3.19.11 Adam News & Info

Holy sh*t. I must have missed a whole lot in my education. Are only master and doctoratal degree students allowed access to information like what you have just quoted. I am sure I would have remembered reading something like you described if it had been presented to me. Are only intellectuals suppose to be enlightened and the worker bees just plod along like herds of sheep. No wonder the people in this country are so stupid we have to have arguments and pass laws letting everyone know who is and who isn't equal. There must be a better way to raise human beings. I wish we were all on the same page.

All right. Now here's a post I really do love, especially the bolded portion. One reason Adam confounds so many people is, I believe, because he inhabits a space that somehow incorporates both the hard edge and the soft emotional core. It is the very reason he is so difficult to pigeonhole. And he is unapologetic about his fuck you attitude AND his mama's boy desire to please.

Hooboy, now I feel like I've opened up a whole big kettle of worms that I didn't intend to, and I fear I've offended some people and I didn't intend to do that either. However, let me try to respond to this:

You're right, of course, in saying that literally, all "gay" means is "being sexually attracted to the same sex." I'm not trying to argue with that, per se. However, I think that a whole lot of other cultural things are associated with the term, just like a whole lot of things are associated with the term "american" beyond just being born in the U.S. (not the best definition, but you know what I mean). That is why there can be whole departments in university dedicated to "queer studies," and perhaps "queer," in its rehabilitated form, would have been a better word for me to use, as it's less technical, but it has not been quite rehabilitated in day to day conversation, so I avoided it. "Gay," in its less technical sense, or “Queer,” in its academic sense, also refer to a whole bunch of other things—broader things having to do with community and art and culture and politics and gender and all sorts of subjects. Just like “Jewish,” an imperfect example I use less nervously because I am Jewish, can mean both very simply being raised in a specific religion, and can also mean all sorts cultural things that are extremely independent of that religion—woody allen’s movies, for example, are culturally extremely Jewish—even the ones in which Judiasm is never mentioned. I don’t think saying this horribly stereotypes jews, even though I’m sure there are many who don’t like Allen’s humor at all, and many non-jews who find him hilarious. I don’t know how to be clearer than this.

Now:



I didn't claim that "camp" referred to someone being gay--simply that it was artistically/historically/stylistically connected to gay culutre, and there are many dictionary examples of this, but I don't need to look further than the one Q3 quoted (from Webster's as it happens) in her post:

Real definitions ----

Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, 1976 edition, sense 6, [Slang, orig., homosexual jargon, Americanism] banality, mediocrity, artifice, ostentation, etc. so extreme as to amuse or have a perversely sophisticated appeal

The term goes back to early 20th century US. It became a more widely used in the US in the early 1970's and was very closely associated with gay artists, style and designers. Some websites state the term originated in 1955-1960 -- but the earliest known written reference i can find is 1909 and the expression may be older. Undoubtedly this use of the term originated in the US Gay Community in the New York area.

I think it's fairly established that "camp" has cultural and artistic and historical connections to the gay community. That doesn't mean in any way that one can or should equate "camp" with "gay" as that idiotic article headline did. Camp may reference gay culture, but that doesn't mean anything more than that. There are needless to say countless gay artists who aren't in the least camp, and are still "true" to their sexuality, whatever that means, which is, as Bridget points out, almost nothing. Similarly, as I've already said, there are many camp artists who aren't gay.

Finally:




I of course completely agree with this, and think the "that's so gay" insult is incredibly offensive and also pretty much meaningless, it is so corrupted and stupid. But I still think that the gay community, and in cultural terms there is a gay community, endlessly mixed and complex and fuzzy at its edges, like any community--I think the gay community has produced some fantastic artistic and cultural trends throughout history, which it deserves specific credit for, and it would be a pity to wash those contributions away by painting the whole world with one boring blah brush in an effort to avoid stereotyping. One of the wonderful things about this world is that different cultures and communities and micro-cultures and micro-communities produce different kinds of art.

And I want to be clear--I am not trying to do anything but praise Adam to high heaven for his originality, and his savvy, and his humor, and his cultural sophistication, etc. etc. And I'm certainly not trying to box him in--any Adam is a wonderful, genuine Adam as far as I'm concerned. I love that he is many many things at once. I just happen to think that his campness is related, in some cultural, artistic sense to his gayness. But that is certainly not a bad thing--it is something that embraces the endless diversity within the community.

That would be very boring! I really enjoy these discussions and I learn a lot from my fellow posters. I don't have master's degree and English isn't even my first language. I wouldn't be able to write a post like rihannasu's or midwifepal's but I love pondering about this stuff. Sometimes, I am only here for the silly stuff. But it's all supposed to be fun.