Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="ClassyCo" data-source="post: 332979" data-attributes="member: 7">For me, I define &quot;camp&quot; as a piece of film (whether small or big screen) that intends itself to be &quot;serious&quot;, but yet flounders in its execution. I&#039;d say DYNASTY was &quot;camp&quot; for a few seasons, when it was still trying to make us all believe that it was taking itself seriously. DYNASTY presented itself as being glittery, guilty pleasure trash, and it was trash, and I guess generically glittery, but it lacked a passion after a few seasons to actually keep people engaged. When the show eventually became &quot;camp for camp&#039;s sake&quot;, it really went downhill. Season 6 thru Season 8 were really quite bad, and the show trying its hand at winking or being tongue-in-cheek just didn&#039;t work. It seemed forced and, as we&#039;ve said numerous times, the writing for the characters had already stopped. They were just making things up as they went along (which many of the cast members have said) and that doesn&#039;t equate &quot;camp&quot;. That equates laziness. As for MOMMIE DEAREST, I&#039;d say it is probably the pinnacle of &quot;camp&quot;. Joan Crawford and her real-life persona has a lot of &quot;camp&quot; wrapped up in it. She was devoted to stardom, always dressed to the nines, hopelessly devoted to Pepsi, and yet desperately wanted to be both a popular star and taken seriously as an actress. The film version of &quot;Joan&quot; we see in MOMMIE DEAREST takes some of those aspects and cranks it up several notches. The &quot;Joan&quot; we get in the movie is what the BKR video describes as &quot;instant character&quot;. We instantly know who &quot;Joan&quot; of the movie is: she&#039;s powerful, to be obeyed, and nothing will boss her around or get in her way. That&#039;s the stuff &quot;camp&quot; is made of. And, I mean, c&#039;mon, MOMMIE DEAREST is a enjoyably bad movie, crammed with quotable lines as if it were made purposely to be used in drag acts and parodies in the decades following its release. I&#039;ll have to excuse myself from analyzing (or trying to analyze) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS because I&#039;ve never seen it. I&#039;ve seen the AMC documentary that&#039;s been linked in an earlier post, but not the movie itself. I know some people say that DOLLS was the epitome of &quot;camp&quot; until MOMMIE DEAREST came along and took that crown. I used to have a stronger admiration for things considered &quot;camp&quot; when I first really got into movies, but that&#039;s lessened over time.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ClassyCo, post: 332979, member: 7"] For me, I define "camp" as a piece of film (whether small or big screen) that intends itself to be "serious", but yet flounders in its execution. I'd say DYNASTY was "camp" for a few seasons, when it was still trying to make us all believe that it was taking itself seriously. DYNASTY presented itself as being glittery, guilty pleasure trash, and it was trash, and I guess generically glittery, but it lacked a passion after a few seasons to actually keep people engaged. When the show eventually became "camp for camp's sake", it really went downhill. Season 6 thru Season 8 were really quite bad, and the show trying its hand at winking or being tongue-in-cheek just didn't work. It seemed forced and, as we've said numerous times, the writing for the characters had already stopped. They were just making things up as they went along (which many of the cast members have said) and that doesn't equate "camp". That equates laziness. As for MOMMIE DEAREST, I'd say it is probably the pinnacle of "camp". Joan Crawford and her real-life persona has a lot of "camp" wrapped up in it. She was devoted to stardom, always dressed to the nines, hopelessly devoted to Pepsi, and yet desperately wanted to be both a popular star and taken seriously as an actress. The film version of "Joan" we see in MOMMIE DEAREST takes some of those aspects and cranks it up several notches. The "Joan" we get in the movie is what the BKR video describes as "instant character". We instantly know who "Joan" of the movie is: she's powerful, to be obeyed, and nothing will boss her around or get in her way. That's the stuff "camp" is made of. And, I mean, c'mon, MOMMIE DEAREST is a enjoyably bad movie, crammed with quotable lines as if it were made purposely to be used in drag acts and parodies in the decades following its release. I'll have to excuse myself from analyzing (or trying to analyze) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS because I've never seen it. I've seen the AMC documentary that's been linked in an earlier post, but not the movie itself. I know some people say that DOLLS was the epitome of "camp" until MOMMIE DEAREST came along and took that crown. I used to have a stronger admiration for things considered "camp" when I first really got into movies, but that's lessened over time. [/QUOTE]

Verification

Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?

Poison your name this Hallowe'en

There's plenty of time to choose your spooky October username

Click here for more details

Reply to thread