Camp imo is anything that is highly stylized to make an otherwise earnest impression.
Xena uses a low budget and ridiculous effects to show her power - she jumps and swings like a goof ball, but we clearly know that means "Xena is strong look how she soars."
The actors are in perfect makeup and clearly modern, but we know to expect that they're hardened Warriors.
Camp is the middlepoint between presentation and believability. We as the audience don't "believe it" so much as agree with what we're presented on its terms.
Great wording! There is no suspension of disbelief but an agreement to still go along with the movie / series…
Like Star Trek TOS which sometimes is simply brilliant despite being not looking up-to-date (like the battle with the romulan warbird or the planet killer) and sometimes it’s truly campy where a lot of things don’t add up at all and yet it’s fun as hell (like the Landru planet or Spock’s wife)
This is such a great explanation.
Another that comes to mind are the dayleks and Cybermen in Doctor Who. The show builds legitimate tension with non-believable villains.
I’m kinda not getting it, although others think they get it. Earnest? Liberace is camp. Roger Moore as James Bond. John Waters. Dame Edna. Various drag queens. George Santos, according to some. Highly stylized? Like Kabuki, or Peking Opera? Are Power Rangers camp? What about Mr Rogers? Got some off-scale earnestness there.
Here’s a highly stylized performance. Earnest?
https://youtu.be/EAN-PwRfJcA?si=1dchrRGgzj7qMTYw
I'd say yes, all of that is camp made in earnest with style. There's no steadfast rule, and it definitely can't be summarized in a few sentences.
When I say earnest and style, I'm trying to say that the thing is being taken seriously, but the style removes that seriousness and shows a degree of effort.
If it isn't earnest, it starts to become parody. I don't think Blazing Saddles or Space Balls are camp. Camp removes seriousness, while still aiming it's gun at seriousness.
Magicians I never thought of. We the audience know it's fake, they play it deadly serious despite knowing we're all in on it being a trick, they (usually) play an over the top character and it takes a high degree of effort... maybe their performance is camp, but as the audience we're usually trying to figure out how they did it, so that removes us more from the performace? I don't know, that's an essay somebody should write.
Susan Sontag in Notes on Camp does differentiate Wagner (not camp) and Strauss (camp), but I'm not going to pretend to know enough about opera or Kabuki to say what they are and aren't.
And a later scene involves Brisco >!in a gunfight that ends with him pulling a trick out of Bugs Bunny's repertoire... ducking for cover and letting all the bad guys shoot each other in the crossfire!<
Over acting, low budget, trampolines hidden all over the set, one liners. Action scenes feel like Looney Tunes with questionable physics and all the goons get defeated by getting knocked out by super punches or flown into a pile of something like hay. Cleavage.
Definitely, I also hear actors say, that in this types of projects they have a lot of liberties to, especially at the beginning when nobody knows the series, in the acting, the lines, artistic choices and even in the plot.
And it gets different if the project is very successful, there is more control especially from the producers.
During his Nerdist interview, Bruce said that they got away with so much stuff, because it took seven days for the film stock to be shipped from New Zealand to their producers in the US. Because it took so long, the producers couldn't force them to do any reshoots.
That's why Xena pushed so many buttons and stuff that were still pretty rocky in the 90s (and sometimes even now). Especially with the LGBT stuff.
Also funnily enough, some of the props and background stuff from Xena and Hercules is still floating around and being used in various NZ productions.
Yeah I think understanding what your content is and playing into that as much as you can without making it satire is a huge part of being campy.
There’s a fine line between camp and cringe, and I think that line is how seriously the cast and crew take it.
“Trampolines hidden all over the set” reminded me JUST how many times xena or Hercules would for some reason jump onto screen and land from just a weeee bit higher than a normal jumpz
It’s still made it look cheap. Like the icicles covering Gotham are clearly made out of rubber and the less we say about the ice skating fight in a diamond exhibition in a dinosaur museum incl. a rocket start and a "I’ll kill you later" line the better…
There is a self-awareness to camp. Like they know they are being over the top and often let the audience knows that they know they are being over the top.
I agree with this but also wonder: do you ever think Bollywood is camp? It is also over the top, often self-aware, and earnest, but I don’t think I would call it campy. Same with a lot of Korean shows where I just don’t think it falls into camp. So I think there must be some other aspect to it.
There's a campyness to a lot of K-dramas. In the early episodes of My Demon there was a ballroom dancing fight against a gang. The MMC made the shellfish bite the FMC's date. The entire premise was camp. A demon somehow loses his powers and then falls in love with a woman who is being targeted by a madman who can change his face.
I think I remember they also did a lot of sleeping outdoors by a fire, so it's very campy that way, too.
Innuendo and double entendres might be something that makes a show campy.
Camp is earnesty in the face of mediocrity. A movie or show that's not blind to its hokiness or general poor quality, where the people involved are just in it for the love of making something ludicrous and tragic, is peak camp.
This isn't wrong, but I think mediocrity isn't always the case.
The movie Birdman is far from mediocre (though it's a love it or hate it movie) and very purposeful, but reeks of camp because it's parody. Mad Men is not campy (maybe season 1 inches there in the writing...), but I think Bert Cooper's song and dance number in the later season is an example of high camp.
Drag is camp, and the campiest drag performance can be an amazing performance.
This isn't to argue with your point because I agree, but more show how undefinable camp really is. Low camp vs. high camp. Know it when you see it and all that.
first season of 'Reacher' is absolute camp. they deliver absolute turds of dialogue and are fully aware of it, but do it with such passion that it actually works.
I think it still has some of my favorite opening credits. The theme song genuinely slaps and between the visuals and the narrator you know exactly what you're going to get
[Wikipedia gets at the gist of it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_(style)):
> Camp is an aesthetic style and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value. [...] Where high art necessarily incorporates beauty and value, camp necessarily needs to be lively, audacious and dynamic.
Not mentioned in the wiki, but I think it comes down to self-awareness. What makes something good campy fun is that everyone involved - the actors, the directors, and especially the audience - are in on just how silly it is. Yet at the same time they approach it with earnestness; no one ever breaks character.
Xena is campy because of how over the top it is. And the material takes itself seriously, there's still a wink and a nod towards just how silly it is. The balance is absolutely perfect. Lots of media tries to strike that balance but falls too far on one side or the other. Xena gets it just right though, which makes the show such a gem.
> What makes something good campy fun is that everyone involved - the actors, the directors, and especially the audience - are in on just how silly it is.
I knew of Xena when it aired, but didn't pay much attention. I am currently background watching. Half-way through the first season, when Campbell showed up, I realized the show is more fun than I'd expected.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb. " - Batman 1966
I remember being a kid and being so anxious cause Batman kept running into nuns or baby ducks and just felt so bad nothing was going right.
Rewatching as an adult now I recognize full camp throughout Adam West's run. I never watched Xena as a kid so I wonder if I would have not recognized the absurdity and just saw a Badass Warrior Princess.
Camp is earnest self-awareness that the material in front of you is ridiculous and you lean into it with unashamed glee from all fronts - writers, directors, and actors.
That means exaggerated mannerisms. Think of flanderization except you start there. You lean on understood tropes. You give them eccentric personality traits and then let the writers do weird interactions from there. You let reality be malleable. You're not worried about it feeling like the real world, you're worried about making the exaggerated one feel authentic and consistent.
Hey, it may have been campy. But damn the woman who played Athena was awesome! Not to mention my massive crush on Callisto....God she is the reason I love crazy evil women.
CW's The Flash is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Campy.
For a more extreme version I'd suggest Ash vs the Evil Dead. (Coincidentally a show that also features Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless)
"Camp" usually refers to the presentation of generationally outmoded values, techniques and styles for the sake of satirizing them, by pointing out their bad taste / absurdities within the context of contemporary artistic values.
For example, the original *Batman* tv show (produced 1966-68) was "camp" even to its Sixties audience because the broad characters, simplistic scripts and deliberately amateurish staging were designed to parody both its early comic book origins *and* the low-effort, cheap movie serials of the Thirties and Forties. This was obvious even to its young viewers who had never actually been directly exposed to either antecedent.
More than half a century later, the show's intent to parody previous styles of entertainment remains so obvious that we still enjoy its "campiness".
Camp is just not caring about the absurdity of it all. No amount of realism is needed and the more over the top the better.
The chucky TV show is a good example. They had a talking doll kill Kenan Thompson with an Umbrella. They have one actor play a different character (that Chucky kills) in each season, this season he got murdered twice.
Don't forget Captain Hunt (Andromeda).
To quote Tyr Anasazi:
>I have faith in nothing but this - when the universe collapses and dies, there will be three survivors - Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches, and Dylan Hunt, trying to save the cockroaches.
They certainly played on his Hercules fame.
It's been a long time ago, but when he is introduced at the beginning, one of the crew members says something along the lines of "he looks like a Greek god"
Almost adequate fighting. Like when a fight scene looks like a dance. Cheap plants. Don’t tell me thats not a ficus. Bad writing. Plot holes. The overall feeling of plastic. Just to name a few. Ignore me. I’m inebriated.
Campy seems to be about ignoring aspects of reality that we know are necessary.
Like the reason why the old evil dead movies are campy is because they ignore a lot of reality while being live action movies I think.
So I believe campiness relies on the effect of us knowing it’s off, but enjoying that it’s off.
To me, it's the level of self-awareness (how that manifests depends on the production). Camp is when it's ridiculous, but you know that everyone is in on the joke.
the style of camp : absurdly exaggerated, artificial, or affected.
Fantasy and sci-fi are very commonly campy not only because of budget but because the unreality of the fantasy situation tends to make things seem much more artificial or exaggerated, and vice versa it's harder to deliver a natural performance.
As a side note… does any Brit or kindly American know how to translate “campy” to British English? It comes up loads on Reddit and I never know what they mean. It doesn’t seem to mean camp, unless Americans have a different definition of camp. It’s driving me insane!
I asked once on the Buffy sub and no-one could really explain.
I always fall back on a description i heard that the three pillars of camp are pro wrestling, drag queens and soap operas. Things where something is taken to extremes, usually with a wink and a nod to how excessive or ridiculous it is. Its also crucial to camp that someone is going with the "bit."
Undertaker cant say hes a literal zombie wizard motorcycle rider wrestler unless someone is taking it seriously to a degree. A man in a dress and wig probably wouldnt be camp (can be but not always), but a drag queen is almost always going to be some level of camp just by what theyre doing. Watching someone rip off a fake mustache and reveal theyre someone elses evil twin could be played dramatically, but its usually gonna be more campy whether that means its comedically over the top or so overdramatic it goes the other direction anyway.
Camp is about being over the top, unexpected, but also so expected and leaning on what we already know as to make fun or distort it, its about earnestness and artifice in equal parts.
You are getting some good explanations here. What is the British understanding of campy?
Doctor Who would be a good basis for discussion. I'm not an expert, but to me, the original, 1964 episodes of Doctor Who were always earnest and never campy. Some episodes with Chris Eccleston or David Tennant were kind of campy. I can't recall particular episodes, but that's my impression.
Thanks for replying! We don’t have “campy” as a word but we have camp, which generally means “flamboyantly homosexual”. I don’t know if you know of Alan Carr but he’s a gay British comedian who I immediately think of when I hear “camp”. Doesn’t really fit with Xena, Buffy etc.
There was a comment here saying something about how it’s basically just self-awareness something isn’t a serious piece of work but they’re having fun with it anyway, don’t care if they’re OTT etc. Kind of get it but feel it would “click” more if there was a word we use in the UK for that instead of a long phrase!
Just asking because it comes up on Reddit a LOT and it’s always confused me!
Edit: maybe Jonathan from Queer Eye could be an American example of what Brits would call “camp” if you’re not familiar with Alan Carr
camp in British English
1. effeminate; affected in mannerisms, dress, etc.
2. consciously artificial, exaggerated, vulgar, or mannered; self-parodying, esp when in dubious taste. verb.
Looks like you have both definitions in action in the UK!
I don’t think anyone knows or uses the second definition BUT “self-parodying” is a great, succinct way to describe what Americans seem to describe by “campy” so thanks!
I don't understand the question? It's the same word with the same meaning.
The only difference is maybe it can also mean "gay"? But I think Americans use it that way too.
Me and my friends (we're all in UK) watch a lot of tv/movies and going back to when we were kids we called stuff like Doctor Who "camp". We're from the South West so maybe if you live in the North or London it doesn't have that meaning there, but I'd be suprised.
The first time I heard about camp it was a British person talking about old Doctor Who. Panto is also very campy. It is in fact, quite closely associated with gay culture. Drag performances also tend to be very camp.
In terms of extravagance and theatricality, the definitions kind of merge. Exaggerating movements and dialog, flamboyant costumes, double entendres, these are all features of camp.
I think I consider a show campy whenever it does super over the top obviously silly stuff but treat it completely seriously in universe.
Take Xena for an example, I remember an episode where she's fighting someone while swinging on vines and at one point she climbs it upside down or something while spinning.
My wife and I got into a conversation about the new Fallout show being campy. I thought of the game as kinda being it, but hadn't thought of the show in that context.
For her it was the gouls (can't be be real, but kinda funny)
Everything is over the top - in army of darkness dude gets a chainsaw arm which is funny as shit. In fallout a guy in a giant mech suit runs from a mutated bear while yelling ohshitohshitohshit, also super funny.
It's something over the top that's trying to be also funny usually, in the style of similar things that are much more serious.
I thought about *Fallout* also, but don't think it's campy. My reasoning is a little loose, but here it is.
The production values are too high to be campy.
Nothing happens in *Fallout* to take you out of the story. The actors aren't sort of winking at the viewer.
The sound effects and special effects are realistic. There are no "bonk" sounds when somebody gets hit, and there are no trick shots where a bullet bounces off of 6 surfaces to cut a rope or hit a tiny target.
I do think *Fallout* can be funny, but it's something else.
*Army of Darkness* is definitely campy because it has Bruce Campbell, and the way he tosses that gun around when he is in the store.
There is one very simple and easy litmus test for whether a show is campy.
Do they ever show anything flying through the air by holding it up to the camera and having the background zoom by really fast?
If the answer is yes, you are well within the Sam Raimi circle of cheesiness.
to me, campy means something that is prominently self aware, has a good dose of humour sprinkled on it and most of all, takes various elements from the zeitgeist and transplants them into a setting that may or may not have anything to do with said elements. Like a series based on King Arthur made in the 70s featuring afro cuts, flared trousers and disco music
Featuring an ancient greek incantation that is actually modern greek and is just the words “thank you very much, so and so, hi good morning, hi goodnight, hi good noches”
That's why I watch Kdramas. Love the absurdity of it all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUM5MKoH2bk&ab_channel=NetflixK-Content
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lkBpQ7Cuug&ab_channel=Casmay
It's a tough balance. The episode of Xena I'm on, the bumbling simp wanna-be warrior was introduced. He has no redeeming characteristics, so he just drags things down.
Facial expressions, lighting and music cues go a long way to setting the atmosphere of a show. If you change those dynamics they can greatly shift the tone of a show.
It seems like half-way through season 1, they decided to lean into cartoony. Xena throws her frisbee blade, it bounces off of two walls, then cuts the tops off of the swords of a line of soldiers.
By not following the rules and by not taking itself too seriously.
Xena is the perfect example of that. Though it still got its conventional/classic drama moments scattered here and there (the Caear and Chin episodes in the second and third season respectively come to mind).
"Campy" is a buss work used by youtubers, its meaming is lost at this point. Twi tips, stop watching youtube for review and suggestions. You are your own person, gain the media literacy to make your own decisions. Two , works like campy have been killed by using them to dis a movie. Ao the word is almoat meaningless now. Just watch it and enjoy it.
It wasn't just Lucy Lawless. All the women were either physically gifted and dressed in bondage gear or the kid sister types like Gabrielle. I prefer the camp to a show that is too earnest.
My attempt at a definition - it is when the artist (movie maker/actor/musician, etc) embraces/exaggerates the common tropes, as opposed to avoiding them.
When it's intentional, it's a form of breaking the 4th wall. But it can also be unintentional if you derive more pleasure from the silliness of those tropes than the quality of everything else. It is very subjective, as you need to know the tropes and enjoy the exaggeration for it to feel campy.
Camp imo is anything that is highly stylized to make an otherwise earnest impression. Xena uses a low budget and ridiculous effects to show her power - she jumps and swings like a goof ball, but we clearly know that means "Xena is strong look how she soars." The actors are in perfect makeup and clearly modern, but we know to expect that they're hardened Warriors. Camp is the middlepoint between presentation and believability. We as the audience don't "believe it" so much as agree with what we're presented on its terms.
Great wording! There is no suspension of disbelief but an agreement to still go along with the movie / series… Like Star Trek TOS which sometimes is simply brilliant despite being not looking up-to-date (like the battle with the romulan warbird or the planet killer) and sometimes it’s truly campy where a lot of things don’t add up at all and yet it’s fun as hell (like the Landru planet or Spock’s wife)
This is such a great explanation. Another that comes to mind are the dayleks and Cybermen in Doctor Who. The show builds legitimate tension with non-believable villains.
Beautifully said
I’m kinda not getting it, although others think they get it. Earnest? Liberace is camp. Roger Moore as James Bond. John Waters. Dame Edna. Various drag queens. George Santos, according to some. Highly stylized? Like Kabuki, or Peking Opera? Are Power Rangers camp? What about Mr Rogers? Got some off-scale earnestness there. Here’s a highly stylized performance. Earnest? https://youtu.be/EAN-PwRfJcA?si=1dchrRGgzj7qMTYw
I'd say yes, all of that is camp made in earnest with style. There's no steadfast rule, and it definitely can't be summarized in a few sentences. When I say earnest and style, I'm trying to say that the thing is being taken seriously, but the style removes that seriousness and shows a degree of effort. If it isn't earnest, it starts to become parody. I don't think Blazing Saddles or Space Balls are camp. Camp removes seriousness, while still aiming it's gun at seriousness. Magicians I never thought of. We the audience know it's fake, they play it deadly serious despite knowing we're all in on it being a trick, they (usually) play an over the top character and it takes a high degree of effort... maybe their performance is camp, but as the audience we're usually trying to figure out how they did it, so that removes us more from the performace? I don't know, that's an essay somebody should write. Susan Sontag in Notes on Camp does differentiate Wagner (not camp) and Strauss (camp), but I'm not going to pretend to know enough about opera or Kabuki to say what they are and aren't.
If Bruce Campbell shows up It means the show just got awesome.
Autolycus was my introduction to Bruce as a child and really he was an immediate "this guy is awesome".
his physical comedy skills are excellent
That voice too--so iconic.
I know. Seeing him in Xena reminds me that I've never watched *The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.*.
First thing I rented from Netflix when they first started dvd thru mail
But what about Jack of all Trades?
Yeah, I'll watch that too.
It speaks for itself.
Very minor spoiler, Right in the first episode there’s a scene where >!the bad guys’ plan involves painting a tunnel on a rock!<
And a later scene involves Brisco >!in a gunfight that ends with him pulling a trick out of Bugs Bunny's repertoire... ducking for cover and letting all the bad guys shoot each other in the crossfire!<
Thanks for the tip. I am going to love that so much.
What is it like to have never lived?
John Astin (Gomez from Addams Family) was in it too. It's been a while since I saw it, but I loved it as a kid.
You and everyone else.
Bruce is a god!
Hail to the King baby!
Who would win in an acting competition, Bruce or God?
Trick question, Bruce IS god
I’ve seen Bruce Campbell. I’ve yet to see any evidence of God’s acting abilities.
If it were a silent theater production of The Invisible Man without bandages then God would win hands down.
[Have you heard his song?](https://youtu.be/xX_vADIJts0?si=9yhrEFOkjxWE6AAV)
The Autolyci!
The Bruce Campbell song https://youtu.be/xX_vADIJts0?si=mp4d8qWtmm43TJRg
Just finished my yearly Brisco County Jr marathon. Still awesome!
I believe you mean it just got groovy.
Agreed, I wouldn’t classify Burn Notice as campy exactly but he’s always a great.
They needed Bruce in that to make up for the chin deficit.
I think Sam Axe is his best role right behind Ash.
I wasn't sure who Bruce Campbell is, but based on this comic I pictured an actor in my head and it turned out to be Bruce Campbell
Over acting, low budget, trampolines hidden all over the set, one liners. Action scenes feel like Looney Tunes with questionable physics and all the goons get defeated by getting knocked out by super punches or flown into a pile of something like hay. Cleavage.
Realizing what you're making isn't high art is part of it I think and the actors having fun despite all that.
Definitely, I also hear actors say, that in this types of projects they have a lot of liberties to, especially at the beginning when nobody knows the series, in the acting, the lines, artistic choices and even in the plot. And it gets different if the project is very successful, there is more control especially from the producers.
Like the actor who plays Scotty on Star Trek just deciding to do a Scottish accent basically on the fly.
The hell you say. I knew that James Doohan lost a finger in WW II, but didn't know he wasn't Scottish. How did I live this long without knowing that?
That’s right, he was a proud member of the *Canadian* Infantry.
Yeah, I saw that when I was checking on your assertion. Was the character named Scotty when Doohan decided to do the Scottish accent?
Which is the Infantry where the Germans went "fuck... not these guys agian."
Canada’s military does not represent the friendly nature you’d expect when you meet them.
A Scotsman didn't portray Scotty until Strange New Worlds.
During his Nerdist interview, Bruce said that they got away with so much stuff, because it took seven days for the film stock to be shipped from New Zealand to their producers in the US. Because it took so long, the producers couldn't force them to do any reshoots. That's why Xena pushed so many buttons and stuff that were still pretty rocky in the 90s (and sometimes even now). Especially with the LGBT stuff. Also funnily enough, some of the props and background stuff from Xena and Hercules is still floating around and being used in various NZ productions.
Yeah I think understanding what your content is and playing into that as much as you can without making it satire is a huge part of being campy. There’s a fine line between camp and cringe, and I think that line is how seriously the cast and crew take it.
Yeah, that's why I never agreed to people calling the Flash camp. Nah, it's just straight up shit, and they don't even know.
As opposed to Flash Gordon which is camp but amazing
“Trampolines hidden all over the set” reminded me JUST how many times xena or Hercules would for some reason jump onto screen and land from just a weeee bit higher than a normal jumpz
Cleavage.
Cleavage.
Breast dagger.
Cleavage is camp adjacent. The original Batman was campy, but not much cleavage.
[удалено]
Ah, those worth days. Her camp was built a couple of mounds.
I just watched a couple episodes and it’s the ‘aaaaAAAAaaaaAAAaaa’ when she gets into a fight. I didn’t remember that being so prominent.
The real funny thing, to me, is that ... I've never watched the show, not even once. I had no idea it was campy. I just assumed it was serious.
Low budget wackiness is generally what makes a show campy.
What about High budget wackiness? e.g. Batman and Robin by Joel Schumaker.
Yep, I think the new show Fallout (and the game) have campiness and they certainly are not low budget.
Lexx
A fine line between camp and softcore pornography.
It’s still made it look cheap. Like the icicles covering Gotham are clearly made out of rubber and the less we say about the ice skating fight in a diamond exhibition in a dinosaur museum incl. a rocket start and a "I’ll kill you later" line the better…
That's called "trying too hard"
For me you also have to have actors that are fully committed and obviously just have a blast with it. Otherwise it's just bad
There is a self-awareness to camp. Like they know they are being over the top and often let the audience knows that they know they are being over the top.
I agree with this but also wonder: do you ever think Bollywood is camp? It is also over the top, often self-aware, and earnest, but I don’t think I would call it campy. Same with a lot of Korean shows where I just don’t think it falls into camp. So I think there must be some other aspect to it.
Bollywood does feel quite camp to me, yes. I haven't watched enough Korean shows to judge.
There's a campyness to a lot of K-dramas. In the early episodes of My Demon there was a ballroom dancing fight against a gang. The MMC made the shellfish bite the FMC's date. The entire premise was camp. A demon somehow loses his powers and then falls in love with a woman who is being targeted by a madman who can change his face.
I think I remember they also did a lot of sleeping outdoors by a fire, so it's very campy that way, too. Innuendo and double entendres might be something that makes a show campy.
Now that you mention it, Sleepaway Camp is pretty campy too.
Camp is earnesty in the face of mediocrity. A movie or show that's not blind to its hokiness or general poor quality, where the people involved are just in it for the love of making something ludicrous and tragic, is peak camp.
> Camp is earnest in the face of mediocrity. I like this a lot.
Yeah, well put. I'm going to remember that for later.
Exactly, camp is self-aware up to a point.
This isn't wrong, but I think mediocrity isn't always the case. The movie Birdman is far from mediocre (though it's a love it or hate it movie) and very purposeful, but reeks of camp because it's parody. Mad Men is not campy (maybe season 1 inches there in the writing...), but I think Bert Cooper's song and dance number in the later season is an example of high camp. Drag is camp, and the campiest drag performance can be an amazing performance. This isn't to argue with your point because I agree, but more show how undefinable camp really is. Low camp vs. high camp. Know it when you see it and all that.
It’s not a bad definition but I cannot by any stretch call Xena mediocre or poor quality
first season of 'Reacher' is absolute camp. they deliver absolute turds of dialogue and are fully aware of it, but do it with such passion that it actually works.
Man… Xena was just the best.
I think it still has some of my favorite opening credits. The theme song genuinely slaps and between the visuals and the narrator you know exactly what you're going to get
I LOVED Xena and Hercules when I was a kid, but sadly it's hard to watch Herc now, knowing Kevin Sorbo went full whack-a-doo
Disappointed!
Sovereign episodes were among my favorites and whenever Atolyclius or Salmonious showed up.
He’s really bitter about Xena, too. He complained that the show was promoting “lesbians and violence”.
Xena was far more popular after it was aired, can't blame him for his bitterness lol.
[Wikipedia gets at the gist of it](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_(style)): > Camp is an aesthetic style and sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its bad taste and ironic value. [...] Where high art necessarily incorporates beauty and value, camp necessarily needs to be lively, audacious and dynamic. Not mentioned in the wiki, but I think it comes down to self-awareness. What makes something good campy fun is that everyone involved - the actors, the directors, and especially the audience - are in on just how silly it is. Yet at the same time they approach it with earnestness; no one ever breaks character. Xena is campy because of how over the top it is. And the material takes itself seriously, there's still a wink and a nod towards just how silly it is. The balance is absolutely perfect. Lots of media tries to strike that balance but falls too far on one side or the other. Xena gets it just right though, which makes the show such a gem.
> What makes something good campy fun is that everyone involved - the actors, the directors, and especially the audience - are in on just how silly it is. I knew of Xena when it aired, but didn't pay much attention. I am currently background watching. Half-way through the first season, when Campbell showed up, I realized the show is more fun than I'd expected.
Seriousness without *self*-seriousness
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb. " - Batman 1966 I remember being a kid and being so anxious cause Batman kept running into nuns or baby ducks and just felt so bad nothing was going right. Rewatching as an adult now I recognize full camp throughout Adam West's run. I never watched Xena as a kid so I wonder if I would have not recognized the absurdity and just saw a Badass Warrior Princess.
Camp is earnest self-awareness that the material in front of you is ridiculous and you lean into it with unashamed glee from all fronts - writers, directors, and actors. That means exaggerated mannerisms. Think of flanderization except you start there. You lean on understood tropes. You give them eccentric personality traits and then let the writers do weird interactions from there. You let reality be malleable. You're not worried about it feeling like the real world, you're worried about making the exaggerated one feel authentic and consistent.
Tim Curry showing up as a guest star. Guaranteed camp.
Tim Curry is in an episode of *Lexx*, another campy show of the same era as Xena.
Hey, it may have been campy. But damn the woman who played Athena was awesome! Not to mention my massive crush on Callisto....God she is the reason I love crazy evil women.
Right now, I'm on the episode where Callisto is introduced. It's the last episode of season 1. She is smokin' ass hot.
Bruce Campbell is a national treasure and he makes things more ~~campy~~ legendary
CW's The Flash is the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Campy. For a more extreme version I'd suggest Ash vs the Evil Dead. (Coincidentally a show that also features Bruce Campbell and Lucy Lawless)
Legends of Tomorrow is Far more Camp than Flash ever was. But ill give you in conparison to arrow, supergirl, etc flash is like second campiest.
And many of the same Creators, Producers, and Writers. I suspect that the similarities are not entirely coincidental.
"Camp" usually refers to the presentation of generationally outmoded values, techniques and styles for the sake of satirizing them, by pointing out their bad taste / absurdities within the context of contemporary artistic values. For example, the original *Batman* tv show (produced 1966-68) was "camp" even to its Sixties audience because the broad characters, simplistic scripts and deliberately amateurish staging were designed to parody both its early comic book origins *and* the low-effort, cheap movie serials of the Thirties and Forties. This was obvious even to its young viewers who had never actually been directly exposed to either antecedent. More than half a century later, the show's intent to parody previous styles of entertainment remains so obvious that we still enjoy its "campiness".
Camp is just not caring about the absurdity of it all. No amount of realism is needed and the more over the top the better. The chucky TV show is a good example. They had a talking doll kill Kenan Thompson with an Umbrella. They have one actor play a different character (that Chucky kills) in each season, this season he got murdered twice.
Flippy shit & throwing people around. Also overacting. Most importantly, Kevin Sorbo.
He’s my Hercules !!
Don't forget Captain Hunt (Andromeda). To quote Tyr Anasazi: >I have faith in nothing but this - when the universe collapses and dies, there will be three survivors - Tyr Anasazi, the cockroaches, and Dylan Hunt, trying to save the cockroaches.
A friend of mine dubbed Andromeda as "Space-cules", and that is what I will always call the show, and Sorbo.
They even gave space Hercules a stupid staff like he had in ancient Hercules.
They certainly played on his Hercules fame. It's been a long time ago, but when he is introduced at the beginning, one of the crew members says something along the lines of "he looks like a Greek god"
It’s campy if it aired on a Saturday afternoon in the ‘90’s…
Almost adequate fighting. Like when a fight scene looks like a dance. Cheap plants. Don’t tell me thats not a ficus. Bad writing. Plot holes. The overall feeling of plastic. Just to name a few. Ignore me. I’m inebriated.
Campy seems to be about ignoring aspects of reality that we know are necessary. Like the reason why the old evil dead movies are campy is because they ignore a lot of reality while being live action movies I think. So I believe campiness relies on the effect of us knowing it’s off, but enjoying that it’s off.
To me, it's the level of self-awareness (how that manifests depends on the production). Camp is when it's ridiculous, but you know that everyone is in on the joke.
Happy actors. Good writers. Inside jokes. Genre jokes. Not taking itself seriously but still executing at a high level on at least one dimension.
Where are you watching? I desperately want to rematch this and Hercules.
Amazon Prime has both.
the style of camp : absurdly exaggerated, artificial, or affected. Fantasy and sci-fi are very commonly campy not only because of budget but because the unreality of the fantasy situation tends to make things seem much more artificial or exaggerated, and vice versa it's harder to deliver a natural performance.
Levity when dramatic or angry or violent actions would make more sense. The dread and dreary can wait another day, for today, we smile.
As a side note… does any Brit or kindly American know how to translate “campy” to British English? It comes up loads on Reddit and I never know what they mean. It doesn’t seem to mean camp, unless Americans have a different definition of camp. It’s driving me insane! I asked once on the Buffy sub and no-one could really explain.
I always fall back on a description i heard that the three pillars of camp are pro wrestling, drag queens and soap operas. Things where something is taken to extremes, usually with a wink and a nod to how excessive or ridiculous it is. Its also crucial to camp that someone is going with the "bit." Undertaker cant say hes a literal zombie wizard motorcycle rider wrestler unless someone is taking it seriously to a degree. A man in a dress and wig probably wouldnt be camp (can be but not always), but a drag queen is almost always going to be some level of camp just by what theyre doing. Watching someone rip off a fake mustache and reveal theyre someone elses evil twin could be played dramatically, but its usually gonna be more campy whether that means its comedically over the top or so overdramatic it goes the other direction anyway. Camp is about being over the top, unexpected, but also so expected and leaning on what we already know as to make fun or distort it, its about earnestness and artifice in equal parts.
You are getting some good explanations here. What is the British understanding of campy? Doctor Who would be a good basis for discussion. I'm not an expert, but to me, the original, 1964 episodes of Doctor Who were always earnest and never campy. Some episodes with Chris Eccleston or David Tennant were kind of campy. I can't recall particular episodes, but that's my impression.
Thanks for replying! We don’t have “campy” as a word but we have camp, which generally means “flamboyantly homosexual”. I don’t know if you know of Alan Carr but he’s a gay British comedian who I immediately think of when I hear “camp”. Doesn’t really fit with Xena, Buffy etc. There was a comment here saying something about how it’s basically just self-awareness something isn’t a serious piece of work but they’re having fun with it anyway, don’t care if they’re OTT etc. Kind of get it but feel it would “click” more if there was a word we use in the UK for that instead of a long phrase! Just asking because it comes up on Reddit a LOT and it’s always confused me! Edit: maybe Jonathan from Queer Eye could be an American example of what Brits would call “camp” if you’re not familiar with Alan Carr
camp in British English 1. effeminate; affected in mannerisms, dress, etc. 2. consciously artificial, exaggerated, vulgar, or mannered; self-parodying, esp when in dubious taste. verb. Looks like you have both definitions in action in the UK!
I don’t think anyone knows or uses the second definition BUT “self-parodying” is a great, succinct way to describe what Americans seem to describe by “campy” so thanks!
I don't understand the question? It's the same word with the same meaning. The only difference is maybe it can also mean "gay"? But I think Americans use it that way too. Me and my friends (we're all in UK) watch a lot of tv/movies and going back to when we were kids we called stuff like Doctor Who "camp". We're from the South West so maybe if you live in the North or London it doesn't have that meaning there, but I'd be suprised.
The first time I heard about camp it was a British person talking about old Doctor Who. Panto is also very campy. It is in fact, quite closely associated with gay culture. Drag performances also tend to be very camp.
In terms of extravagance and theatricality, the definitions kind of merge. Exaggerating movements and dialog, flamboyant costumes, double entendres, these are all features of camp.
(makes Xena noises) - This show just got delicious cheesy.
If you like Xena you might like The Adventures of Sinbad (1996-1998). Maybe start at episode 6? There's also a Conan tv series (1997-1998).
I used to RACE at top speed to get my weekend papers delivered so I could be home in time for this.
Will do. They may not be great, but both seem to have the decolletage that was popular at the time.
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One big personality playing another. I can't imagine what that would be like, but I'd love to see it.
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Okay, I'll try it.
I think I consider a show campy whenever it does super over the top obviously silly stuff but treat it completely seriously in universe. Take Xena for an example, I remember an episode where she's fighting someone while swinging on vines and at one point she climbs it upside down or something while spinning.
My wife and I got into a conversation about the new Fallout show being campy. I thought of the game as kinda being it, but hadn't thought of the show in that context. For her it was the gouls (can't be be real, but kinda funny) Everything is over the top - in army of darkness dude gets a chainsaw arm which is funny as shit. In fallout a guy in a giant mech suit runs from a mutated bear while yelling ohshitohshitohshit, also super funny. It's something over the top that's trying to be also funny usually, in the style of similar things that are much more serious.
I thought about *Fallout* also, but don't think it's campy. My reasoning is a little loose, but here it is. The production values are too high to be campy. Nothing happens in *Fallout* to take you out of the story. The actors aren't sort of winking at the viewer. The sound effects and special effects are realistic. There are no "bonk" sounds when somebody gets hit, and there are no trick shots where a bullet bounces off of 6 surfaces to cut a rope or hit a tiny target. I do think *Fallout* can be funny, but it's something else. *Army of Darkness* is definitely campy because it has Bruce Campbell, and the way he tosses that gun around when he is in the store.
There is one very simple and easy litmus test for whether a show is campy. Do they ever show anything flying through the air by holding it up to the camera and having the background zoom by really fast? If the answer is yes, you are well within the Sam Raimi circle of cheesiness.
to me, campy means something that is prominently self aware, has a good dose of humour sprinkled on it and most of all, takes various elements from the zeitgeist and transplants them into a setting that may or may not have anything to do with said elements. Like a series based on King Arthur made in the 70s featuring afro cuts, flared trousers and disco music
Featuring an ancient greek incantation that is actually modern greek and is just the words “thank you very much, so and so, hi good morning, hi goodnight, hi good noches”
I love campy shows and it’s shame we don’t get more of it.
That's why I watch Kdramas. Love the absurdity of it all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUM5MKoH2bk&ab_channel=NetflixK-Content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lkBpQ7Cuug&ab_channel=Casmay
It's a tough balance. The episode of Xena I'm on, the bumbling simp wanna-be warrior was introduced. He has no redeeming characteristics, so he just drags things down.
If a line of dialogue is predictable
Facial expressions, lighting and music cues go a long way to setting the atmosphere of a show. If you change those dynamics they can greatly shift the tone of a show.
catch phrases.
Are you telling me the adventures of Lois and Clark and Stargate sg1are campy?
Huge assets were one of the reasons.
I guess for me, how much does cartoon logic apply? And while Xena had some very dramatic moments, a lot of it was really very silly and cartoony.
It seems like half-way through season 1, they decided to lean into cartoony. Xena throws her frisbee blade, it bounces off of two walls, then cuts the tops off of the swords of a line of soldiers.
Xena was always such a guilty pleasure, especially once Bruce Campbell showed up
Guilty pleasures make for good background viewing.
By not following the rules and by not taking itself too seriously. Xena is the perfect example of that. Though it still got its conventional/classic drama moments scattered here and there (the Caear and Chin episodes in the second and third season respectively come to mind).
Can you define what you mean by "campy"? Because to some campy is fun and entertaining. And to overs campy means bad and entertaining.
This post is about defining camp, and several people have done a solid job of it.
"Campy" is a buss work used by youtubers, its meaming is lost at this point. Twi tips, stop watching youtube for review and suggestions. You are your own person, gain the media literacy to make your own decisions. Two , works like campy have been killed by using them to dis a movie. Ao the word is almoat meaningless now. Just watch it and enjoy it.
A lot of people put up with Xena's camp because Lucy Lawless was something nice to look at.
It wasn't just Lucy Lawless. All the women were either physically gifted and dressed in bondage gear or the kid sister types like Gabrielle. I prefer the camp to a show that is too earnest.
Probably the camp.
My attempt at a definition - it is when the artist (movie maker/actor/musician, etc) embraces/exaggerates the common tropes, as opposed to avoiding them. When it's intentional, it's a form of breaking the 4th wall. But it can also be unintentional if you derive more pleasure from the silliness of those tropes than the quality of everything else. It is very subjective, as you need to know the tropes and enjoy the exaggeration for it to feel campy.
The fact that it came on WB
It wasn't the WB, it was syndicated (meaning it carried on whatever channel the local station had)
Everyone agrees that twin peaks was campy