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The Feminism Camp Gaze in Independent Film Dissertation Campy Feminisms: The Feminism Camp Gaze in Independent Film Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Erin Christine Tobin Graduate Program in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies The Ohio State University 2020 Dissertation Committee Dr. Linda Mizejewski, Advisor Dr. Shannon Winnubst Dr. Treva Lindsey 1 Copyrighted by Erin Christine Tobin 2020 2 Abstract Camp is a critical sensibility and a queer reading practice that allows women to simultaneously critique, resist, and enjoy stereotypes and conventional norms. It is both a performative strategy and a mode of reception that transforms resistance into pleasure. Scholarship on feminist camp recognizes a tradition of women using camp to engage with gender politics and play with femininity. Most of the scholarship focuses on women’s camp in mainstream and popular culture and how they talk back to the patriarchy. Little work has been done on feminist camp outside of popular culture or on how women use camp to talk back to feminism. My dissertation adds to conversations about feminist camp by exploring a new facet of camp that talks back to feminism and challenges a feminist audience. I examine the work of three contemporary feminist and queer independent filmmakers: Anna Biller, Cheryl Dunye, and Bruce LaBruce to explore the different ways they subvert cinematic conventions to interrupt narrative, play with stereotypes, and create opportunities for pleasure as well as critique. I argue that these filmmakers operationalize a feminist camp gaze and open up space for a feminist camp spectatorship that engages critically with ideas about identity, sex, and feminism. In addition, I consider the ways in which other types of feminist cultural production, including sketch comedy and web series, use camp strategies to deploy a feminist camp gaze to push back against sexism and other forms of oppression while also parodying feminism, ultimately creating space for resistance, pleasure, and self-reflection. ii Vita 2019 M.F.A., Screenwriting AFI Conservatory Los Angeles, California 2012 M.A., Cinema Studies New York University New York, New York 2010 M.A., Women’s and Gender Studies University of Florida Gainesville, Florida 2007 B.A., Spanish University of Hawaii at Manoa Honolulu, Hawaii Fields of Study Major Field: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies iii Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................... ii Vita ............................................................................................................................... iii Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: Anna Biller’s Retro-Feminist Camp Reimaginations ................................ 57 Chapter Two: Uses of Camp in Rethinking Identity and Spectatorship in the Work of Cheryl Dunye .............................................................................................................. 112 Chapter Three: Feminist-Extra: Bruce LaBruce, the Shock Jock Feminist.................... 157 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 193 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 207 iv Introduction In 2014, feminist scholars Jack Halberstam and Juliet Williams sat on stage in Los Angeles in front of a large audience at “The Last Bookstore” (a famous real-life independent bookstore in Los Angeles) with “Toni” and “Candace,” the fictional owners of the “Women and Women First” feminist bookstore (a fictional bookstore from the sketch comedy television series Portlandia).1 Halberstam and Williams are both outspoken feminist scholars who publish and speak frequently on the topic of feminism and gender-related issues. Toni and Candace are fictional characters played by real-life 1 In an interesting turn of events adding to the layers of irony and camp, the real-life feminist community space called “In Other Words” in Portland, Oregon (where the Portlandia feminist bookstore sketches were filmed) officially cut ties with the show in 2016 (after Portlandia had been filming there for several years). In Other Words publicly criticized Portlandia’s production practices and feminist politics, which they didn’t see as aligning with theirs. To make it very clear how they felt, In Other Words put up a sign in their storefront window that read “Fuck Portlandia!” and listed the charges against Portlandia underneath, citing transmisogyny, racism, gentrification, queer antagonism, and devaluation of feminist discourse. Ironically, the way some media reports about this rift between Portlandia and In Other Words described the conflict ended up painting the feminists at In Other Words as real-life versions of Toni and Candace’s feminist camp stereotypes. In Other Words ended up closing in 2018. Melissa Locker, “Women First Invaded Los Angeles Last Night,” IFC, June 5, 2014, https://www.ifc.com/shows/portlandia/blog/2014/06/portlandia-invaded-los-angeles-last- night; Jordan Crucchiola, “The Real Feminist Book Store From Portlandia Has A Message For The IFC Show: “F*ck Portlandia,” New York Magazine Vulture, September 29, 2016, https://www.vulture.com/2016/09/portlandia-real-womens-book-store-cuts-ties-with- show.html; Kristi Turnquist, “Portland Feminist Bookstore In Other Words Is Closing,” Oregon Live, originally posted June 6, 2018, updated January 30, 2019, https://www.oregonlive.com/tv/2018/06/portland_feminist_bookstore_in.html. 1 comedian-actor-musician (and outspoken feminists) Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen. The event at The Last Bookstore involved a brief “debate” between the two pairs of feminists followed by a Q & A discussion with Brownstein and Armisen (now as themselves) and the audience. All of this was tongue-in-cheek, of course, and actually a promotional event for both Portlandia and The Last Bookstore. At the beginning of the “debate,” Toni, played by Brownstein, started off by expressing her anger at the fact that “the mechanism that’s making me more powerful [the microphone] is shaped like a penis,” to which the audience responded with roaring laughter and applause. Just as Halberstam begins to speak, Candace immediately interrupts and says that she objects with whatever they are about to say. Toni and Candace continue to slow down the discussion by taking issue with every word (not many) Halberstam and Williams are able to say in between Toni and Candace’s rants. Toni and Candace have blinders on and are unable and unwilling to listen to what Halberstam and Williams have to say. At one moment, Candace makes a feminist faux pas and calls Williams “honey.” This is something that Candace would normally call someone out for in the sketches, but Toni is quick to come to the rescue. Ironically, Toni ends up justifying Candace’s use of “honey.” After Williams remarks, surprised, “Did you just call me honey?!” Toni woman-splains that it was a reference to actual honey. What becomes clear is that Toni and Candace are “good feminists” who can do no wrong. The presence of Halberstam and Williams there laughing (although sometimes it looks like nervous laughter) in the space of an independent bookstore and surrounded by an audience who is already “in” on the joke, in part by wearing pins made for the event that read “Woman” or “Not-Woman,” makes Toni and Candace’s campy feminism funny 2 rather than threatening or offensive. It is all one big inside joke and everyone there is “in” on it. Toni and Candace come off as comically “aggressive” and “hostile,” echoing Esther Newton’s claim that camp humor is a “hostile humor,” a little “bitchy.”2 Although Newton’s discussion of “bitchy” camp humor focuses on gay men and drag queens, the term “bitch” is also often used to refer to women, and particularly feminists. A woman is called a “bitch” when she speaks up, complains, argues, calls out problems that others deem to be “trivial.” A bitch says what she is not “supposed” to say. She does not act how women are “supposed” to act. She resists how patriarchal society wants her to behave. She is, to use Sara Ahmed’s term, a “killjoy.” So what do we make of Toni and Candace’s “bitchy” performance in a feminist space, surrounded by a bunch of feminists? What is their performance saying about feminism? How do they manage to get a bunch of feminists to laugh with them, with feminism, without bashing it? How are they using camp to talk back to feminism and engage a feminist audience? The fact that Brownstein and Armisen are both outspoken feminists in real life (particularly Brownstein, who is a queer feminist icon and was a leader in the riot grrrl movement) builds a level of trust with the audience—“we’re one of you, we’re on the same team.” The camp comes from both the performance and the reading of the performance—it is both intention and interpretation. Brownstein and Armisen read some types of feminists as ironic and “extra” and are intentionally camping them, performing a sort of feminist drag. 2 Esther Newton, “Role Models,” in Camp Grounds: Style and Homosexuality, ed. David Bergman (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993): 39-53. 3 As Toni and Candace continue to dominate the conversation, voicing their opinions on topics ranging from
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