The New Age of Camp

In my rants against the hyper-seriousness of the Abrams lot and the utter lack of humor involved in (the majority of) most super-hero films, I forgot the obvious benefits: we have finally reached the New Age of Camp. 9/11, like the first nuclear Soviet test, has ushered the ethos of seriousness. We could die any minute! This is unacceptable! We must do everything in our power to ensure our lives of constant fear to go on as long as possible!

For 1950s film, the furrowed eyebrows over ‘the threat’ meant overdramatic Judy Garlands, and utterly straight faced films about men in gorilla suits with robot helmets. Today, it means overdramatic Fathers Teaching Sons, and, well, the gorilla suits are like, actually ping-pong balls on a green jumpsuit, processed through an array of supercomputers.

The helmets are still there. They cost one billion dollars to render.

It’s hard to say what camp actually is, other than something that I totally know what it is, and no one else does, and no, I can’t explain it to you, and if I have to, it will be through a combination of lines from Bloodrayne and Caged. Which you so won’t get. Instead, let’s rely on the Supreme Court’s majority opinion: ‘I don’t know what camp is, but I know it when I see someone saying: ‘I want to reiterate that the Navi-band is our sole means of communication’.