1. Beyond Gay Men and After the Closet: Camp’s New Politics and Pleasures

Using reviews of the 2014 Eurovision Song Contest as its point of entry, Chapter 1 criticizes recent uses of camp that have neglected its serious component and largely ignored female agents, while foregrounding its “frivolous” aesthetics and gay male audiences. To re-establish camp’s critical edge, this introduction draws on foundational texts of camp scholarship from Sontag and Isherwood and connects them to recent theoretical interventions in queer media scholarship. Katrin Horn then proposes a new definition of camp as “detached attachment” to grasp its singular capability to engage with popular culture in a manner that allows for emotional investment and critical distance simultaneously. The chapter ends with overviews of subsequent readings of post-New Queer Cinema films, 30 Rock, and Lady Gaga as examples of camp in contemporary popular culture.