Putting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows

Camp comes into being as a performative vernacular when naturalized constructions of gender and sexuality are questioned through the enactment of their inherent contradictions. As subjects that are feminized through heteronormative ideology, both women and gay men may have a similar attentiveness, o...

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Autor principal:	Ryan Powell
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	University of Edinburgh 2007
Materias:	Fine Arts N Language and Literature P
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/e3c860b8ff724cf992efb50cb5893579
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:e3c860b8ff724cf992efb50cb58935792021-11-23T09:46:01ZPutting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows1749-9771https://doaj.org/article/e3c860b8ff724cf992efb50cb58935792007-06-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.forumjournal.org/article/view/583https://doaj.org/toc/1749-9771Camp comes into being as a performative vernacular when naturalized constructions of gender and sexuality are questioned through the enactment of their inherent contradictions. As subjects that are feminized through heteronormative ideology, both women and gay men may have a similar attentiveness, or what Keith Harvey describes as a "semiotic awareness," for the signs that are inscribed upon them and through which they negotiate their place in society (Harvey, 407). When this predilection for signs is acted out in the ironic performance of camp, as an artistic vernacular that expresses the ways in which women and gay men suffer as bearers of the passivity, emotionality and inactivity inscribed upon them, the performance may in turn become a radical site of destabilizing activity. With this in mind, the film genre of the melodrama, and in particular the work of Douglas Sirk, provides an interesting site for exploring representational traces of the inter-subjective positioning of women and gay men for two central reasons: [1] as a genre that is well known for narrativizing the pain and suffering of women, it may have something to say of the conditions which propel this pain and suffering; and [2] the work of Sirk, as a director who relied heavily upon distanciation, or distancing effects, to highlight artifice, demonstrates incongruencies between naturalized and constructed versions of heteronormativity much in the same way as camp does when utilized as a performative vernacular. I will focus on the 1955 film All That Heaven Allows, taking into account the ways in which gender and sexuality are performed through the film in such a manner that demonstrates conflicts surrounding hetero/homo binaries within representations of the period that can be productively read within a matrix of performative camp.Ryan PowellUniversity of EdinburgharticleFine ArtsNLanguage and LiteraturePENForum, Iss 04 (2007)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Fine Arts N Language and Literature P
spellingShingle	Fine Arts N Language and Literature P Ryan Powell Putting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows
description	Camp comes into being as a performative vernacular when naturalized constructions of gender and sexuality are questioned through the enactment of their inherent contradictions. As subjects that are feminized through heteronormative ideology, both women and gay men may have a similar attentiveness, or what Keith Harvey describes as a "semiotic awareness," for the signs that are inscribed upon them and through which they negotiate their place in society (Harvey, 407). When this predilection for signs is acted out in the ironic performance of camp, as an artistic vernacular that expresses the ways in which women and gay men suffer as bearers of the passivity, emotionality and inactivity inscribed upon them, the performance may in turn become a radical site of destabilizing activity. With this in mind, the film genre of the melodrama, and in particular the work of Douglas Sirk, provides an interesting site for exploring representational traces of the inter-subjective positioning of women and gay men for two central reasons: [1] as a genre that is well known for narrativizing the pain and suffering of women, it may have something to say of the conditions which propel this pain and suffering; and [2] the work of Sirk, as a director who relied heavily upon distanciation, or distancing effects, to highlight artifice, demonstrates incongruencies between naturalized and constructed versions of heteronormativity much in the same way as camp does when utilized as a performative vernacular. I will focus on the 1955 film All That Heaven Allows, taking into account the ways in which gender and sexuality are performed through the film in such a manner that demonstrates conflicts surrounding hetero/homo binaries within representations of the period that can be productively read within a matrix of performative camp.
format	article
author	Ryan Powell
author_facet	Ryan Powell
author_sort	Ryan Powell
title	Putting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows
title_short	Putting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows
title_full	Putting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows
title_fullStr	Putting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows
title_full_unstemmed	Putting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows
title_sort	putting on the red dress: reading performative camp in douglas sirk's all that heaven allows
publisher	University of Edinburgh
publishDate	2007
url	https://doaj.org/article/e3c860b8ff724cf992efb50cb5893579
work_keys_str_mv	AT ryanpowell puttingonthereddressreadingperformativecampindouglassirksallthatheavenallows
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Putting on the Red Dress: Reading Performative Camp in Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows

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