The King/Queen of Camp
Marcin Giżycki
mgizycki@hotmail.comPolish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7525-0205
Abstract
In the article the Queen phenomenon is considered through the prism of the film Bohemian Rhapsody and the exhibition Notes on Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, inspired by the famous text by Susan Sontag Notes on Camp from 1964. The author argues that Bryan Singer’s film, although quite superficial, is successful in one aspect: it shows well how the singer, Freddie Mercury, and the rest of the Queen achieved their level of show business camp. Giżycki also claims that Mercury, who while studying as Farrokh Bulsara at Ealing Art College in London in the 1960s, must have known Sontag’s text and shaped his image strategy according to its theses.
Keywords:
Queen, Freddie Mercury, Bryan Singer, campReferences
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Authors
Marcin Giżyckimgizycki@hotmail.com
Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7525-0205
Film and art historian, critic, filmmaker. Professor at the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw (Poland). Senior Lecturer at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence (USA). Artistic Director of “Animator” – International Animated Film Festival in Poznan (Poland). Former editor-in-chief of Animafilm – the ASIFA quarterly. He has published eight books and around 400 articles on film and art in Polish and foreign publications. He has also made a number of documentary, live action, experimental, and animated films in Poland and the USA. In 2016 he received the Award for the Outstanding Contribution to Animation Studies at Animafest, the World Festival of Animated Film in Zagreb (Croatia).
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