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Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature (2000) - The Poetics of Camp in the Films of Alfred Hitchcock

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Abstract

Alfred Hitchcock has often been accused of inserting queer subtexts into his films. This examination seeks first to posit camp as a humor system that is subversive by nature. Hitchcock's use of a hidden poetics of camp is then considered as the way in which his queerness is expressed. The main focus is Hitchcock's camp exploitation of the "star persona," the use of which widens the subversive nature of camp to allow for more than just the categorizing of queer desires along the axes of homosexual and heterosexual and complicates the already contentious relationship between star, actor, star persona, and audience.

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Notes

  1. ↑ Newton, originally writing in pre-Stonewall 1968, uses "homosexual" in the same way we might use "queer" today - although she is most definitely referring primarily to the gay male situation and strategies, since "lesbian camp" is a relatively new phenomenon.

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