Mother Camp

"Esther Newton looked at drag queens, and an underground gay phenomenon that had been going on for an awful long time. It’s called camp. Let me tell you what a camp is. Camp is laughing to the point where we don’t have to cry about it. If you could imagine Stephen Colbert , instead of skewering politics by pretending to be a right-wing fanatic, skewering gender by pretending to be a femme fatale. It’s a self-reflective sense of humour – look what I can’t be, but look what I can make fabulous. Esther exposed camp and for the first time gave some dignity to drag. I think she should be forever thanked for that. I read it in 1979 when the feminists of the day were accusing drag queens of hating women and making fun of them. Early feminists were down on drag queens, and that’s the point of it. That went on for a long time. What changed and what stayed the same? Everything changed but the heart stayed the same. You ask what’s relevant about Mother Camp ? My answer is: The heart of it. It’s the whole concept of pro choice applied to gender."