Capitalizing on Camp: Greed and the Queer Marketplace

The queering of contemporary Western culture is a subtle yet ongoing process, despite strong resistance on the part of moralizing, right wing factions. Camp, as a marker of tradition in LGBT communities, plays an important role in these conflicts. Additionally, this “queering” often happens through direct cooptation of queer identity and cultural practices—going unacknowledged as it is newly marked as heteronormative practice. This performative essay addresses the question of whether such practices are liberatory or oppressive; the camp element that is so appealing to heterosexist efforts to reframe queer cultural practices; and perhaps most important, the role that capitalist economics plays in leading to a potentially false sense of civil liberties for queer individuals and communities.