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Camp
Written and directed by Todd Graff
starring Robin deJesus, Joanna Chilcoat, Daniel Letterle, Don Dixon, Alana Allen, Anna Kendrick, Tiffany Taylor
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Sometimes films are so enjoyable, so much fun, so emotionally elevating, that it doesn't matter how bad they are. The visceral enjoyment of not-very-good film is one of the great pleasures of going to the movies. (No one ever says-- "Oh, we went to the opera to see the new production of Rossini's La Gazza Ladra, and it was so bad it was great!") Sometimes this pleasure comes from the sheer ineptness of the film, as with Ed Wood's Glen or Glenda? And sometimes it's the sheer looniness of the project-- take The Poseidon Adventure, a movie so disarmingly silly that we have a hard time believing it isn't the water-logged version of Airplane. But sometimes it is just sheer force of goodwill that wins us over.

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Written and directed by Todd Graff, Camp is never going to win any awards. And while not an overtly terrible film, it is hardly original or effortlessly written. A cross between a let's-put-on-a-show musical and a everyone-is-really-beautiful-on-the-inside coming-of-age story, Camp-- even though its ostensible love interests are heterosexual-- is probably the gayest film of the year so far.

Camp is set at a summer camp for kids interested in theater. Not surprisingly, most of the girls are straight and most of the boys are queens. A quick run-through of the plot gives little idea of how much fun the film is-- Michael (Robin de Jesus) is a gay boy with a penchant for drag whose parents don't understand him. His best friend is Ellen (Joanna Chilcoat), who longs to leave the world of fag-hagdom for a straight boyfriend, who just might be Vlad (Daniel Letterle), who is straight, cute, and quite interested. Meanwhile-- there is always a meanwhile)-- Bert (Don Dixon), the brilliant-but-disillusioned songwriter, finds new faith. And Jill (Alana Allen), the bitchy prima donna gets what's coming to her. Fritzi (Anna Kendrick), the All-About-Eve-psycho understudy, turns out to be brilliant. And Jenna (Tiffany Taylor), the heavy girl whose parents don't really believe in her, is an 11-o'clock knockout who leaves everyone in the theater in tears with her all-stops-pulled-out solo number pleading for love and understanding.

As a collection of cliches, Camp is encyclopedic. But it is something close to brilliance on Todd Gaff's part that he manages to career carefully between true, moving sentiment and self-acknowledged parodic camp. Unfortunately Camp is never so well done that it actually succeeds as knowing, well-wrought camp (like, say, Hal Prince's fabulous 1971 Something for Everyone). But it has enough authentic feel-good emotions that, by the end, all is forgiven. Indeed, there is so much here that makes us feel happy-- a rare quality in any film-- that the fact that it's the heterosexual love story that takes center-stage is not even bothersome.

There are so few films with queer content that are truly satisfying. Camp is a real find. Clearly the title carries a double meaning, but there's too much sweetness and goodwill here for Camp to be truly, subversively campy: it's just an old-fashioned musical with lots of great queer energy.

Author Profile:  Michael Bronski
	Michael Bronski is the author of Culture Clash: The Making of Gay Sensibility and The Pleasure Principle: Sex, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom. He writes frequently on sex, books, movies, and culture, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
	Email:	mabronski@aol.com