rojo, biker Mr. Moto, and so on...
Tabletop Games
- The Clue VCR Game is very campy, indeed. Everyone's a hammy stereotype, the story is played entirely for comedy, and the musical tunes are fun and catchy.
- Feast of Legends is an RPG made by Wendy's meant as a commercial for their products in a Tabletop Role Playing Game form, but the camp levels are through the roof, if you aren't laughing at the commericalism you'll be laughing at the bad writing. If you aren't laughing at either one of those you'll be laughing at the fact you WERE laughing at one of those.
Theater
- Most Broadway musicals, especially those adapted from movies.
- The entire output of Gilbert and Sullivan is high camp. As ridiculously uppercrust as Sullivan was Gilbert made his living as a parodist. Their operetta Patience is particularly worth noting as being a camp parody of the, also very camp, aestheic movement.
- Most Richard Strauss operas — especially Salome.
- The musical of Little Women takes the short and melodramatic play that Jo and her sisters stage in the early chapters, and turns it into a musical number spanning the entire cast (all... six of them), stuffed chock-full of wholesome, affectionate camp.
Video Games
- Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden. Its premise is that of a post-cyberpocalyptic world where basketball is outlawed (and its former players hunted down and murdered) because one Charles Barkley performed a Chaos Dunk and accidentally killed thousands in the ensuing blast. The bathos is palpable, and it never ceases (including such things as Michael Jordan infecting Barkley's son Hoopz with type 2 diabetes through a needle, and Barkley reacting by calling Jordan a "motherfucking goddamn baka").
- Broforce plays the over-the-top nature of '80s action movies (and later '90s fantasy/action TV shows in Forever) for the highest camp, and doesn't stop there. It's a platformer where you play as muscley men or over-the-top Action Girls in a world where America Saves the Day and the solution to almost every problem is More Dakka and Stuff Blowing Up. It also has "bro" inserted into almost every name, word or sentence.
- Bayonetta, spiritual successor to Devil May Cry, begins with the main character, disguised as a nun, presiding over a funeral that is subsequently visited by heavenly beings who rip off her clothes, allowing her to use her suit of magical hair and the handguns (which she wields four at a time — one in each hand, and the other two strapped to her Combat Stilettos) that were hidden in a coffin to beat, shoot, and rip the angels apart gruesomely, all to a cover of Frank Sinatra's "Fly Me to the Moon." It's as over the top as it sounds.
- The Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series is mildly campy. Red Alert ramps it up.
- Contra: Rebirth Seems to be this with the hero dropped into space station from helicopter, robotic llamas, upside-down midboss, a pyramid of running enemies, over-the-top Excuse Plot and generally lighthearted presentation.
- The first Dead to Rights fits the category. While the intent (based on the creators themselves) was to make a game in the vein of works by Frank Miller and John Woo with utmost sincerity and seriousness, the game's got a lot more color and theatricality for it: the story and dialogue, especially from Jack, slides wildly in tone (at times being completely straightforward, other times containing utterly bonkers set pieces and quippy one-liners), several of the villains are so full of ham that they’re practically walking delis, and many instances of GunFu and Heroic Bloodshed action are over-the-top and physics-defying even for the genre. Top it off with an attack dog sidekick and raw manliness all around, and you have a game of true camp appeal.
- Devil May Cry: In the second game the developers forgot this, but the third game made up for it in spades. For reference, at different points in time, the main protagonist has used a motorbike chainsaw, a scythe that's also a guitar made out of a Hot as Hell demon, and a "demon backpack". He also repeatedly gets impailed as a Running Gag to the point where in 5 it's actually a game mechanic.
- The Earth Defense Force series of budget Alien Invasion Third-Person Shooter games thrives on camp. The English releases of the games invoke this with Narmy voice acting.
- Final Fight features a bunch of muscley men, some in leather, some in tight T-shirts, and some totally shirtless beating the hell out of each other in a gritty and crime ridden metropolis called Metro City. Everyone and everything is so entrenched in The '80s that its retroness adds to the appeal.
- Fire Emblem Engage wholeheartedly embraces being over-the-top, featuring very quirky character personalities, loud and dramatic character voices, elaborate and gaudy character designs, and flashy attack animations. This stands out as the rest of the Fire Emblem series typically operates on the grounded end of High Fantasy.
- F-Zero GX, where everybody has wonky character models, animations and voice acting while the story is about futuristic racing pilots fighting for the fate of the universe. The deliberately weird and silly pilot profile movies also count, especially Dr. Stewart's, which is Camp incarnate. Considering GX was one of the few F-Zero games to be developed after protagonist Captain Falcon would become popular in Super Smash Bros. for his own campy portrayal, it may have been the intent to backport Falcon's popular image back into his home series.
- Fallout: New Vegas: All three tribes that run the casinos in New Vegas are camp to some degree (The Omertas representing the seamy underbelly and the White Glove Society representing the elegance well, on the surface, anyway of the old Las Vegas, respectively), but the Chairmen crank it up. All of them dress like Rat Pack rejects and say things like "Ring-a-ding, baby" and "What can I do to make your stay the tops?" with completely straight faces. And it's hilarious.
- The James Pond video games parody James Bond, or rather, the first game and the title character parody that, and the next two games parody other film franchises and set them up in absolutely ridiculous setting. The second game, James Pond II: Codename RoboCod has a Saving Christmas plot, with Penguins at the North Pole! James Pond 3: Operation StarFI5H has a moon not made of cheese, but all kinds of dairy products. The working name for it was "Splash Gordon". The bosses of the games include, but aren't limited to: a giant Teddy Bear with spikes on its butt, an evil snowman mech, a large yellow frog that eats you (And this somehow doesn't kill you instantly.), and a chicken that turns into a Phoenix! So Bad, It's Good doesn't begin to describe the games.
- Jet Set Radio Future for the XBOX is mostly this. We've got a group of teenagers on roller-blades that protect the cities by spraying graffiti everywhere, rival rollerblading gangs in silly costumes, Comically Serious villains who think that graffiti-spraying punks are worth calling in armed choppers, and lots of silly songs in the soundtrack. The final boss, however, takes a creepier, more surreal, direction.
- The LEGO Adaptation Game series loves this trope. It knows exactly what it is and isn't afraid to be as outlandish and silly as humanly possible. It even makes a level out of the '60s Batman in LEGO Batman 3 and takes it up to eleven.
- Mass Effect 3- the final DLC, Citadel, is made of this trope. Hammy villains, a shootout in a sushi restaurant that you will never live down, and the fact that the day is saved by a toothbrush push this DLC firmly into camp.
- Metal Gear combines the aesthetics of burly military video games, 80s action movie Cliché Storm played almost painfully straight as Melodrama, inspiration from post-modernist Lit Fic, Real Robot anime, goofy Surreal Humour, philosophy, villains with Refuge in Audacity powers like the ability to read the player's mind and shoot bees or ghosts at you, a cast of Ascended Fanboys acting out their favourite tropes as superpowers, and slightly too much Ho Yay to be unintentional.
- Metal Wolf Chaos is about 'AMERICA!!' It exaggerates Eagleland to hell and back. Let's just say its campiness rivals Batman.
- Persona 5 is the first of the series to use this style, but it does theatrics quite well. In fact, unlike many examples of this trope, it's presented as completely serious yet no less awesome for that fact - if anything, the seriousness is exactly why the style is so cool, though not without it's elements of humor throughout.
- Resident Evil 4 greatly improved the storytelling of the series simply by acknowledging how ridiculous the franchise's premise is at its core (thanks in no small part to the characterization of Leon into a Deadpan Snarker who reacts to the game's ludicrous plot on behalf of the bemused player). Sadly, this was not to last, as the subsequent games all attempt to be taken seriously and are far less highly regarded for it.
- Lady Alcina Dimitrescu of Resident Evil Village exudes camp from every inch of her nearly 10 feet tall being.
- Saints Row: The Third and Saints Row IV embody this. They have it all: wacky stereotypes, ludicrously awesome weapons and vehicles, insane scenarios, crazy stories (there's even an optional mission where you help Good Santa take down an Evil Santa that talks in Dr. Seuss rhymes to save Christmas), missions where you blow stuff up for fun, and much more.
- Shantae is filled with conventionally attractive girls (and sometimes guys) dressing in unabashedly fanservicey outfits (and it isn't afraid to find excuses to put them in even more fanservicey situations), in addition to a very generous helping of Breaking the Fourth Wall, wacky boss battles and campy villains (usually of the punch-clock or card-carrying varieties), some hilariously incompetent sidekicks like Bolo and the Scuttle Town Mayor, over-the-top skills and combat maneuvers and, of course, a not-so-insignificant amount of Les Yay.
- Space Channel 5. The setting is '60s style psychedelic future. You play as a swingin' news reporter. Colorful aliens start to invade. How do you defeat them? By the power of dancing and copying the moves of the enemies. It also has "space-" inserted to almost every occupation.
- Team Fortress 2. The characters have exaggerated Rockwell-esque designs, each of them have a different, very much played up accent and traits stereotypically associated with each's respective nationality. Furthermore, it's filled with Ludicrous Gibs (after you get killed, during a freezecam of your killer the game will gleefully point out where "your pancreas!", "your foot!", "your kidney!" etc. lies, if the body parts appear on the shot). It is largely thanks to that factor that the game was received so well.
- Tokyo Mirage Sessions ♯FE features a group of Totally 18 Teen Idols gifted with the power to fight demons from the Fire Emblem franchise harnessing the power of creative talent, singing and dancing to save the day from the creatures - and yes, you defeat the final boss with a sing-along. The concept and execution is so over-the-top and ridiculous, that it's Camp enough to rival '60s Batman.
- Until Dawn is an homage to B horror movies, and it shows. While it expands on some of its archetypes (particularly with regards to Character Development) and knits them together, despite a relative tone shift two-thirds of the way into the game, it plays its story and execution gleefully straight. Originally, it would have been even campier.
- The Wolfenstein series, especially Wolfenstein 3-D. It's hard to get much campier than Mecha Hitler with quadruple Gatling Good yelling in bastardized German/English and exploding into Ludicrous Gibs.
Visual Novels
- Ace Attorney has outlandish character designs, copious overacting, and very over-the-top trial sequences.
Web Animation
Web Originals
- Most of the comics commented upon by The Comics Curmudgeon are delightfully campy. Apartment 3 G stands out as one that Josh loves for the camp.
- In Worm, the superhero Mouse Protector is said to have made this part of her shtick so that being defeated by her would be more embarrassing — but the crapsack nature of the Worm universe doesn't leave all that many people following her example.
Western Animation
- Where the hell do we even begin with Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog? Some even view it as the Sonic equivalent of Adam West's Batman. For starters we have Sonic (who is voiced by Jaleel White) shouting out over-the-top catchphrases such as "I'M WAAAAAITING," and "WAY PAST COOL," Scratch and Grounder who are too INSANELY stupid to do almost anything right, let alone catch Sonic, and (of course), Dr. Ivo Robotnik who should probably give himself a promotion for displaying such camPINGAS usual we see.
- Then there was SatAM. Despite Darker and Edgier setting, it kept Sonic's over the top personality from AoStH —even taking it further—, as well as the occasional silly moment. Then the second season ramped up the campiness in general, with the previously serious Robotnik becoming one of the goofiest incarnations of the character.
- Batman: The Brave and the Bold: "Darling, I don't have to answer to you. I'm Batman!"
- Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot has this in multiple places like Big Guy's Eagle Land catchphrases, the '50s visual aesthetic for the show, and, most notably, the theme song.
- Buzz Lightyear of Star Command takes this up to eleven, being a weird and wacky take on the superhero cartoons of old.
- Captain Flamingo takes this up to eleven due its weird and wacky shout-outs to classic superhero and anime shows. All of the jokes were extremely both corny and goofy at the same time.
- Fantastic Four: The Animated Series in its first season. However, during the '90s, when superhero shows were expected to be more dramatic and complex like X-Men: The Animated Series and Spider-Man: The Animated Series, people weren't interested in its sillier and simpler setup and it got a complete retooling in the second season.
- G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero A number of characters, especially those on the side of Cobra, and some of the plots are delightfully over the top. Also, there are the GI Joe PSAs at the end of every episode where one of the Joes just shows up to teach a life lesson to some kids.
- He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983). So much so, that even in the 80s, many were suspicious that it was actually gay propaganda. (Especially with names like Ram-Man, Man-at-Arms, Extendar, and last but not least, Fisto. Yes, these were real).
- Megas XLR is a mix between this and Troperiffic. It's a fun, wacky ride through '80s pop culture, Humongous Mecha battles with Kaiju, and alien invasions. Not to mention one of the show's recurring villains is Bruce Campbell as a MODOK parody.
- ¡Mucha Lucha! is very much this. Everyone in their world is a wacky, over-the-top Masked Luchador with the strange ability to morph their bodies into whatever shapes that are based on their special move's names. They go on crazy adventures that lead them to battle evil toilets, ancient Mexican mummies, an entire classroom that teaches some of the other luchadors how to be evil, and many other bizarre things.
- Neo Yokio is partly a parody/ homage to older anime dubs with some complete sincerity on its ridiculous premise and writing.
- Ready Jet Go!: Jet positively oozes it. He's an eccentric Large Ham with an exaggerated, theatrical style who loves singing, dancing, and performing on stage, especially rock and big band numbers.
- The Return of the King: "Where there's a whip *whipcrack!* there's a way!"
- Schoolhouse Rock! is so camp that it often gets in the way of being educational.
- M. Bison, in Street Fighter (1995) series. This is delicious!
- SheZow is the modern equivalent to Batman (1966). Using "she" as a prefix for everything, comically useless police, gadgets for every situation, oddball villains, and a costume that looks like it came straight from The '60s.
- Stripperella, a short lived cartoon starring Pamela Anderson.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987), complete with four stereotypical main characters, aliens from another dimension and sometimes space, chemicals with absurd mutating properties, silly adventures, and, to top it off, an equally campy theme song.
- Totally Spies! is pure camp. We have three somewhat ditzy teenage girls who, for reasons unknown, become secret agents for a spy corporation oddly named WOOHP. They each wear their own bright-colored spandex outfits and are given silly gadgets that look like hairdryers, makeup kits, and many other female fashion-themed devices. The villains they face are absurd, complete with ludicrous motivations.
- Uncle Grandpa is one of the campiest and trippiest shows you'll ever see. It's got a photo-realistic flying tiger that farts a rainbow trail for propulsion, talking pizza, Godzilla if he were a middle-aged man, a talking fanny pack, and a magical adult child with various abilities.
- VeggieTales. They've got silly songs, corny jokes (pun intended), goofy adventures, and various other things.
- WordGirl is an affectionate parody of old superhero shows, so it falls into this category. The titular heroine has a stereotypical alliterative comic book name and a pet monkey as a sidekick. Her Rogues Gallery includes a butcher who can telekinetically control meat, a part-mouse mad scientist, and a Basement Dweller with a sandwich for a head.
Real Life
- John Waters has made a career out of it.
- Many of the resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. Let's see; Fake Venice, Fake Paris, Fake New York, Fake Ancient Rome, Fake Camelot, Fake Ancient Egypt, Pirates on the Vegas Strip... if "camp" is defined as deliberate bad taste then the Las Vegas Strip is practically the best example out there. It is all incredibly over the top and tacky but it done so incredibly well that one cannot help think it is So Bad, It's Good.
- The Venetian is the clearest case of Camp on the Strip. Most of the resorts do indeed have an exaggerated and theatrical presentation. However, not all of the resorts have the required derivative substance or hilarious badness or monumental tackiness. For instance, the Bellagio is certainly exaggerated in its theatricality, and presented very well. However, the resort takes itself very seriously and the vast majority of visitors to it consider it awesome rather than So Bad, It's Good.
- With regards to the Treasure Island resort, their famous streetside "pirate battle" was originally a straightforward, theme-park like spectacle: pirates vs. the British navy, and the pirates win. When the resort was overhauled to appeal more to adults, this show became The Sirens of TI and became sirens (re: sexy, scantily-clad sea witches) vs. pirates; the sirens win and the pirates join them for a Dance Party Ending. Now THAT'S campy!
- The bulk of Las Vegas shows qualified as mostly unintentional camp for decades. But then Cirque du Soleil arrived in The '90s and presented high theatricality and fun alongside elegance, subtlety, and artistic ambition. Audiences found it refreshing, and this triggered a sea change in Vegas entertainment. Nowadays, when you see a campy Vegas show, it's either intentional camp or an older show that didn't get the memo. For the latter, see this review of the last remaining Vegas showgirl show, Jubilee!
- Really, any city known as a gambling/casino mecca will have at least a few of these:
- Macau's own Fake Venice which is not only three times the size of its Vegas counterpart, but even campier. Picture sitting in a Japanese restaurant, overlooking a fake indoor replica of the Grand Canal, with the gondolier rowing past and singing a (very good) rendition of Sarah Brightman's part in "Time To Say Goodbye". Oh, and the Brazillian steakhouse on the fake St Mark's Square, with street entertainers suddenly bursting out of doors to do rousing renditions of "Feniculi Fenicula". Oh yeah, it's more camp than Rufus Wainwright.
- Atlantic City, the Eastern Vegas. Its most famous pieces of ludicrous camp are probably its Fake India (which was shut down and replaced with a Hard Rock theme), Fake Rome, and Fake Old Havana, but really, all the casinos either specialize in or at least include some kind of faux something (for instance, Bally's has the Wild Wild West section—even though the Golden Nugget also has a Wild West theme. In Atlantic City. Literally a few yards from the Atlantic Ocean in the case of Bally's. Yes.) And perhaps fittingly for New Jersey,note Which for the unfamiliar has the highest proportion of Italian ancestry in the US, a fact from which other states get no end of entertainment—including at least two reality TV series. the most successful casino in town is in large part Fake Tuscany. Even when it's not aping something it's often ludicrously garish. That the rest of Atlantic City—heck, Atlantic County—has been kind of a mismanaged shithole for decades only accentuates the camp.
- 19th century dandies, including Oscar Wilde and Lord Byron. Not all of them were necessarily gay, but they were all extremely camp, which is required for being a dandy.
- Jonathan Ross repeatedly referred to LL Cool J as this during an appearance on "Friday Night with Jonathan Ross." LL had no idea what it meant. When he found out, hilarity ensued.
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Search and Browse the WWW like it's 1997 | Search results from DuckDuckGo
HTML:
3.2
| Encoding:
UTF-8
| Version:
0.7.4