- Introduction
- Media Image
- The Threat of Unknowable Sexuality
- Camp Tradition
- Camp Provocateur
- What Is Camp?
- Perverse Rebellion
- Irony
- Aestheticism
- Theatricality
- A Queer Voice
- Campy Visual Performances
- Masculine Drag
- (In)Authentic Lad
- Skinhead Drag
- Our Frank
- Skinhead Controversy I
- Skinhead Controversy II
- Mistaken Identity
- Controversy: Prior Record
- Stoney Hando in Glove
- Queering the Skinhead
- Simulacra and Authenticity I
- Simulacra and Authenticity II
- Simulacra and Authenticity III
- Queer Means Never Having to Say Sorry
- Conclusion
- Bibliography and Links
Introduction
[Screen "Will Never Marry" collage video]Below: Screen captures from the video for "Will Never Marry" of various fans hugging and kissing their idol, Morrissey, on stage.
Camp has been an underexplored aspect of Morrissey's artistic presentation. While Morrissey is not an outrageous drag queen, his performances and lyrics qualify as camp because his exposure of the artifice of gender roles relies upon the camp elements of irony, humor, theatricality, and aestheticism. Morrissey combines contradictory signifiers such as a rough laddish appearance with flowers. Morrissey self-consciously plays with the construct of the masculine ideal in pop and rock music. His ambiguous sexual persona engages a campy style to mock conventional expectations of male sexuality. The playful humor of camp also allows Morrissey to explore dissident identities in an unthreatening manner. The irony produced by Morrissey's contradictory signs belongs to camp. Even his controversial use of skinhead images takes part of camp performance. His camp ambiguity has been instrumental in queering notions of Englishness, masculinity, and class.