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Barbara Jane Brickman, "Suffering Sappho! Lesbian Camp in American Popular Culture" (Rutgers UP, 2023)
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A
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- [01:07]
B
Hi. Welcome back to the New Books Network. My name is Leah Cargan. I am the podcast coordinator on the editorial staff of the Journal of Women's History. Today I'm joined by Dr. Barbara Jane Brickman, a professor of Media and Gender studies at the University of Alabama. Her work has appeared in Camera Obscura Discourse and the Journal of Popular Music Studies. Since the publication of her first book, New American the Lost Generation of Youth in 1970s film. She has written a volume on the film Grease for Rutledge's Cinema and Youth Culture series. She is also the founder and the director of the Druid City Girls Media Project in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Today we're discussing Brickman's most recent monograph, Suffering Sappho Lesbian Camp and American Popular Culture from Rutgers University Press and published in November 2023. It was also the winner of the 2024 Judy Grant Award winning for lesbian nonfiction. Welcome to the podcast, Barbara.
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A
Thank you so much for having me, Leah. I'm looking forward to talking about the book.
- [02:10]
B
We're discussing your recent monograph, Suffering Sappho Lesbian Camp in American Popular Culture.
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A
So first Elias today.
- [02:18]
B
Excellent, amazing, beautiful cover. But I think first what we have to talk about is just what is camp for those that don't know, for those that are introduced to this Idea for the first time, what is camp? And then how are you? How do you see camp? Are there any differences in how camp study sees it versus how you see it?
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A
Okay, I'm going to try to be short, but camp is kind of a bit of a bear. It's a bit of a. And everybody always says that, like, it's hard to define camp. It is. So I'm going to. But I'm going to try be. I'm going to try to be concise. We'll see how that goes. I think it's best with camp to start with, like, the definition that kind of. Everybody knows. So when you think of something that's campy, right? Like, most people know, like, this over the top, exaggerated kind of too much, so bad, it's good kind of campiness, you know, that's, like, familiar to us. Like, like. I mean, yeah, sometimes it's connected to sex and gender. Or we think of, like, RuPaul's Drag Race, right? We think of drag queens as, like, campy, right? And that's something that most people kind of get. Like, for me, because I'm an old person, I often think of the 60s Batman, the TV show that was like, Biff Pow. And then this really, like, the really saturated colors. You know, it's like every plot is, like, completely outrageous. Then you have, like, Adam west, who's, like, very serious Batman, and then, like, Burgess Meredith and Cesar Romero, who are, like, crazy, totally over the top Joker, right? So that, like, that, for me is like. I think most people go, oh, okay, that's campy, right? And then I think there's a second definition or a second kind of sense. And still a lot of people know what we would call, like, unintentional camp or what Paul Baker calls kind of unintentional over the top failure. So this is something like. And God bless her, I hope she's well. Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls. Okay, okay. So, like, Elizabeth Berkeley is at, like, a 12. Like, she's angry all the time, and her performance is just completely absurd. She's trying, right? Like, she's, like, in there. And then, like, Paul Verhoeven has apologized because he was like, I kind of directed her to be, like, up here. And then it was seen as ridiculous, right? Like, she's like, would you like a cup of coffee? Whoa. You know, and she's like, right. Like, yeah, lots of. So that's what you would think of as, like, unintentional camp. Like, so then people go to a movie like Showgirls, and Enjoy it for what you could think of as a kind of failure, okay? Like B movie. Like, I'm very serious, and you're in a B movie, and it's terrible. And then, like, in the same time as Showgirls, like, Gina Gershon knows what's going on and is performing, right? She's, like, in on the joke. Whereas Elizabeth Berkeley, bless her, please don't send me hate mail. But I don't think she was in on the joke, right? And so there's a whole audience of people who go for, like, a camp reading of a movie or a camp theater, right? Like, I'm gonna go to Showgirls because it's so bad or because her performance is so bad. And that's camp. Like, I'm enjoying. I have a camp sense of humor. I have a camp kind of what we call a sensibility, right? Like, I can. I am enjoying this terrible thing, okay? Sontag calls it a seriousness that fails. Right? So this person is super serious and they're failing, and we find it hilarious. So I think those two ideas of camp kind of circulate in the mainstream, and we kind of understand that, okay? Out of that idea, that second idea is this idea that there's a camp sensibility, and that's where it kind of gets a little more complicated in terms of, like, it's a sense of humor. It's a sense of taste. It's a style that. It has two modes, consumption and production, right? So there are people who consume because they have the sense sensibility. They have this, like, sense of what's hilarious or bad or, you know, and so there's this whole idea that there's like, a way, a kind of camp reception of something like Showgirls, right? And so that's a part of camp where you kind of read people pop culture in this way, this kind of acerbic, humorous, ironic way. And you have these objects that you love that are these camp objects, right? So there's that, like, reception side of it. And you love the exaggerated and the failed. And that's, like, part of your sensibility, your. Your. Your kind of taste. And then that sensibility also can be a kind of creative force. So you have this idea that somebody is a camp or somebody can. Camp means that they are performing, right? They are practicing camp. And they think that's. We. We most often associate that with drag queens or queens.
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B
Okay?
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A
Right. So they are camp practitioners in a way. Right? They are people who practice the art of camp.
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B
Yes.
- [07:24]
A
And it includes this bitter wit. It includes These kind of references to popular culture. And it also. You can also be somebody just like, in your community who's a camp, right? Like, so you could just be a camp. Who is the. In your social group is the, like, cutting, biting, terrible wit, right. That nobody wants turned on them. Right. And so I think. And I think it. That becomes confusing because camp can be something you practice, it can be something that you perform, but it also can be something that you just kind of. You just love as a spectator. You're just somebody who, like, wants to be in the audience and have a camp reading of something. Right. From those two kind of modes, okay. What I was interested really was the historical creation of that practice, of that sensibility of that. Right. Like, so I was. I was interested in where that comes from and looking at the possibility that it might be more diverse than is typically talked about. So, you know, I don't want to step on anyone's toes or like, you know, the predominant view in camp scholarship is that this is a practice by. Done by gay men, okay. In the 20th century. This is a practice developed in the 20th century predominantly by gay men. And that's true. Like, I'm not. I don't dispute that. Like, you can read Chauncey's Gay New York. You can read Esther Newton's Mother camp. You can read Bear Bay is Coming Out Under Fire. This was a practice predominantly done by gay men. It is a historical kind of artifact of that 20th century community. Right? There's no doubt about that. But there was almost no attention to anyone else doing this. And one of the things we know about kind of the queer community in particularly the United States is that you have enclaves of queers together. So it's not just gay men. There's lesbians. There's, you know, there's drag queens, there's trans folks. There's. Who were a part of that community and enjoyed camp. Right? And we didn't have very much scholarship about that. And I was like, in that historical practice, okay, what you have is camp being used by a community to survive and to build a world. Right? And so, um, essentially camp becomes this kind of secret language for particularly gay men to identify each other, to. To joke to. As a way for them to push back against this kind of hostile, dominant, normative world and a way to survive. And one of the things that I really wanted when I was looking at it was like, this was a way for a lot of queer folks to survive. This is a way for a lot of different folks to identify each other. And it's not perfect. Camp is not perfect. But I was really interested in that, the way in which this practice and this language and these jokes and this style was used by other people as well. And so I went looking for other practitioners of this, you know, in the middle, the early to mid 20th century. And the last thing I will say, and I know this has gone on forever, is that there is kind of dispute about this because camp is not perfect. Camp is not politically correct at all. Right. It is, you know, it was largely misogynistic. It was, you know, camp is, is drenched in shame and self loathing. It is a product of the closet. So there is no. It's not like this isn't perfect, but it is and has been historically a form political protest, a form of, of a kind of political practice where you push back against the forces that are oppressing you. Right. And so that's another reason that I wanted to engage with it because camp is in its kind of outrageousness is a way to push back, to not conform. To say, like, yeah, I'm an irredeemable other. Fuck you. You know, like, here I am out here in my nun drag, and I'm an in your face. Right. And so. And getting away with it, you know, I loved that like that you would, you would pass and not pass spectacularly at the same time. Like, I loved that. I wanted that for everyone, you know, and metaphors has this, this phrase he calls camp by drag, by queens. Defensive offensiveness. Like you're offensive, right. You're. But it's in defense, like you are in somebody's face. You are, you know, heavy put downs, irony. You're. You're code, you know, you have this code that they. The straits don't even get is a kind of defense. It's a kind of political act. And so I was very attracted to that idea with all the, with all the, the concerns and problems with camp, that it could be this for women and for lesbians, particularly in that post war era, it could be something that they used as a practice.
- [12:51]
B
Yeah. Similarly.
- [12:52]
A
That was not a short answer.
- [12:54]
B
No, I don't think it could have been a short answer. So I'm glad that you gave us this really full answer of all the different dynamics of what camp is. So I appreciate the long answer. It made me start thinking about. Well, throughout the whole book you talk. It just seems so personal. It seems like the way you're talking about it now, like you're very jazzed about this all. It's like deep within you and so one of the questions that I wanted to ask is what fascinated little Barbara about film and media? And then what. So part one and then part two, what was your journey to taking on this project? So, like, you talked about your interests, your camp interests, but what, what were the steps that you took? You said, I'm going to do this project. I've been thinking about it, but now I'm going to do it. And so two, those are two questions. First question, what was little Barbara excited about Film and media and maybe camp from a little age. And then what was your journey to this, to this specific project?
- [14:06]
A
So when I, I'm the youngest of five kids, which is almost always how I introduce myself. Cause I very much like, identify as, like, from a big family. And my siblings called me the TV Guide. So back in the day, before there were remote controls, I'm almost 53, I would be at the TV with my hand on the, on the channel, turning the channel for my siblings. And I would tell them, like, it's Gunsmoke. Like, I know I knew the entire. Like, I was the TV guy. Like, I was like, it's Gunsmoke next. Like, it's gonna be this. Like, I know what's on every channel right now. Why don't you just trust me and I'll tell you. Because I was obsessed with television and less so with movies, just because television you can start real early. I always, I always tell my kids, like, if you want a career in media, you. You want a career as a, as a professor of media, just watch six to eight hours of television a day. Get on your device, kids. So I loved it. And I, And I did always love bad things. Like, I've always loved badly done crap. I just do. Like, like in the 80s, I was obsessed with action movies, right? Like, I don't like, I, I like sci fi. I like horror. I loved like the Worst alone. I would watch the Steven Seagals. I would watch, like, Jean Claude Van the Worse the Better. So I think I've always. And I've always kind of had. I guess I've always just kind of loved the bad. Like, I just find it funny. And I. So I ha. I guess I must have that sensibility and that bears out because I can remember being at a academic conference, very serious academic conference, presenting what I thought was, well, partly a funny paper, but also just like, it was my serious work. And somebody asked me, oh, are you doing a camp reading of Jodie Foster? And I was like, no. And it was because it was my Sense of. Right. Like, that was my sensibility. Like, I was. I have a. I wrote about Freaky Friday, which is. Was one of my favorite movies. That's the other thing about me as a kid was we got HBO pretty early. I don't know how I convinced my mother to get hbo, but HBO had, like, six movies. Like, it wasn't, like, a library. So I watched. I watched whatever was on. And I would watch the thing. I probably watched it a thousand times. Like, afternoon would be live. Like, oh, we're watching Freaky Friday again. I can still do the whole, like, ad from Incredibly Shrinking Woman. Galaxy Glue. Galaxy Glue. Get your amazing Galaxy Glue. Right. Like, so somebody said at a conference, like, oh, are you doing a camp reading? And I was like. Like, no, but I'll go. I was like. And I. And I, to be fair, thought to myself, like, well, camp is for gay men. Like, I'm not doing camp. Right. Like, I had that in my mentality as well. And so I went back home and I started reading about camp because I was like, well, you know, this is something. And then I, like, I read a little bit, and I was like, oh, yeah, that's me. Right? It's just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's me. I should go. I should go pursue this more. And I had already been writing about, like, B movies, and I was writing about lesbian pulp fiction, just not with the idea that it was camp.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Which, I mean, I'm pulp fiction. Yes. I knew people read as camp, but, like, so that was like the sort of origin. And then the journey, really. Probably the origin of the project. And what fuels me, you know, I always think about being like an oyster. Like, I need to have a grain of sand that's irritating me. And then I. I produce a pearl. Hopefully, it's a pearl at the end. But Lillian Federman wrote this incredible history called Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers. And it's like the history of lesbians in the 20th century. Right. And it came out in 1991. And there is a moment in her chapter on the 50s where she describes through. She's quoting another source, another historian. She describes Tallulah Bankhead watch parties, essentially groups of kiki lesbians meeting at each other's homes to listen to Tallulah Bankhead's radio show that I write about in the book, the Big Show. Yeah. In numbers of 30 to 40.
- [18:38]
B
Wow.
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A
And I was like, what? It was like, record scratch. And she, like, moves on. You know, she like. Lillian Fabian has a whole other thing that she's doing in the. In that 50s chapter. And I was like, I'm sorry, record scratch. What are these?
- [18:52]
B
Whoa. What?
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A
They were watching, like, parties of 30 to 40 women are listening to Tallulah Bankhead's radio show. Okay? Um, and that was within a chapter that basically said the 50s. She says, Federman says the 50s was the worst time in the history of the United States to be a lesbian. And I was like, okay. So I talk about in the book like, that the 50s and the pre Stonewall era becomes this, like, dark ages. Like, it's the worst. It's the lavender scare. Everybody was frightened. Everybody was a sicko. Everybody was. And lesbians were huddled together, hiding, or they were at bars and they were being beaten. And then I hear this thing about, like, this Tallulah Watch party, and I'm like, what else was going on in the 50s, right?
- [19:41]
B
Yeah, yeah.
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A
That sounds like a ton of fun, right? Like, who wouldn't want to go to, like, a watch party with a bunch of friends and listen to Tallulah Bankhead, you know, be her outrageous self? And so I was already interested in this. And then I was like, I'm gonna. I gotta find out who these ladies are, right? Like, who are the women who were, like, yucking it up? Predictably, they were like middle class white women. So there's that. But it just. I always get irritated when something seems like a fait accompli, right? Like, oh, this was the worst, right? And everybody agrees. And I'm always. I'm just a contrarian. I'm just always like, well, wait a minute. Like, everybody was miserable. Some people were like, have. Some people were having a good time at a party listening to Tulu Bankhead, right? Who are those people? And in a way, that kind of dovetailed in with another irritation of mine, which is the representations or the understanding of lesbian spectatorship. Okay? Because there's all this stuff about viewers, right? And spectators and a huge kind of feminist understanding of viewers, film viewers particularly. And they were never laughing. So, like, women don't typically. Like, there's no humor. There's no. Not a part of that. And if women aren't laughing like lesbians, forget about it. They are so serious. They are absolutely not ever laughing or having a kind of a defiant resistance to what's being fed to them. You know, it's like. And it just. It always irritated me. It's like, that's not the way people view media. That's not the way I consume media. I'm always critical, and it just can't be the case that I'm like, ah, like, breathing in this hateful, dominant narrative without people finding it or using it for their own ends. Right?
- [21:50]
B
Yeah, Yeah.
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A
I don't seem really passionate, but I am, like, as somebody who loves media, as like somebody who's a super fan, like, I was always a fan. I wasn't like a dumb fan. Fans are dumb. Right. I mean, I don't want to mess with those K pop fans.
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B
Right.
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A
Like, they're scary people.
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B
You don't watch something hours and hours on end without having thoughts about it.
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A
Right. And. And I can at the same time, like, be pissed off by it and find it hilarious and love it.
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B
Yes, right. Like complex enough. Yes.
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A
So that. So I was just irritated that one. That we. We were kind of painting the 50s in this way that was too simple in my mind. And then lesbians get this kind of typical serious, you know, never funny, not connected to camp, not witty when, like, most evidence would tell you otherwise. Right. So that's so. So I kind of. Once I was. I had that sense that, like, something was going on in the 50s and that lesbians were kind of written out of this camp scholarship narrative. Then once I'm angry, then, like, Forget it. There's 10 years of writing a book, you know?
- [23:04]
B
No, but I love that as inspiration as these little agitating grains of sand that just push you and keep it. It's like constantly in the back. It's like it all the time. What is happening?
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A
You can't stand it. You're like, I can't. This is so irritating. I have to correct this.
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B
That's amazing motivation.
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A
Some people write out of love. I love it. Don't get me wrong. But mostly it's out of irritation and like a sense of. I mean, obviously there's also a sense of injustice, you know, that I'm like, righting some wrong, you know, that's been done for sure.
- [23:36]
B
Can you talk a little bit about how exactly this history has been obscured over time? You're telling us, you're showing us the 1950s. You have this. This gnawing thought that it wasn't this simple. It couldn't have been this simple. And then. But how. How did it become simplified to us living in. In the years 2000, us looking back, how are we like, what has happened between the 50s and now for us to have lost this lesbian camp?
- [24:06]
A
Yeah, I mean, this is like super. That's a super complicated question. That's a great question. I mean, there are kind of simplistic ways to address it in terms of kind of. Anybody who does women's history recognizes that, like living under patriarchy, like that women's stories just don't get told in the same way. But I think you can look at like, kind of historically specific moments, communities within the queer community where white gay men were obviously more. More fitting or more powerful within a kind of a patriarchal society, like, you know, controlled supremacist patriarchal society. They, while they were obviously persecuted terrible. Like while they're still, they're still gay men, they're still being persecuted. There was a way in which they are. They have a. They had a privile in terms of voice, in terms of representation, that lesbians, you know, queers of color, trans folks just did not have the same legitimacy. It's just, that's just the way, I mean, in, you know, there are historians. I think it's. I think it's Esther Newton, who does a look at Cherry Grove or Fire Island. Even within very affluent queer communities, you still have a sense that the boys are running it in the 50s, 60s, 70s, right? Like, there's still this sense of that privilege to be the voice of the community, to be the head of the community. And you see this, you know, as a kind of tension within queer activism, you know, over the. Over time. And to me, there's also something very interesting about the way the kind of outrageous stuff that was happening in the 20s and 30s gets successfully silenced in the 50s. And that's something that I was interested in dealing with as well. And I know we can talk more about someone like Gladys Bentley, but how kind of like we think, like when you read about, you're like, holy crap, how did that. It was like the 30s. Like, how were they getting away with these performances, with doing the things they did? And then you really do have a kind of suppression, violent aggression, violent silencing of that in the 50s. And so that's another kind of way in which that history gets lost particularly. And then on top of that, it's going to be kind of a Women's history is going to be silenced even more in a way. The second part of that, I would say is there is a narrative about lesbian community practice, cultural practice, political practice, that is a kind of dominant narrative that just seems to adhere. And it's very useful for people who want to silence women and silence queer women. That idea that the lesbian is this kind of out of, step out of style, ultra serious kind of politico, right? That she's just this kind of stick in the mud who's like. Who's a, you know, Sara Ahmed would say a killjoy. Right. She's a feminist killjoy. Nobody really wants to listen to her. She's not funny, she's not entertaining, she's not witty. Like, she's just like a drag. Right. And that narrative persists. And it's a way obviously, to disempower and silence a whole group of people. Right, Absolutely. And so that, I mean, I think that's another reason why this idea that, like, lesbians would camp just like, does. It's like, does compute, because it's not the dominant stereotype or narrative that has kind of circulated, I mean, the whole. Almost the whole 20th century. Another reason that was irritating to me, it was like, there's so many funny women. Like, what are you talking about? Yeah. So I think that's largely. I mean, I think those are probably the two strongest reasons for why that history got lost or kind of spoken over by other histories in a way.
- [28:36]
B
Yeah. Well, I want to take some time and talk about some of these women in the book because they're fantastic, just outrageous. First, we already talked a little about Tallulah Bankhead, but I want to return and I have some. You describe her as self deprecating, glamorous, scandalous, mistress of ceremonies, stage, screen and gossip page legend. These women, the way you introduce them, they just seem so. Just like they all need those glowing cinema lights every single time their name is red. Because they just seem so fantastic. And I also am. Some of the things that you quote her as saying, I think are just like, outrageous. One thing she says is, don't talk to me about camp, darling. I invented the word quotable quote. And then another thing she says is, I guess you wrote that it was a common thing she said at parties to introduce herself was, hello, my name is Tallulah Bankhead. I'm a lesbian. What do you do?
- [29:44]
A
I mean, she was. She was famous for these quips, right? For her, like her quips, her retorts, her little sayings. Like, she. She became famous and they were almost always just completely outrageous. Like, she was just. And. And really provoking. Like, she really. And it's so funny because I live in Alabama, okay. I teach at the University of Alabama, and she is from Jasper, Alabama. She was the daughter of. Literally, she was the granddaughter and niece of two senators, two US Senators, and her father died as the speaker of the House. Okay.
- [30:18]
B
Okay.
- [30:18]
A
So she's not like. She's like kind of like Alabama aristocracy, but just outrageous and always like, she, you Know, fell in love with Alla Nazimova when she was little, when she was young, and was like, I'm gonna be a star. You know, like, she was gonna be bigger than life. And I don't know where she just wanted that reputation to be the baddest girl around. She wanted to be the baddest, most outrageous girl around. And what I'm interested in, in the book is that she. She called herself Ambus Extra. Okay, okay. So, like, she. She. I mean, I guess the closest idea that was her words. I was like, I'm using that. Like, that's. Like, that's she. It adopted this Persona of the lesbian as a part of, like, she was very clearly had sex with. Almost everyone, you know, saw herself as ambisextrous. Like, that. She was just not. She. I mean, I guess we would say pan now. I mean. But tied to that was in this. In the period that I was looking at, particularly in the 20s and 30s, was this idea that she was going to upset people by saying she was a lesbian. So it said.
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B
She said ambisextrious.
- [31:43]
A
Ambisextrous is like what she later said. What. What she later said. She just said, I. I sleep with whoever I want. And Marlena Dietrich said the same thing, was like that. But that was sort of that 20s and 30s. I thought I was saying, it's like, you read and you're like, just. It's outrageous. But she used it to provoke people. I mean, what interested me was.
- [32:08]
B
So.
- [32:09]
A
Sulu Bankhead knew and loved and hung out with a lot of gay men. And she certainly learned some of her camping, some of her style, some of her wit from gay men, for sure. But she also learned a lot of it from queer women or from, like, she would watch Dorothy Parker and take lines from Dorothy Parker and use them. Right. Rachel Crothers was a playwright, queer woman who basically wrote her most important early roles on the New York stage. The idea, like, Chula always says, darling, right? That's like one. Her thing is Darling, you know, if you see her, like, Cruella De Vil is supposed to be based on Tallulah Bankhead. So if you know Cruella De Vil, right, then you know what she sounded like, to be fair. But she's from Alabama, but she has, like, a sort of, like, Britishy. I don't know. But Darling was something that came from a Carruthers play. And she was a. And Crothers wrote these plays that were, like, very controversial in that they were about flappers. And so she kind of like, she took this identity not just from gay men, but also from queer women who were influential to her. And I think the history that I was really interested in uncovering about her was the way in which not just queer women, who were her contemporaries, who she was kind of learning her camp style and sayings from, but also that she had a huge, huge lesbian following of fans like crazy. Like, they were called the Gallery girls. They. They basically terrorized London, the London stage, because they would go to every show up in the gallery where it's cheap. They would wait outside in long lines for days to see Tallulah Bankhead. And they had a ringleader named Fat Sophie, who was. Who wore a bowler hat and had a. Had a umbrella. And she was the leader of this troop of girls. And she had signals. She was a big butch lesbian, called herself Fat Sophie, and gave them signals for what to do when they were in the audience. And they would yell so much that they would have to bring the curtains down because the Gallery girls were completely out of control. They met her trains, they went to her house. She invited them over to her house. So this idea that, like, there was this audience for Tallulah is true, right? So I see, like, oh, yeah, watch parties in the 50s. Makes total sense when you see that she had this, like, rabid female fandom. It started in New York, she had it in London. Everywhere she went on stage, they followed her and they were obsessive. Then some of them ended up living with her, some of them ended up being her lover. Was like. So that was a history that I really did was interested in uncovering. Because the story of Tallulah that we get at the end is that she became this tragic object that gay men found hilarious. Because she was tragic. She was over the top. She was too old to be doing the things. And I was just like, wait a minute. Before that, she was this incredible force, this camp, you know, I could talk about her. I read her Scotland Yard file because they wanted to kick her out of the country because she, as the Scotland Yard file says, is keeping a Negress in London and another young girl has a girlfriend, potentially. I mean, they made it sound like she was keeping them in her house like a slate or like that she had these, like, captive girls that she. And they couldn't prove it because it wasn't true, but they wanted to deport her. And they. And so, like, I. I'm not a historian, not really. I loved all the historians out there. I'm not somebody who goes to the archive for two Months and. But I had to see her Scotland Yard filed. Like, I just had to. I had to see Stormy Delavier's jean leather jacket too. Like, I was like, oh, I'm definitely gonna go to New York and pay homage. But yeah, I, I had to look at her Scotland Yard file. They did. They were not successful because she's a very powerful kid. I mean, like, her father was speaker of the House.
- [36:23]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [36:24]
A
So they weren't successful, but yeah, that she had kept. She was keeping a Negress in her house as a lover. They said she sleeps with many men and is a lesbian. I was like, I don't. What.
- [36:37]
B
They can't pin her down.
- [36:39]
A
Can't figure out. Yeah, I could talk about her all day. So I will stop.
- [36:44]
B
Well, I want to talk also about.
- [36:45]
A
We want to give other people some. Yeah.
- [36:47]
B
Because there's so many. There's so many good ones. But I want to talk about Wonder Woman's sidekick. Etta Candy is her name and I think she is also a very fun character. You describe her as a pint size sidekick with a generous bust, thick, stout thighs, and an ample rear end. Can you talk about her camp antics and can you talk about a little more about the Wonder Woman comics at that time in general? Because I thought that was so fascinating. I hadn't known anything about Wonder Woman kind of at all until I read the chapter and the original writer of Wonder Woman, how he was in this polyamorous relationship and he really forefronted lesbian culture in, in the, in the Wonder Woman comp. I thought that was just an incredible, Just incredible to. To learn. So yeah, please, please talk about Etta Candy's camp antics.
- [37:47]
A
One of my favorite quotes in the book is Robert Kaniger, I think is how you pronounce his name takes over Wonder Woman in the post war era. And they call this the, the, the Silver age of Wonder Woman. Right. The golden ages before that. And he gets rid of Edda Candy. He's like, fuck, no. Like, no. He was somebody who did like war comics and stuff. And he was just like, he got, he was given the Wonder Woman. Everyone thinks like, he basically just tanked Wonder Woman. It was awful. Silver Age, nobody likes it. But he got rid of Etta Candy and the Holiday girls who are at holiday college. And it was a four word comment. Etta Candy. Jesus Christ. That's it. He was just like, no way. I can't. I'm getting rid of her. She's terrible. She was like magnificent. She was so. I mean, everybody should read Noah berlazzi's book on 101 or Joe Lepore's biography is pretty good too. On he Marston was in this, really had a wife. Then he takes Olive Byrne into his house. So he lives with these two women. They are in. They are in a polyamorous relationship when he dies and he has kids with both of them when he dies. Those two women live together for the rest of their lives. So Elizabeth on her bedside has a picture of Olive Byrne. That's the only thing that she has by her bedside when she dies, which is a little detail that's in Jo Lepore's book that does not get nearly enough attention, in my opinion. So I. Etta Candy is like completely over the top. I mean, she is, right? She is. She's of short. She's probably half Wonder Woman's height sometimes in these pictures. And she is hilarious. She is like every. All of the girls. So. So for those of you who haven't read the sort of earlier comics, so we're talking about like 1942, 43. The Holiday Girls are at Holiday College and they are like Wonder Woman's little army of girls when she's not on Paradise Island. And Etta Candy is their leader. One of the critics calls her the grand mistress of Spanx and slams. Who doesn't want that? Like, I was just like, I'm particularly fascinated by her like cowboy cowgirl camp. Like, she's like often in a 10 gallon hat. And I describe this costume change that she makes where she's like in a 10 gallon orange hat, she's like a green, a green cravat. And like she's just out of control. And then she changes into these like purple short shorts with fringe. I mean, it's like. And she reminds me of this description that's in Pam Wojic's book Guilty Pleasures of, of Joan Crawford in Johnny Guitar, where a critic called her a cow town Liberace. And I was like, oh my God, that's it, right? Like, that's that. I was like, that's Etta Candy. She's a cow town Liberace. There's like this cowgirl camp thing that she has going on, but she's hilarious and absurd and like, but also very much kind of in my mind really giving the truth to the lie that Wonder Woman is straight, right? So like she, she is the signifier of this kind of lesbian connection. And Marston was like female love and he meant sexual love can save the world. That's. He literally said that. So he thinks. And he's like, you know, I'm not. Little kids should read this. They should learn about female love. Like, it's the. It's. It's going to save the world. Like, he totally believed that. And so he uses the sorority girls and paradise island to what I call a lesbotopia. Like, it's for. In those early comics, like, it's a utopia where.
- [41:48]
B
Where.
- [41:49]
A
But weird and, like, over the top. And there's one. The first time that Diana takes home to paradise island, they have this. They have these games, the Diana games. And then at the end of it, they have a feast. And at the feast are women tied up. Like, they're.
- [42:12]
B
Does.
- [42:13]
A
They're tied up and served on a table in Girl Pie. Like, I'm not. I can't. Who could cook that up or rub. Yeah. So they're in the center of the table, and they're trussed like toast.
- [42:26]
B
Oh, okay.
- [42:27]
A
Right. So they're up like this. Like, you were cooking us. You're cooking a rope, a chicken. You're roasting a chicken, and you've got the feet tied to the right. And they're all tied up, but it's pretty girls. And they're in the center of this. This big pastry shell. And that's the meal at Diana Day is these girls tied up and just like. And like, her mom gets distracted. So, like, the queen. Queen of Hippolyta gets distracted because she's focusing on the dough pie. I'm like, well off, obviously, on the doe pie. Who could pull their eyes away from the dough by. Etta gets. She gets fooled by the girl she's chasing. She's trying to tempt her with candy. Etta's always got bonbons. Yeah. So my point for that chapter was that, like, Etta is essentially, like, code for us to see. Like, Wonder Woman is. Is not really into Steve Trevor. Okay, guys, She's. She's. She's always with Cheetah. Like, she's always with Etta. And Etta and the girls at Holiday College are like this queer female audience for her. And so it was kind of giving the truth to that idea that I had that, like, there are these women out there who are. Who are. Who are viewing this from a humorous stance and in large numbers. And it's funny. Like, it's funny and outrageous and in your face. And yet they didn't like the bondage. So, like, the comics. The comics cops were like, we don't like the bondage. You need to cut out some of it. But we still end up with Dough Pie. Well, yeah, that was an interesting part.
- [44:04]
B
In that chapter too.
- [44:05]
A
Everyone should go read the early Wonder womans. Wonder Woman 1, 2 and 3. The Holiday Girls are in every Golden Age issue. The only other person who's close is Steve Trevor, but they are in every Golden Age issue of Wonder Woman.
- [44:20]
B
The Holiday Girls.
- [44:22]
A
The Holiday Girls, right. And their sorority is called Beta Lambda. I mean, and so it's weird because like, HE Marston was a psychologist and Olive Byrne was a grad student and they recorded, they visited a sorority and watched their initiation rituals and were like, this is bondage. Right? There she is. So then he put them in the comics and he was like, well, it's not me. It's like the sorority I went to that I observed at Harvard, when I was at Harvard. Sorry. So I do kind of bring that chapter into the 50s and talk about how like this understanding that Wonder Woman, this like, wink, wink, nudge, nudge, that Wonder Woman was clearly queer is still persists in the 50s in this kind of coded way. She's always telling Steve, no, I can't marry you. It is the fun for those of us who don't want her to marry her beard. Steve Trevor. Love it. Like she always finds, oh God, I gotta do some crime fighting. Can't marry you this time, Steve. Sorry.
- [45:27]
B
And you use so many good images in the book to describe these situations that you're talking about. Even right now, like going back a little bit, you have a image of Tallulah in a train with like these women like against the glass, trying to sneak a peek. And then like you just said with, with the, the, with Diana, you have like that one where she's like snickering behind, like she's like, he, he, he, you're so dumb for thinking I would ever love you. He. Like, they're such good images that you selected for the text.
- [45:56]
A
Thank you. That one of her snickering and I, I. And there's another one where she's like, please Steve, stop me. And she's like knocking down all the buildings because she has literally made like been made into a giantess to again avoid the marriage proposal that he's. But the, that one where she's like snickering because he's bent down at one knee and he's like mooning over her picture and she's standing behind him as one of them. She's like, is in this very, very supposedly conservative, post war kind of domestication issue of Wonder Woman. She's going to marry Steve. Right? And it's very notable for all these scholars that, like, okay, this is where Wonder Woman gets fifth. You know, gets closeted, where she gets, you know, where she goes, like, totally against her strong empowerment. This is like one of the ones that Gloria Steinem hates, right? This is when Wonder Woman dies as a feminist force. Right? And now we have to bring her back in the 70s, you know, and in that issue, she's clearly making fun of Steve or the. Or Peter who drew it. They're making fun of Steve. Like, it's like, we're laughing behind your back, bro. Sorry. But it's in this very. So when you see the COVID of the issue, it's got, like, romance script for Wonder Woman, the title, and he's like, carrying her across. So you're like, I'm being promised, like, conservative 50s romance.
- [47:26]
B
Great.
- [47:27]
A
And then you get inside and it's.
- [47:28]
B
Like, no, sorry, Steve, not this time.
- [47:32]
A
Sorry, Steve. Not gonna happen again.
- [47:37]
B
I want to talk lastly about. You mentioned her again at the beginning, Gladys Bentley. She was a blues star. She was a Harlem legend. And she had, as you. I'm quoting you, she has a defiant lesbian Persona in the 1920s and 1930s. And again, this is. This is talking about this. This obscure obscuring that happens in the 1950s from the 1920s and 30s. And you talk about a lot of. I found this chapter really compelling because you talk about so many contradictions in Bentley's Life. In the 1952 article, she seemingly annulled her career as she showcased her new reformed life as a wife. She went through hormone therapy and she came out as a wife. But as you shared, this story is not as clear cut as even Bentley tried to convince us.
- [48:36]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think that I see Tallulah Bankhead and Gladys Bentley as a kind of. As parallel lines because they both are very successful in the 20s and 30s. They knew each other. Bentley has some rude things to say. When Tallulah gets married. She was married very briefly. She has some body things to say about Toulouse. They knew each other. They were both successful in different fields, and they were both defiant camps. But of course, Bentley is African American and has therefore a different terrain to negotiate and different. Obviously, Tulu Bankhead is. Is a white, rich, you know, woman who. Who has much more privilege, much more safety, much more, you know, than Bentley does. But. And I'm. A lot of people are writing more about Bentley and about this period. Bentley was as much, if not more of a kind of defiant camp in the 20s and 30s. Right. She is really one of the Most famous blues singers, if not the one of the most famous entertainers to come out of Harlem in the 20s. She is hugely popular. Like she is. She's at all these different places. The Cotton Club, the Clam House, the. You know, she plays the Ubangi Club. Like, she. She moves into a midtown apartment. She's so well regarded. But she also, you know, performed at rent parties and performed at the less legitimate venues as well. And was just. Was like a huge force. Langston Hughes writes about her. You know, she's in these modernist novels. She was an incredibly popular entertainer. And Federman writes about, you know, all of these kind of queer white women. Famous white women like Joan Crawford and Tallulah Bankhead who go to Harlem. All these kind of people go to Harlem to see her. And she is outrageous. Like out. She. She is known for these kind of raunchy double entendre, really raunchy sexual songs set to popular tunes. So she, like, finds some, like, pleasant little popular tune and then just is like the grossest, dirtiest, like, lyrics you can possibly imagine. And Langston Hughes even laments that, like, when she goes to midtown and is in these more established clubs, it's not really her. And of course, when she records, records, it's like she can't. She can't record the stuff that she's been doing live, the records. There's like nothing that would seem even very queer or anything even. Even coded, but live, she's like. And that she projected a lesbian, a defiant lesbian Persona. Like, I'm a lesbian. You right? Like, yeah, I married a woman. She married a woman in New Jersey. Justice of the peace or courthouse or something, and was like, publicized it everywhere. Was in a tuxedo, right. And was just really like. And she is a kind of like, she is a very, very good representation of a famous, successful B.D. bulldagger. Right. She was. That's. Was. That was the. The person of this kind of defiant macho and a really bravado, you know, and adored for it. And then obviously, as. As we document in the 50s, that's not gonna fly.
- [52:17]
B
Yeah.
- [52:17]
A
Right. There's gonna be this incredibly violent, awful clampdown on anyone like that from. And. And even someone like Tallulah has to kind of dissemble. They have to be in the closet, they have to hide. And this, the 1952 article in Ebony is sort of. A lot of people point to that. Her reaction. Her. Her kind of desperate reaction to that hostile environment.
- [52:49]
B
Yeah.
- [52:51]
A
As saying she was married, as saying she had gone through hormone Therapy. And was the title of the article is I am a Woman Again. And there is some, you know, some debate about sort of like, well, maybe what she was a woman. You know, like, maybe she. The hormone therapy worked and she was in a better place in her life. She moves to the west coast when the New York career Kool is being shut down, and she lives with her mother in Los Angeles. She's very, very strong in her church, and she's very close to her church, and she's still performing. But when you look at that article, she is not married to a man that she says in the article she's not. So she did. One of the men that she says she's married to denies it in the press. When the black press go and find him. No, we were never married. There's a second guy that she mentions who also she was not married to. She. I think that she might have married somebody briefly, but the guys that she mentions in that article, they are. They are not. She's not married. Okay. And then later, when another reporter goes back later and he has a friend who visits her, they go to her bedroom, and there's a picture of a man and there's a picture of a woman. And the guy says, well, who's that? And she said, well, that's my husband, and that's my. And that's my wife. That's the woman that I. And. And she. And then he discovered that she is. She is with this woman. So the idea that she had some reformation and became straight and married a man and was really for the EBONY readership, right? It was. For. It was a way to preserve her career. The closet was a way to try to preserve her career. And even in that article, she doesn't really hide how much she loved the person. Like, loved being the Harlem queen, right? The bull dagger queen. There are these pictures of her. She's glamorous pictures in white coat, white top hat, and. And. And tuxedo. And she's in the front. The first picture in the article is her, like, looking at her scrapbook, and there she is in full tuxedo. One of the pictures is a black top hat. And then you see her, the pictures below that. And so she's describing this new life, and the old life looks so much better, right? Like.
- [55:27]
B
And she.
- [55:27]
A
The way she talks about being a star in Harlem is so much better than, like, now I'm doing domestic chores. I'm cleaning up my house and making dinner, and none of the men she's supposed to be married to is pictured. And I argue in the beginning of that article too, she goes through, like, her depraved life before now that she, you know, now she's reformed from this depraved life. And it sounds like a pulp lesbian novel. Like, it's like totally over the top. You know, it's like the. The hounds biting at her heels, you know, like that line, like. So I argue in that chapter that, like Bentley, as a woman of color, as a queer woman of color, had to do what she could to survive. And she had to. What Munoz calls disidentification. She had to use camp as a way to survive in the world, to recognize that if she was that out and that. That kind of defiant lesbian Persona, she would probably be gone. Like, she would probably be violently excised in some way. So she had to kind of create this performance that both gestures toward, like, wink, wink, like, does that kind of camp coded message to people who understand, but also manages to pass and get into Ebony. Right? And so for me, for me, it was about, like, what I saw in the 50s was women of color who were in different, you know, someone like Ethel Waters or talk about Stormy Du Labie. They were having to survive. They were having to. To use camp in a coded way, in a more closeted way, to still have a career, to still be functioning, and to still have something to say. You know, it's a way for you to push back, like I was saying before. And one of the things I've wanted to do, particularly with, you know, we were talking about kind of bringing to light histories that didn't exist, is that one of the things that of course happens when you talk about the lesbian is she's white, right? When you represent the lesbian in 20th century, she is white. And so one of the things I really wanted to try to do as much as I could, is to dig into that history of. Of women of color who. Who were also incredible practitioners of camp, who we didn't. We weren't hearing about in that way or weren't being seen in that way. So that was kind of. I'm not a really historian. I'm married to a historian, and I. I know that I'm not, but that was important to me, for sure.
- [58:13]
B
No, I think you do a great job. I think. And now that you're saying that, that the Tallulah and Gladys have these, like, parallel lines, it makes so much sense, the way you framed your book with the start and the end. And it's like you could really see the connections between the Two. The way these two chapters are structured, but then also the two women, and it's just putting them together, like, directly comparing them is an interesting. It's just an interesting framework for the text, I think.
- [58:42]
A
Yeah, it's helpful. I mean, one of the things that happened when I was writing this book was like, I don't. I was. I didn't read comic books. I'm like, you. Like, I. My brother read comic books. I didn't read them. And one of the things that I really enjoyed was kind of digging into stuff that I didn't know. And. But. But then, you know, things come up when you do that kind of work. And one of the things that happens when you read a lot of Wonder Woman is you realize how racist Wonder Woman is. I mean, or, like, how incredibly that. Especially during the war, you know, that the way that they talk about the Japanese or it extends to, like, the black train quarter or, you know, she's on an exotic island, you know, the. The women natives on the exotic island. And so as I dug in and. And really, the idea of an Amazon queen as a white idea, right. And it was used by. By white supremacists in the 30s and 40s as a kind of really racist idea. And so as I dug into that, I was like, oh, no, I need, like. So as I finished that Wonder Woman chapter was like, working on that, I was like, this is the most important thing I can do is to follow this with. That camp does not belong to white people. And I hope other historians are. Keep digging into communities of color, particularly the kind of black women in New York. I mean, Audre Lorde has this great bit that I quote in the beginning of the book about these women that she knew in New York who were the brutal wit that you did not want to cross. Right. You did not want her to turn. And turn her. Her wit on you because you would be destroyed. And. And. And. And I was like, oh, my God. It's just. It's just a little piece that I have from Audre Lorde. And I was like, God, what's. Let's. You know, it was like those 30, 40 women at a watch party. I was like, let's find out more about that woman.
- [60:40]
B
Yeah, right.
- [60:41]
A
Yeah.
- [60:42]
B
The nagging grain of sand. Yeah.
- [60:44]
A
Another. Yet another grain of sand. Yeah.
- [60:47]
B
I want to pivot a little bit before we finish, because I watched as I was researching you, I watched your video essay, Lesbians Behaving Badly, and I thought that would be a really good companion piece. Well, it is a companion piece to this, to this book. But then also you go further into the films that came out last year, I think this year, last year, in the last two years. Can you just talk about that project or what inspired you to make this video essay? And then, yeah, what does the essay tell us about? How does the essay bring this, the information that we've learned and the stories that we've learned in Suffering Safa, how does it bring those texts or those stories to the today?
- [61:35]
A
This is one of the things that happens when you write a book because everyone's like, well then what happened?
- [61:40]
B
Yep.
- [61:40]
A
And you're like, I was writing a book about the 50s. Like I, now I'm responsible for the 70s and the 90s. And okay, I mean it is a natural question. It's like, okay, you say that there is this lesbian camp, you know, has it, where has it gone? What's happened to it? So in that, like I did a little bit of that in the final end of the book, but it then became a kind of question that I couldn't let, couldn't let go because you get asked that question a lot. And then it became interesting to me and so that I, I, I was doing work just kind of thinking about what happens in the 70s. And one of the things that happens in the 70s and this is a part of that historical picture is there is this idea after Stonewall that identity politics and pride should be the center of queer activism. Right. And queer acceptance. And that means that the camp, who is a kind of shameful figure has to disappear. And there's a famous article about the sort of diva worship and that this is a shameful practice, that it was kind of out of self loathing in the closet. And we're out of the closet now. So camp kind of has, it has cycles, okay. And the 70s is a, is a time when like identity politics is very serious. We're all going to come out and we're going to, and, and, and achieve certain things and not be. And this is part of what colors the 50s as a kind of shameful past. Right. That we should probably put, you know, stop camping. It's, it's embarrassing. Right? We're proud now we don't have to do some of this, this stuff. So. But then camp comes back. Never. You can't kill her. You cannot. Like I'm a huge fan of Halloween and I always think of the little boy Tommy saying, you can't kill the boogeyman. Like you can't kill camp. That's she is so used to Being, like, ignored and. And resisted. And she's like, oh, no. So she comes back and. And so I became interested in, like, okay, well, where. Who were the lesbians in the 80s? You know? And then there's this huge kind of camp renaissance in the 90s. So, like, how is. Is what I'm saying, part of that? And then I have a former student who is a filmmaker and a beloved. Now. I try to get her to call him by my first name, but she won't, who sent me a text, and she was like, I have this letterbox about these movies that are coming out, and are you seeing the same thing that I'm seeing? And she had. I had seen Bottoms, but I had not seen Love Lies Bleeding, and I hadn't seen Drive Away Dolls. And so ABBA had this. Sorry, Annabeth Mellon had this letterboxd that was all about. She was like, what is with the camp revival in these movies? Like, what's happening? And then she had TV shows. And so I was like, you're right. Like, what is going on with this kind of really, really obnoxious lesbian camp in these movies?
- [64:46]
B
And.
- [64:48]
A
And so I started reading a little bit more about it, and I saw the movies I hadn't seen. I was like, abba, we should do a video essay about this kind of. This resurgence of. Of lesbian camp in these movies and television shows and stuff. So she's a filmmaker. So I said, why don't I write the essay that I'm thinking of doing anyway, about this kind of return. We called it Lesbians Behaving Badly, or Lesbabad is the other term. Lesbabad is our short. Was our shorthand, like the move. The MP4 file is called Lesbabad. Lesbabad, Final Cut. So I said, I write the essay if you'll make the. If you'll, you know, put in the clips. And she loves fan videos. And she, you know, like, she's a filmmaker, but she also produces, like, fan videos. And she has since she was, like, on MySpace as a gay.
- [65:40]
B
Yeah.
- [65:43]
A
So we got together, and she put beautiful clips to my words and my thinking, through kind of, what is the history of lesbian camp in film? And I do a bit about kind of the representation of lesbians in film is largely that killjoy that, like, serious stick in the mud is like, having no fun and has no style. And then gay men have all this style and they're having all the sex, and then it's like this very serious lesbian. And that. I felt like there was this. These recent films were really using obnoxious camp in many different ways to kind of fight back against that. That idea. So ABBA put it all to. To beautiful. She cut all the footage and edited it. And I just did my terrible voiceover.
- [66:37]
B
No, amazing voiceover. Just.
- [66:39]
A
I had, like, rerecord things. I was like, do you know how hard it is to do a voiceover? I was like, I had no idea. Voice actors are amazing.
- [66:44]
B
Yes.
- [66:46]
A
But, yeah, so that was my. I wouldn't have ever have done it without her kind of pushing me and her abilities. But it was a great way to kind of envision this. This. These cycles and the ways in which lesbians have been represented in film. So it was really super fun for me because I'm like, obviously, like we said at the beginning, like, a huge fan. Like, I would. I would watch all those movies over and over again, you know. So that was a really fun project, for sure.
- [67:14]
B
And then. What are you working on now? It seems like, yeah, what are you working on now? I guess.
- [67:25]
A
I guess when you make yourself obnoxious enough, you get offered things. So after my book came out, I was approached by Oxford University Press to do the Oxford Handbook of Camp. I was like, there isn't a Handbook of Camp. There are many editing collections. But so I am in the process of. We have almost 40 articles in the handbook. And so this is where we. The proposal is all set, and everybody's set. Now we're off writing our essays for the Oxford Handbook. So that's kind of like my job, right? Like, that's my serious work. And working with abba, honestly, and some other, like, maybe my midlife crisis, I don't know, has encouraged me to try to make my own short documentary. So I'm trying. I'm, like, waiting, and I'm, like, watching LinkedIn tutorials on Adobe Premiere and trying to learn how to. What I will probably do is put something together and then have ABBA make it look nice. But it is about camp in the 90s and that kind of resurgence of camp in that period, and the idea of a kind of feminist camp that my colleague Pam Wojek developed the idea of this. Cycles of feminist camp. So the lesbian camp fits within that, but it's a kind of larger picture. So that's what I'm trying to do. And it's incredibly hard for somebody who's, like, used to writing alone in a. You know, on your own, in a room, you know, where you control everything. And I've been studying film for a long time, but realized that, like, I write like this. Like I make an outline. That's right. But you have to think now horizontally, how is it going to. How is your argument going to appear in the moving image which goes horizontally, which is like a whole mindset? Well, yeah, I mean, and, and, and how did you write something when the image is helping you? You know, like, so I have a clip of Bill Clinton. Well, that can kind of like stand in for a lot of ideas that I don't have to write about now. Yeah, right.
- [69:35]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [69:36]
A
You know, I do a clip of Fresh Prince of Bel Air and I'm like, chicken crush. Prince of Bel Air is going to get to the idea of like, what television was like, or like the opening of Friends or whatever. You know, it's like, oh, now what do I do?
- [69:49]
B
What needs to be said and what needs to be shown. It's like, yeah, that's very tricky.
- [69:55]
A
I think it's going to be called Madonna's Playhouse, like Pee Wee's Playhouse, but with Madonna. So the Madonna Ciccone is going to feature significantly and there will be vogue is all I'm gonna say. So that's what I'm working on when I'm not doing my serious academic work.
- [70:13]
B
They both sound like great projects. I'm glad to hear that you haven't pivoted away from camp and you're in fact diving deeper and couldn't think.
- [70:21]
A
I didn't think I would. But it's, you know, as my like, 45 minute definition indicated, it's a. It's an interesting, complicated concept.
- [70:31]
B
It is. It really is.
- [70:34]
A
And for me, the political stuff has become. I don't want to, like, get into that, but like, our current cultural and political situation is very upsetting.
- [70:48]
B
Yes.
- [70:49]
A
And so one of the things I think is driving me is thinking through how to have a politics in a disaster. And how has camp kind of been a part of that? I mean, one of the things that that's drew me to the 90s, other than the idea of feminist camp, is the way that groups like ACT up, Queer Nation used camp. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, they used camp as a political force. They 100% used it as a form of protest. And we're talking about the AIDS crisis, right? Like, we're talking about thousands of your New Yorkers and your friends dying and the government is doing nothing and won't even fund research into it. And in that moment of political protest you decide to use camp has always interested me. It's like, why, you know, how does it work? How. And so that's sort of. It's sort of therapy for our troubled times, maybe. Or looking for answers. Looking for some answers. And trying to have a laugh too, I guess. Right. Because it's. That's not always easy right now.
- [72:00]
B
No, I agree. And we all need to have a laugh. We had quite a few laughs in this podcast. I actually really enjoyed it, the giggles that we were allowed to have. I just want to say thank you for being here and I appreciate you joining me and talking to me all about suffering Sappho. It's great read, great cover, and I thoroughly recommend it to anybody.
- [72:23]
A
Thank you very much for having me, Leah. The COVID was done by Nicole Goofy, G O U X, who is a graphic. She's a graphic novelist. So everyone should go out and find Nicole's books as well. But it was the best money I've ever spent in my life. She was. It's just fantastic, that image. So. But I appreciate you having me and for everyone indulging my little interests and discussion today, thank you again, Dr. Brickman.
- [72:48]
B
For joining us on the podcast. This is a really fun episode, listeners. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. You can find more episodes on new books in women's history@newbooksnetwork.org and more updates on the Journal of Women's History by following us on Instagram bluesky or on our blog at jwomenshistory.org.