Features Published 25 November 2015

Scottee: “It’s too easy to write camp off as being naff.”

The artist and cabaret performer considers the British public's love/hate relationship with camp culture.
Scottee
Photo credit: Matthew Brindle

Photo credit: Matthew Brindle

I have an awkward relationship with my British cultural identity. Its successful appropriation by right wing groups has meant that Britishness often goes hand in hand with fascism. But one thing I can say for certain after touring our great isle for five years – the Brits do like of a bit of camp.

From pantomime to Shakespeare, light entertainment to drag – effeminate men have entertained audiences in outré going outwear long before queer equality was on the table. From Julian and Sandy spitting polari down the wireless to Wendy Richards asking after Mrs Slocombe’s pussy, camp was welcomed into our living rooms long before the gays were.

Many post-queers think the sexual reticence of the kind of camp celebrated by artists like Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howerd and Danny la Rue was reductive. The coy innuendo and sideways glances to the audience that were the mainstays of ’50s, ’60s and ’70s camp have since been scrutinized by many a queen for being all mouth and no trousers – all the entertainment value of camp with none of the sexuality. However, it’s not the icons of camp that are to blame for the Ken Doll nothing-down-there image. The public de-sexualised Williams, not vice versa. British heteronormative society couldn’t allow him to be sexualised. Because he was clearly not heterosexual, it was easier to make him into a kind of eunuch than to accept his homosexuality.

I think it’s too easy to write camp off as being naff, and that attitude means that the bravery of camp icons like Howerd and co is often ignored. I mean, where else have you heard rimming discussed on Radio 4? Camp, in my view, is activist. It found a route into queering the norm and the norm welcomed it in – granted, on its own terms.

Like most council kids I grew up two feet away from the telly. With a packet of crisps in my hand I watched early ’90s reruns of that ’70s camp brilliance. The likes of Carry On, Blankety Blank and Are You Being Served? infiltrated my mind and I began to learn my effeminacy could be used as a weapon, something that could deflect the machismo that surrounded me. Before that I had limited my gesticulation by talking with my hands in my pockets and hiding my limp wrist from the public, but the telly normalised my campness.

If pushed into defining my gender I think I’d tick camp – my voice is higher pitched, my walk is pronounced and my resting position is ‘I’m a little teapot’. And no matter what your beloved Judith Butler believes this isn’t a performed action. It’s not put on, it wasn’t learnt. It might be more affected now but I am and always will be camp.

Nowadays I live my life slightly louder and braver than those around me. I’ve worn clothing you might deem ridiculous but always do so under overpriced headphones to block out the noise of the real world. You might think we live in a tolerant society, but the truth is that the British public are confused by camp, and always have been. It’s still in our living rooms every Saturday night, but we don’t want it coming into our lives uninvited because we’re afraid of it, afraid of its unpredictability, afraid it might tell us the truth.

Ask any camp soul how the world interacts with them and they’ll tell you about the daily insults, egg throwing, dodging of camera phones, seats that are left empty either side of us and the staring matches in public spaces. And this from those who tune into Alan Carr and Graham Norton each week. Is camp only acceptable if it’s make believe? If it’s famous and frivolous? Why is being camp still such a politicised action?

First and foremost I think that this hatred of camp is smothered in misogyny. Why would any ‘man’ want to be ‘like a woman’? It’s this perceived demotion of gender that I think the world is afraid of. Perversely this misogyny is also intrinsic to drag culture: replicated, remodelled and just as dangerous.

I also think normativity is to blame. I’m not interested in being a part of the status quo, I’m not plagued by wanting to be attractive or sexy, and I don’t pay attention to or understand how my perceived gender is meant to behave. Perhaps its this attribute of camp that really frightens the general public.

However, like my relationship with Britishness I also have a difficult relationship with camp. Campness is responsible for my aggressive visibility. Combined with my effeminacy, this has meant I’ve been on the end of many a butch punch. Camp is also the reason why I roamed the playground throughout my formative years alone. But in later life camp has been kinder to me. It’s given me a career, attention and agency to flaunt the stage in sequins, allowing me to become the person I’ve been encouraged to hide.

Camp (as Christmas) is an evening of festive cabaret from Scottee, featuring a line-up of artists including Dickie Beau, Jayde Adams, Ginger Johnson, Jess Love and dance troupe Japan’s People. It’s on tour from 3rd – 23rd December: full dates at campery.co.uk


Scottee is a contributor to Exeunt Magazine


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