"The Campy Queer Sensibilities of Barbie" Transcript

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As of Sep 14, 2023

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How Barbie is a masterpiece of modern camp, and why queer people connected with it so much.

00:00 Introduction
08:53 Sponsor
09:56 Part 1
15:42 Part 2
21:56 Part 3
30:52 Part 4
38:20 Part 5

#Barbie #videoessay

As of Feb 26, 2024

[sponsor plug]

How Barbie is a masterpiece of modern camp, and why queer people connected with it so much.

[patreon link]

00:00 Introduction
08:53 Sponsor
09:56 Part 1
15:42 Part 2
21:56 Part 3
30:52 Part 4
38:20 Part 5

#Barbie #videoessay

As of Mar 04, 2024

How Barbie is a masterpiece of modern camp, and why queer people connected with it so much.

[patreon link]

00:00 Introduction
08:53 Sponsor
09:56 Part 1
15:42 Part 2
21:56 Part 3
30:52 Part 4
38:20 Part 5

#Barbie #videoessay

this video is brought to you by Manta sleep hi this video has nothing to do with Forrest Gump Forrest Gump is a 1994 inspirational drama starring Tom Hanks and is one of his most famous roles that is until he became famous for just being Tom Hanks and zoomer's unwittingly made the correct decision to maybe skip this movie and it's safe to say that Forrest Gump is not remembered fondly because I can hardly say that it's Remembered at all Forrest Gump is a simple movie incredibly straightforward it's the story of a man's life in America his story strings together a number of significant events in American history that he somehow managed to be a part of there are no iconic shots that particularly stand out other than him sitting on a bench and running despite this it won a whopping eight Academy Awards at the 67th Oscars out of 13 nominations the record for most nominations is shared between three films at 14 by the way though it could have had the 14 nominations if it had pushed Robin Wright for best actress though honestly that your best actress was a tough category though really best actresses usually a more interesting category than best actor in my humble opinion oh look at me I'm a man with some feelings who's done something horrible notably Forrest Gump basically took a lot of awards that should have gone to movies that even at the time critics knew would stand the test of time better according to every film studies program or movie critic either the Shawshank Redemption or Pulp Fiction deserved those accolades Pulp Fiction specifically holds a little bit more attention in the modern media landscape fitting perhaps uncomfortably into a category of work such as Scarface Fight Club and The Godfather for which a group of CIS men based their ideas of the modern masculine all the while being blissfully ignorant to the fact that each one of these examples serves to undermine and subvert traditional patriarchal values as they manifest in society's different projections of men also movies about organized crime of one sort of another anyway Pulp Fiction's most obvious claim to fame isn't really for the reflection of intellectual self-criticism that it has instead the film is remembered for its Vibes that is to say in an era of film which was become coming more and more obsessed with technique and formatting Pulp Fiction sought to recreate a 70s Nostalgia for serialized programming and what we refer to as B cinema including but not limited to black exploitation films for which Tarantino holds great reverence the goal of this aesthetic in Tarantino's larger body of work is to present lurid themes in provocative ways it's safe to say that each one of Tarantino's films can be described as a Pastiche of different kinds of exploitation films if not explicitly being exploitation films themselves Pulp Fiction in particular exemplifies these sensibilities as this story is a collection of vignettes about various characters narrated out of chronology hearkening to the early days of VHS home rentals where you might watch a movie series out of sequence depending upon which tape was in stock on any particular Friday night for instance I watched the original 9 Friday the 13th movies in the order of nine seven eight one two six four three five now Tarantino has said and done some questionable things in his career I'm not making any excuses for that however that can't diminish what he's brought to the table as a filmmaker a screenwriter who taught himself to direct because he didn't have the budget for a director is now regarded as one of American Cinema's greats though from one film geek to another the man is so single-mindedly obsessed with movies that it's hard not to admire his earnesty from everything Tarantino has said about his Inspirations he has no objective to make a parody of or correct any sensibilities of one of the b-movies that he loves so much Tarantino genuinely has a fondness for this style of film and through his work presents his audience with reasons to share in that fondness the objective is not to replace B cinema but to make contributions to it the more you watch Tarantino's Inspirations you realize that there are very few visual elements that are strictly original much of his work that is considered iconic is borrowed directly from directors that he would not hesitate to describe as masters of The Craft but most film nerds probably have never even heard of he's just very good at chopping it all up into the right size pieces and throwing it into a blender and in the process he Champions many of the sensibilities themes and Aesthetics of low rent 70s films the critics of the day decried as trash Tarantino's artistic message is that they were never trash people just weren't watching them the right way probably more so even than the Shawshank Redemption which received none of the 70 Academy Awards that it was nominated for Pulp Fiction's losses to Forest Gump are considered some of the great Oscar snubs in history though it's clear to see why Forrest Gump's primary objective was to lull its audience into nostalgic ego death by trailing a plot of feel-good emotional beats through an unlikely interconnected through line of America the content of the movie is problematic to say the least starting with but not limited to an able-bodied creative team generating an empowerment myth around a character with Developmental and physical disabilities justifying and anyone Can Make It in America mentality which Glides dangerously into encouraging casual ableism we see any number of instances of how it should be possible for the physically disabled to just get over their disabilities and become a football star for someone to go through the Vietnam War without any lingering trauma and scolding those with it and the less said about the book it's based on the better you think Tarantino is problematic the presentation of nostalgia in this movie was so toxic at Borders on American cultural propaganda it's this weird unification of political sensibilities conservative viewpoints appreciate seeing the underdog do the bootstraps thing especially without complaining about how hard it is to be disabled in America liberals like it because it showcases America as a land of freedom and opportunity where all the heavy lifting has already been done so they can say not in my backyard without feeling racist ableist or classist and for everyone watching it who was born in the 70s or earlier they get the Rick Dalton moment of spotting this fictional person going through that thing they lived through and that's why it got Oscars AIDS is tragic when a straight white woman gets it drug use is sympathetic only when it's to cope with childhood trauma and nobody needs therapy for anything exploring the realities of these situations and a seeming refusal to acknowledge how much luck Forest has for being in the right place at the right time with an amount of emotional fortitude that is unrealistic to expect of anyone is something the film does not do fun fact I had no idea I hated Forrest Gump this much before beginning to write this script however Pulp Fiction and by extension Tarantino's body of work also relies heavily on Nostalgia though it's a different kind of nostalgia whereas Forrest Gump is specifically Guided by an invisible hand through a series of various events in American history thereby tricking you into believing that this story is quintessentially American Tarantino's work confronts the audience with various cinematic Style from the past even though Jackie Brown takes place in the 1990s when the movie was made the sensibilities remind you of a movie that happened in the 1970s and even though Django Unchained takes place in the 1800s the sensibilities remind you of a western from the 1960s Kill Bill vol 1 has sensibilities like a 70s Hong Kong action movie while Volume 2 smashes together the sensibilities of Kurosawa and Leone the nostalgic elements are in the meta narrative the events in these movies are not familiar however the techniques framing devices themes narrative Styles acting choices Aesthetics and visual references what we refer to as the sensibilities of artistic media are reminiscent of older Styles oftentimes the kind of media we had grown up with and while this style of B-movie never really received a claim while they were being made back in the day creators who have the ability and ambition to recreate these styles are celebrated again Tarantino is not validating an existing artistic sensibility he is Dem demonstrating that these elements had always been valid something to keep in mind for going into this video which is as stated not about Forrest Gump but it's also not about Pulp Fiction

So...

[James takes off his coat and pink lights light up the set.]

Let's talk about Barbie.

James Somerton
Presents

Written By
Nick Herrgott & James Somerton

Edited By
James Somerton

Lighting By
Nick Herrgott

Executive Producers [Eight Patron Names]

Executive Producers [Ten Patron Names]

Deep Pink
The Depth and Significance of The Barbie Movie

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] this video is brought to you by Manta sleep Manta makes the world's best sleep masks and sleep accessories a huge part of their mission is taking a stand against hustle culture and giving naps a PR makeover and their Pro nap movement the pro nap movement is about rejecting counterproductive nap shaming corporate BS and reclaiming what should have always been yours in the first place Your vitality one of the ways they're doing this is by launching their line of specialized sleep masks these aren't just flimsy pieces of fabric you throw over your eyes at bedtime these have cushioned infinitely adjustable eye cups to fit any face you can get a traditional sleep mask a mask designed for cooling one that produces steam a weighted mask a silk masks with unmatched ventilation and even one with built-in speakers as a huge fan of ASMR that's my favorite it has razor thin headphones and 20 hours of battery life take control of your sleep and get some of your own Barbie magic back with a manta sleep mask just use my code s-o-m-e-r-t-o-n at the link below to get the kind of Beautyrest only Barbie could dream of [Music] foreign awaited movie about the titular line of dolls by Mattel which have been a staple of American business since 1959. it seemed for some time that this Barbie movie would remain a development hell due to the divisive nature of a toy which is often criticized for its portrayal of women and due to the divisive nature of Amy Schumer who was originally poised to star before the creative team switched to Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig we almost got a very different movie thank sea fillers love them for some reason this movie got very hype very quickly even before the review embargo was lifted critics who saw early screenings were already speculating about Academy Awards attention and likewise for two weeks following the release it was difficult to find empty seats at any time of day some who would live through the 70s compared this to the release of Star Wars Barbie earns that comparison the thing about Barbie that strikes me as the most remarkable is what was just under discussion here its sensibilities to the Gaze there is a reason we first flock towards Barbie memes from the teaser trailer which was a parody of 2001 A Space Odyssey and then participated in the barberheimer discourse as it became apparent that Barbie was going to be more than counter programming for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer it was direct competition from the very first leaks of Barbie's Cowboy outfit spotted in Venice Beach to the Absurd reference to 2001 this movie felt familiar to us granted it's one thing to throw out camp sensibilities in a teaser trailer but the entire movie really was this campy which taking the film itself out of consideration it should not be the case that it can't be rump between LA and Barbie land should be taken as seriously as it has been both for Technical and creative early Awards contention all the while being a cultural Sensation that caused a pink shortage around the world Camp is associated with movies like Barbarella Elvira or Batman and Robin Camp is what happens when you fail so hard at making serious drama that you create Mommy Dearest or show Girls Camp is for silly theater campus for the queers Camp isn't supposed to be for proper prestigious Cinema Camp isn't supposed to go mainstream Studio Executives couldn't tell the difference between Death Becomes Her and There's Something About Mary well this is the problem with Camp as an artistic sensibility sensibilities are called that because they're not a proper genre and they're largely unqualifiable outside of direct examples like B-movie Aesthetics Camp is largely dependent on context and the ability to establish context where this is not only possible but where this is the norm Death Becomes Her leaves no question that any single aspect of the narrative is outside the norm whatsoever from beginning to end it is the world that is Camp and the characters are elevated to exist within it the context is the comedy the setting needs to do some heavy lifting to establish this that way by the time the main characters decide they need to kidnap their ex-husband so he can continue doing their makeup to make them look alive they're already participating in this heightened campy World meanwhile There's Something About Mary is rooted almost entirely within the context of the real world There's Something About Mary means that this particular Mary though more specifically the events surrounding her are outside the realm of normal but to discuss a distance from reality the audience needs to maintain their view of reality elevated performances are standouts mainly because Ben Stiller's character the audience's cipher is depicted as just a normal guy trying to get the girl again this is a world where according to the sensibilities of the movie people should be acting normal and there is a tension drawn to people who are elevate rated the elevated characters are framed as Outsiders to Conventional real world sensibilities Camp C akes to shift the social conventions that we take for granted something like shaking someone's hand in a job interview is a social construct and is a learned behavior within the parameters of euro-american etiquette this is not to be confused with though within the hegemony it almost always is a more Universal element of human nature for which instinctively hugging people you care about is more typical thus to the people who do not exist within the framework of euro-american cultural imperialism a handshake is a gesture that doesn't mean anything at all conventions around gender sexuality etiquette and formality can be subverted because they only exist insofar as we acknowledge them we know this because though gender exists in every pre-colonial culture the number of genders and social roles of each gender can differ vastly likewise in Camp the media in question can construct its own independent rules about how one should act for instance Faye dunaway's Joan Crawford becomes the gold standard for how people are expected to behave in this world of Mommy Dearest unfortunately it's not an exact science dunaway's acting choices were so outrageous that it eclipses everything else on screen without adequate framing devices namely another character to act as her foil or stronger direction to properly frame this performance the audience can take it for granted that her degree of intensity is just how people are supposed to act in this world she is the lead character after all and so all performances that do not meet her by comparison are the Absurd ones granted it really helps the Joan Crawford herself was a very elevated person in a very elevated world it's easy to make Camp about show business because the day-to-day reality of existing in this world is outrageous without a framing device to contextualize how Faye Dunaway fits into reality as a human person she becomes a caricature and a scene which is not fictitious for people who have lived through abusive parents can become comedic to people who haven't simply because the media does not equip the audience to understand how this particular human interaction fits into the context of real life and this relationship dichotomy between real and hypothetical is particularly important Barbie in this work of fiction there are at least two parallel worlds there is our world and then there is Barbie land Barbie land's existence is under explained but through context and framing we can gather how they are connected Barbie land is the Hub of collective consciousness of people actively partaking in Barbie the way people in the real world choose to engage with the idea of Barbie influences events in Barbie land and the variations of Barbie which are theoretically infinite the politics Logistics and laws of physics in Barbie land are errantly dismissed in a way that is communicated directly and indirectly to the audience what are the Ken's day I don't know the rules of the real world are shifted on a fundamental level creating an alternate universe that can be constructed on a camp platform alternate universes are an excellent framing device for camp this is half the reason why show business is so Rife with Camp sensibilities by all accounts getting into American show business is a whole different spectrum of reality granted if you wanted to pick a parallel world to American politics but inexcusably replace all male stereotypes with women Camp is one tool that you can lean on to justify the mechanics of that world and given that camp has a cultural background in subverting gender to comedic effect it's a good match and furthermore when you're making a movie about a line of dolls existing in another world where dolls typify the boundaries of Womanhood they are meant to represent in a plotted discourse about the intersection of woman and the idea of women why not just Go the whole way the collection of Barbies in this place is governed by the real world Collective consciousness of the idea of Barbie and how people play with Barbie casting Margot Robbie as stereotypical Barbie is an act of casting so inspired it seems to be the only valid choice but Barbies are also doctors politicians reporters authors lawyers astronauts and even construction workers instruction site we need that good feminine energy any idea that someone playing with Barbie has about Barbie will present itself in Barbie land according to the driving philosophy of Barbie women can be and are anything this is just a little bit more literal in Barbie land but this works for good and bad things as presented by the driving plot of the movie look at your upper thigh it's not cellulite that's going to spread everywhere and then you're going to start getting sad and Wishy complicated no this kind of ubiquitous Barbie experience facilitates and justifies how Barbies would have access to this range of knowledge and experience the audience doesn't need to question it because Barbie land isn't the real world there is no reason not to take it for granted just like in the real world we seem to just take it for granted that women earn 70 cents on the dollar for every dollar a man makes Camp is the best asset the film has for engaging in academic discourse which also cues the audience in to read deeper into the subtext Camp as a phenomenon has been predominantly associated with Notions of extravagance irony and theatricality the concept of Camp media is deeply rooted in gendered perceptions and has over time come to be associated with a predominantly feminine sensibility which is why I would argue many critics look down upon it but with Barbie camp instead of functioning as a sensibility functions rather as the very framing device for Barbie land so there is license to afford the plot some silliness as well as intellectualism money is not speech and corporations have have no free speech rights to begin with so any claim on their part to be exercising or right is just their attempt to turn our democracy into a plutocracy if I wasn't severely injured I would beat you off right now Ken if I'll be chop with you any day cat nobody's going to beat anyone off neither of those two performances seem out of place here Barbie is a toy which means that naturally frivolity is going to be a component of how people engage with this idea however as Barbie is an adult featured doll directed at allowing girls to develop expectations about adulthood outside of motherhood Barbie land is naturally going to reflect the use of this toy to project those fantasies a hush balls over the general assembly as Stacy approaches the podium to deliver what will no doubt be a stirring and memorable address do you guys everything about dying oh this is where Barbie gets interesting from a literary standpoint because while it may just seem to use Camp sensibilities it also presents a possible evolution of Camp through the use of Camp to present the audience with unfiltered gender Theory at which point Camp is less of an aesthetic and more of a literary device whereas before Camp relied on literary devices in order to present itself defamiliarization the carnivalesque irony maximalism Etc here Camp itself is the vessel being used to present what amounts to gender Theory 101 which isn't an insult by any means it's rare that any kind of gender discourse makes it into a movie these days when giving a woman a sword is the least amount of effort it takes to evoke a collection of basement dwellers to rise up and act so obnoxiously that the world thinks that there's just so many of them when there's like eight Kemp allows Barbie to pass off these academic elements as just part of the absurdist comedy everything exists to expand and Elevate the presence of men just because this is framed as a joke and it is comedic shouldn't suggest it's not true this may very well be quoting or paraphrasing a textbook comedy here is just an angle about how this information is presented if my life wasn't funny it would just be true and that is completely unacceptable this isn't entirely unique to the Barbie movie cartoons will often engage with real world phenomena in comedic ways what makes Barbie Stand Out is the dichotomy between the real world and Barbie land the transit between the two places in Barbie land Camp really can only function in a theoretical way offering commentary about Concepts but no real application the structure of the Barbie movie allows for the camp sensibility to not only pass into the real world but afford a framing device for using Camp to directly confront elements of our reality in a way that would not have been possible in the campy at theoretical Barbie land the shift in atmosphere brings Camp sensibilities to the real world viscerally it makes sense for Barbie and Ken to deconstruct the real world in a way that aligns with the direct defamiliarized sensibilities that exist in Barbie land it's like saying the quiet part loud and there's no undertone of violence mine very much has an undertone of violence through Barbie and Ken's existence in a subverted reality we see their expectations of the real world shift dramatically where once it was taken for granted the Kens as men were designated second-class citizens he is confronted with a different reality rather than Camp challenging the sensibilities of reality as we are accustomed to reality is challenging the sensibilities of Camp which through the First Act the audience has been conditioned to take for granted suddenly there's water coming out of that glass I'm not used to that having anything in it Camp has a role in being able to afford these characters insight into the real world and by proxy the audience that one cannot garnish from existing within it and taking it for granted Barbie land being another world entirely sets a very literal framing device not only for camp but a commentary on Camp where Barbie land is a vessel for camp and the real world is literally desaturated Camp sensibilities look acceptable in a camp environment though in a realistic environment they stick out bearing in mind that this is an absurdist comedy and much of the delivery exists within that style of humor and I would just like to inform you I do not have a vagina and he does not have a penis in the real world there is no attempt to interject Camp sensibilities into the plot human characters largely act in accordance with the conventional etiquette of our world with the exception of the Mattel headquarters provided Mattel's proximity to Barbie land many of the same mechanics from there also seem to have permeated the workplace they after all owe their success to selling molded plastic which vaguely resembles a human woman and acts as a vessel for the idea of a woman Will Ferrell's Mattel CEO is also not necessarily a CEO but befits the most idealized idea of a CEO you think I spent my entire life in boardroom because of a bottom line no I got into this business because of little girls and their dreams and the least creepy way possible while stereotypical Barbie threw the growth and development of her personhood becomes disillusioned with her perfect plastic life and opts for a wider range of lived experiences it seems like Will Ferrell's character is much more at home in the absurdism of Barbie land Mr Mattel at least relax call me mother no thank you and honestly observing how people pass between the real world and Barbie land is in and of itself worthy of commentary regarding the effect of the ideas of the real world versus the inability of the real world of permeate ideas real world sensibilities when they enter the realm of camp become Camp okay kids it's time to run out and get the new depression Barbie she wears sweatpants all day and night and this applies to the patriarchy thank God this movie finally talks about masculine camp for so long everyone always Associated camp with femininity and feminine Expressions but we now have a visceral example of how easily Camp sensibility can be retooled to apply to masculine spaces too and we're not even going to talk about professional wrestling because that's a that's a whole other video there's a whole other video about that [Music] yeah it's coming the exact mechanics of how a single can applied patriarchal values to an entire world are not as important this is a world constructed on play-like logic and concept why were the Barbies corrupted well Camp as a device allows for a focus on theme and message how it happened is significantly less important than why it happened the short answer is that Barbie land has already abundantly established itself as not holding itself to the same logical standard as our world we don't need to be able to rationalize what's happening through the Ken's takeover of Barbie land we see a feminine perspective on what it's like to exist within exclusively masculine sensibilities and how if left unchecked a group of men can quickly descend into that same kind of absurdism that we saw in the opening section of the movie The sensibilities remain the same but the aesthetic completely changes Sublime the framing is antagonistic Barbie land functions on a particular status quo such as our world and when the status quo is upset in our world there are significant powers that seek to divide and conquer to re-establish that the presentation of these new mask camps sensibilities are almost identical to the earlier sensibilities we have earlier and it's girls night hurry up the president's here I am you're welcome and then come on in I'll play the guitar at you we observed the first scene as camp and yet I think I can say declaratively that we see the second one as cringe I feel as if the presentation and context for these deliveries are fairly similar and same with all the Ken's chaotic Ridiculousness from excessive veneration of the select group of highlighted films and strategies for picking up girls the general aesthetic seems to be much more unappealing simply because due to the range of expression afforded to Men by patriarchal values there is a greater freedom to push these sensibilities into the real world the reason we see this as cringe whereas the Dreamhouse aesthetic was Camp is because we are confronted with kendam sensibilities so often there is nothing really to de-familiarize we live in Kingdom already it's just as heightened as Barbie land but we in the real world have already acclimated to it you can't tell me that the sensibility is expressed in movies like die hard Rambo The Expendables The Fast and Furious aren't drawing from the same incredibly heightened Joan crawford-esque pool of themes as Showgirls and yet there is a refusal to mark them as Camp because I would argue we simply take this boys will be boys mentality about boy things and boy Aesthetics as a cultural for granted fast X will never be considered Camp except by those of appropriately refined taste because we exist in a world where that is the for granted element of gender expression and that isn't to say that it's bad for those who haven't been paying attention to this channel for the last three years I love campy things the problem becomes when we hold that as the standard for gendered media expectations for a young boy growing up saturated in that media what kind of man is that going to generate as opposed to women whose gender sensibilities when elevated to those Heights are considered to be deviations from the norm at which point we invent the term Camp to describe those sensibilities in a way the Fast and the Furious Shenanigans are just a normal action movie Megan is just camp and here we find an underlying theme probably one of the core themes of Barbie that the real fantasy of Barbie land was that it existed as a space where women did not need to justify their Womanhood and of course this also shouldn't suggest that the patriarchy doesn't also put this Spotlight on men as well as evidenced by the countless generations of men who do terrible things in order to live up to the example of a perceived father figure who also sought The elusive pride of his father figure but it's not Daddy Issues if you're a man society just holds it up up his boys being boys though what many of us who chronically exist in gender discourse may not understand is that these concepts are almost entirely unexplored by those outside of queerness and femininity and now I just gave each of you of a certain age an uncomfortable flashback to that time you were drinking with your old friends from high school who are now straight married wherein one of their spouses proceeds to lay out this whole finger-wagging discourse about gender and they're not really saying anything wrong but the tone of voice and the authority of the wagging finger seems to indicate that this is a grand Treatise that only the most critical of thinkers have discerned meanwhile this is the kind of stuff that you live with day in and day out so it's not really as groundbreaking as your friend's spouse seems to think it is but they don't really understand this when you try to explain it to them because they live in a Suburban bubble where they use homemaking to recuse themselves from participating in gender discourse but what pisses you off is that they still feel entitled to their two bits in spite of the recusal Barbie's lighthearted approach to projecting these elements of gender Theory to that end function to great effect by communicating these ideas to that audience and this was only possible through its use of Camp sensibilities to present them which as I said is a remarkable and creative use for camp in a way that has not really been widely received by the public at large before especially not as critically successfully as this movie has been but that raises some questions about how the future of camp in cinema will play out whether like through Pulp Fiction there will be a sudden retrospective veneration of Camp as there was for the exploitation films or if it will just be accepted as an outlier which prompts us to observe how Camp is manifesting in other examples today [Music] Camp has become an increasingly prominent form of comedic delivery in the prior few years and very likely due to covet 19. when larger Studios head to postpone Productions and releases of new content smaller Studios were able to adapt to regulations producing media which required smaller casts and Crews I've already spoken about everything everywhere all at once which though I hadn't mentioned it does lean heavily into Camp also to its benefit is one of the rare Blockbuster examples of a camp-oriented movie for which a starring role is a queer character Camp is used as a delivery device to justify a marriage of outrageous concepts with deeply resonant themes also noteworthy for earning an Oscar for horror icon Jamie Lee Curtis whose wheelhouse of slasher movies should have been a black mark against her that was only earlier this year whether by chance or if the film's immediate success hearkened an overnight shift in cultural values spurring editors and directors to nudge in-development projects towards this kind of camp we have seen in the year and a half since everything everywhere all at once its release a marked injection of these sensibilities into acclaimed Cinema among the most high profile examples is polarizing divisive writer and director Ryan Johnson's Glass Onion starring Daniel Craig and Janelle Monae Monet who attempted to outheard their self as pansexual with a song about how great vaginas were while wearing high fashion vulva trousers was misconstrued as making a generalized girl power Anthem to which she had to make a public statement clarifying that no it was gay and that was all Steven Tyler can make a song by the same name and everybody gets it but when Janelle Monae does it it's all Vagina Monologues girl how much sexuality do we have to rub in your face to be acknowledged exactly in Glass Onion a sequel to knives out a murder mystery which makes it abundantly clear who the murderer is but does its best to Gaslight you in doubting yourself Janelle Monae plays Andy brand she is a successful businesswoman who was the brains behind Alpha a tech company alluded to be similar to Facebook or Amazon she was zucked out of the company by her ex-friend and business partner miles Braun Ron is very closely based on and when Andy wounds his ego by blocking miles's attempt to invest in a highly unstable fuel source because he thinks that anything new means the future of everything he convinces their friend group to help cheat Andy out of her shares of alpha when Andy teases that she found a pivotal piece of evidence that will not only prove that Alpha was her intellectual property but will remove miles from the company and destroy the reputation of her suddenly no longer best friends miles murders her Monet also plays Andy's twin sister Helen an Alabama Elementary School teacher with nobody else in the cast except for the killer aware that Andy is dead Helen reaches out to gentleman sleuth Benoit blah and he hatches a plan to figure out which one of the friend group killed Andy by making everyone think that Helen is Andy these movies are less about keeping you on the edge of your seat to guess who done it and more about showing you a myriad of reasons about why rich people are just the worst the plot itself could be passed for drama we have a white man murdering a black woman to not only steal her success but also her Legacy and to get away with it scot-free which is tragic though aside from the dark plot there's this ugly betty-esque absurdity hiding behind bushes solving a grandchild dramatic staged murder chronic name dropping of cultural references and of course Benoit blah in general specific plot points such as the twin swap feel perfectly at home with camp but there are other instances a character being murdered on an island and the Coast Guard being unable to come because miles insists on a dock that's more of an art piece than something useful and therefore is only functional at low tide generating a character you hate so much that you really don't mind watching the destruction of the Mona Lisa just to get at them Benoit blah who at this point is a confirmed gay man spends about five minutes reading elot I mean miles Brawn miles Brawn miles Brawn for Filth again these movies are more about how terrible rich people are and likewise they seem to paint people like miles Braun as possessing so much wealth that they have the option of literally and figuratively separating themselves from reality and if you have the kind of wealth that extends in into the billions constructing the kind of Grecian Island Paradise home that would bankrupt most Nations is just a drop in the bucket at which point it becomes normal to spend the kind of Fortune that would be otherwise needed to eradicate homelessness in a reasonably large city to install a giant glass Monument on the top floor of your Island Home complete with a rotating display case that contains a custom designed car it becomes normal to contract Jillian flinton to craft a convoluted fictional murder mystery in order to entertain a handful of friends for the weekend it becomes normal to hide an invitation in a multi-layer puzzle box because all the other rich people in this movie take it for granted that this is normal and thus our POV character becomes highlighted as the abnormal one because she does not have the time or patience for this however the concern for me is that well if Camp is going mainstream what does that mean for the kind of comedy and heightened drama we have been associating with Cam for years as far as murder mysteries go both clue and Glass Onion May both be camp but clue seems to lean into camp in a bit more of a fundamental way than Glass Onion does a concern I would have is that more prestigious creators are taking the wacky Whimsical absurdism of camp and desaturating it to make it more palatable and align with the more emotional drama of good character construction rather than just Flames flame Flames flames on the side of my face because as much as I like seeing Camp become elevated to valid use as a filmmaking tool for helping audiences identify with characters in outrageous situations I don't want to see movies like clue get priced out because they can't do camp with a special effects budget well part of the wonders of being alive today means that you can take a relatively small budget and get a reasonably convincing CGI bear who is ripped on cocaine to great effect do you find yourself lethargic are you unwilling to engage in society at large do you have difficulty finding enjoyment in things you used to love are you struggling to find ways to enjoy a story that spends most of his time trying to overbuild a world in the expectation it will be paid off in sequels do you expect all movies to be the same and become afraid when they have different pacing or plot beats that feel strange and unfamiliar you may be suffering from too many Marvel movies people who suffer from too many Marvel movies will speculate endlessly with their friends about possible spin-off ideas for television programs but won't tell them that they're exhausted from having to do hours of binging and research to understand what's going on at any given episode because they just don't know what else keeps the Friendship alive if exposed to too many Marvel movies at a young age you may even reject well-made films because they don't have the Staples of Marvel movies or you may gauge the quality of Cinema based on arbitrary Marvel values such as the suit up sequence but there is a solution ask your doctor about taking a break from morph movies side effects may include a sudden realization of how the Marvel formula has permitted all movies being made in the last 10 years disappointment movies that you don't need to speculate about in order to enjoy a lack of dopamine from ignoring Marvel movie announcements a drastic increase of unrealistic expectations for filmmakers judging a movie entirely based on the quality of CGI and automatic consumption that anything that is popular is automatically a poor quality potterheads are especially at risk if you find yourself revisiting Harry Potter contact your doctor immediately it's time to start taking a break from Marvel movies because there's more to life all right foreign side effect to The Fall of the House of feige is that movie theaters actually have screens for things other than CGI compositing disaster spandex soap operas now for which a decrease in Creative oversight results in a sprawling cinematic Empire owing its Twilight years to a collective of fans who have been gaslit into believing that the Marvel Cinematic formula is the only possible let alone valid method of presenting a film for which audiences only remaining primary draw to these movies isn't to enjoy these stories but to be able to participate in online speculation about who may or may not be Mephisto and I do mean that theaters actually have screens for smaller movies now a read of some people who in rural American communities could not see everything everywhere all at once when it came out because Spider-Man no way home was still holding all the screens at smaller theaters three months after its release but with Marvel movie news chilling the crap out for a little bit not to mention this strikes we're getting exposure to the kind of movie news that we haven't seen since before Obama suddenly you don't need to make a CGI spectacle trailer to pull attention at Hall age at Comic-Con smaller movies from smaller Studios can attract audiences through more traditional methods without getting drowned out by A Chorus of Marvel movies and movies trying to be Marvel movies which is great for things like everything everywhere all at once and Barbie but also good for movies that don't need to be highly stylized and have the backing of wealthy sponsors in Marvel's Russo refugees in the last two years I've seen a public interest in Camp that has been growing cocaine bear Megan and the blackening am I allowed to talk about the blackening have found audiences that would not have been afforded to them under the reign of Marvel the blackening in particular I'm going to talk about the blackening I found to be an amazing archetypal example of how Camp can be used to join an absurdist commentary of current social trends namely being black in America within Blackness and within the white hegemony as well as present very real moments as I said earlier Camp seems to be an excellent tool for creators to distinguish what is real and what is fantasy in a way where neither disrupts the tone but then again in spite of my my initial framing around Barbie perhaps suddenly validating camp that may have been misleading Barbie seems to be a very high profile instance of brazen Camp being accepted by a mass audience and critics alike because for all we associate camp with being frivolous or lesser than other serious sensibilities all of the aforementioned creators Greta Gerwig the Daniels and Ryan Johnson are oscar-winning and oscar-nominated and there are other acclaimed directors who lean heavily into Camp as well bosslerman takawatiti Wes Anderson and jorgos lanthamos are all building prestigious careers of the kind of humor and absurdism that had Spice World panned by critics though venerated as a legend of Camp by critics today on one level this may be surprising however a closer examination of cinematic history shows that this style of theatricalism was once the status quo for drama and comedy alike there are arguments to be made for limitations of what camp can be for many within the queer Community they may say the camp can only be in regard to things about or directed at queer people that there is an unspoken Democratic order within the community that nominates content to be held up as camp that only a queer Collective of lived-in sensibilities can designate Camp alternatively there are creatives who would reject having a camp label on their content due to the queer association with camp Camp was not a direct intentional component of who's Afraid of Virginia wool for All About Eve films with legendary impact and accolades the thing about camp that sets it apart from other sensibilities and ultimately why those of taste are drawn to it is that it's an autores device well granted it is possible to accidentally step into Camp through a creative team's misalignment of sensibilities however it's much more difficult to generate camp on purpose in order to create camp with intent a very steady hand is required of the creative team it can't be artificially replicated by a committee or a focus group a boardroom of Executives can't create camp with a checklist because as I mentioned of sensibilities it is found in the non-quantifiable elements of Framing and delivery go too far and you make something cringy there's a reason the gays don't remember the live-action Mario movie not going far enough is just boring Die Another Day nearly killed the bond franchise to know where the perfect balance is which some creators may accidentally step into you need to exist within Camp and genuinely enjoy Camp to understand it Barbie was able to be made the way that it was because Greta Gerwig did not have a whole lot of executive oversight from Warner Brothers the so she and other creators had an opportunity to create they understood camp in a way that many if not all Executives would not after all the Barbie movie was made while Executives at Warner Discovery were desperately trying to sort out a merger and dealing with a studio that can't seem to hold on to cash in spite of owning DC Harry Potter Lord of the Rings Lego The Matrix the Looney Tunes Batman Mortal Kombat and The Conjuring when Camp is made deliberately it is made by creatives without executive oversight and as proof that Executives have no idea what camp is cats movies are not reality they're an artistic version of reality and for this reason Camp is perhaps a more natural state of being it recognizes the falseness of the real world and how even the term reality is fraudulent there is no universal truth no matter how those of privilege like to project their version of the truth as universal but we know us Outsiders we know that truth is subjective we know that our truth is not the truth of those who have oppressed us so we are drawn to this artistic vessel that makes a mockery out of truth and the social conventions we have been rejected from many of us may as well have been rejected from reality itself and so we make our own worlds our Barbie world we build our dream houses and in them we casually discuss the changing manifestations of gender the way the straight and CIS makes small talk over the changing weather as the idea of the stereotypical Barbie left Barbie land it was because the idea of Barbie had become real it was no longer an ideal that little girls could only hope to project into their future this Barbie became something little girls can actually grow up to be and all of us outside the confines of accepted normal long for that in some capacity many of us want to exist in these Suburban spaces raising a family the way the Straits would but that's not what real means not for everyone to be real is to be seen and acknowledged in spite of lifestyle and choices to be taken as a for granted in what one may expect to see to make no justifications or exceptions to be unexceptional and accepted to face no friction for whatever one is or however one would choose to live to be able to justify one's own life regardless of whether it is a choice or not without needing to be born a certain way to justify one's own existence and whether swimming with the current or against it we all want to feel as if we exist and someday soon the idea of Barbie May no longer be just a concept that a person who people think of as less than women people of color queer people really can be anything as this idea enters into the real world the original idea that facilitated her is no longer just an idea it becomes reality ideas are fixed and static standing still waiting to become real the role we play is deciding which ideas may become real because anything really is possible so don't let anyone keep you inside of a box oh and Barbie is absolutely asexual [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] thank you [Music] thank you [Music]

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