Rightly or wrongly, there are three countries in the word I always associate with idiot machoism: Spain, the US and Australia. (I’m surprised I didn’t chuck Italy in there but there you go). OH AND BY THE WAY SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE SPANISH OR AMERICAN OR AUSTRALIAN I’M NOT PREJUDICED OR NOTHING.
But those kind of places as far as I’m concerned seem to encourage the camp. Maybe it’s a reaction against it, or maybe they are two sides of the same coin.
Take the Spanish and their maricóns. But they have Almodovar:
and the Americans have John Waters and the eating of dog shit:
but the Australians do have Kath & Kim:
They win.
Tags: john waters, kath and kim, pedro almodovar, pink flamingoes
Haha this is marvellous! A Video essay extraordinaire. I can’t think of an Italian camp film but Italy’s TV output is often totally camp.
Also, if Mark Simpson sees this: don’t you think your fauxmos students are learning well? When I saw this post I honestly thought it could have been one of Marks. We are like little mini-me-Mark-simpsons sometimes. But probably less gay. and less manly. and just more vague.
Mark Simpson has seen this and has realised that:
a) His work here is done
b) You’re better at him than he is
But he would just like to add, from his retirement home in Bournemouth, that by far the best American camp is actually the butch stuff. As Gore Vidal once said, ‘Ernest Hemingway was a joke that only America couldn’t get.’
That makes a lot of sense. It makes me appreciate all that American Macho cool much more now.
P.s. Don’t retire yet! The Fauxmos don’t fare very well without heroes to aspire to. And Jeanette Winterson never returned our calls.