The B-52’s Fred Schneider: ‘I don’t like when people call us camp. Camp means you don’t know you’re ridiculous, and we know what we’re doing’

https://www.vulture.com/article/fred-schneider-the-b-52s-superlatives-interview.html

38 comments

  1. I think it’s quite the opposite actually. Most of the best camp has a keen sense of self-awareness. That’s what makes it camp, as opposed to just weird or crazy.

  3. The idea that Rocky Horror fans or drag queens don’t know what they’re doing is absurd.

  4. Sounds like he has a private special meaning for camp.

  7. I mean, John Waters knew what he was doing as well.

  8. I can’t even think of something I’ve heard described as camp that wasn’t hyper aware it was camp.

  9. Pretty sure camp means you DO know you’re ridiculous. But you are happy and proud, regardless. Look at John Waters’ career, for example. You think he doesn’t know what he’s doing?

  11. I’m pretty sure most things I’d describe as ‘camp’ knew exactly what they were doing.

  15. I was dismissive of them when I was a young metal head…I resonate with their music now that I’m much older.

  16. In my experience people who dismiss camp are ridiculous and don’t know what they’re doing

  17. Their first album still knocks my socks off. “Hero Worship” 🔥 

  20. Fred is just talking out his ass, but truly they are a more well-rounded and influential band than many are aware of.

  21. I’ve always thought the difference between camp and just cheesy is that camp DOES know it’s being ridiculous?

  23. I don’t have a dog in this fight—just wanted to point out that Ricky Wilson was a guitar god and that Wild Planet is an excellent, dark album.

  24. They probably caught him on a crabby day, camp is fantastic and lots of camp is perfectly self aware

  25. Susan Sontag argues that camp in the queer context is both sincere and intentional, and that without both it isn’t really camp.

  26. Camp literally means you’re being goofy and winking at it. You know what you’re doing. It’s camp.

  29. I would argue it’s ONLY camp if you know what you’re doing. If you don’t, it’s just bad.

  32. Yeah the idea that people making camp on purpose are not aware that they are making camp on purpose It’s just silly. Fred, we love you and we love the B-52’s.

  33. That’s actually not what camp means. It’s quite frankly the opposite.

  34. He’s got “camp” confused with “kitsch”

  35. Ahem – postgrad glasses *on*:

    Camp has 2 “forms” – the original form, as defined / discussed Susan Sontag in her seminal essay “notes on camp” is (more or less) unintentional. E.g. douglas sirk movies, elizabeth taylor

    In the (I guess?) 60s and 70s, camp aficionados celebrated and (into the 80s) homaged and deliberately created their own versions this kind of stuff from earlier decades / generations and basically created what today we’d call an “ aesthetic” (e.g the b52s, Charles Busch plays, and a lot more)

    The now far more common form of camp that we enjoy today grew out of that deliberately, knowingly created effect

    Schneider – being a) art school-y, b) old* is clearly referencing the former form as what his band “isnt”, while most people reacting to his statement are only familiar with the 2nd form which he helped create

    *not in a bad way, but in having a sense of the early Camp One days.

    This might be a poor thesis, but it think it comes down to when did irony become common cultural coin? I somehow think Weimar Berlin had plenty, but the rest of the west didn’t seem to buy in til sometime in the 60s (I don’t mean underground but semi-mainstream)

  36. I’ve never seen a piece of art/media described as “camp” that wasn’t intentional

  37. I’m almost completely certain he has it exactly backwards. Camp is when you know you’re ridiculous and the ridiculousness is the point.

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