Ahead of this year’s Met Gala, vintage archivist and camp enthusiast Gabriel Held walks us through the best moments in pop culture camp.
As Susan Sontag famously detailed in her 1964 essay “Notes on Camp,” “camp” was invented to describe something long in existence but rarely defined. In Sontag’s own words, “Movie criticism (like lists of ‘The 10 Best Bad Movies I have Seen’) is probably the greatest popularizer of Camp taste today, because most people still go to the movies in a high-spirited and unpretentious way.” In anticipation for this year’s Met Ball, and its theme of camp, Document asked vintage archivist and camp enthusiast, Gabriel Held, to walk us through his most treasured camp moments in television and film. Eat your heart out Susan!
1. Absolutely Fabulous
2. The Nanny
3. Tank Girl
4. Sex and The City
5. Party Girl
6. What a Way to Go
7. Cleopatra Jones
8. To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar
9. Nowhere
10. Priscilla Queen of the Desert
11. Tommy
12. Baps
