is for Diva Worship. Camp is rooted in the gay man's profound disillusionment with celebrity culture. It expresses betrayal. It is the gleeful sadism of the fan who has been tricked, who discovers he has been complicit in an elaborate swindle, a monstrous lie, who realizes that his youthful cinematic fantasies are false. Out of this loss of innocense, homosexuals have created a macabre form of ethnic humor in which they dance upon their former role models' graves, reliving again and again the hilarious realization that the diva was not a goddess, that she was flesh and blood, that she got fat just like they did, that she got wrinkled just like they did, that she had a miserable life and horrid children and cirppling diseases. Gay diva worship is a cult that requires the blind faith of credulous fans who are content to kowtow and genuflect and never to even think of peeking behind the curtain. Camp is what happens when the curtain is lifted.
[ BACK ]