ABSTRACT
Suffering and sequins, torch singers and drag queens, Dusty Springfield and Queen – clearly camp. Eurovision, Liberace and Jarvis Cocker, too. Across musical performance, film and art, camp is an aesthetic whose heritage has been linked to queerness (Taylor, 2012; Cleto, 1999; Meyer, 1994; Dickinson, 2001). Exaggerated and ironic, it also has the potential to be part of political praxis, mobilised as a tool that ‘juxtaposes seriousness and paradox to reveal the unnatural state of something that is often perceived as real or essential, such as gender or sexual desire’ (Taylor, 2012: 73). We can list the camp and draw out particular characteristics that identify it. This is what theorists of camp have done (see Chapter 1). And it is unlikely that Harvey would be on that list. Although the term has been applied to her in the past in relation to her sense of humour (Whiteley, 2000: 211), it is not one normally associated with a ‘serious’ rock artist; it is used more commonly in the vernacular to mark out a queer sensibility and practice (Taylor, 2012; Whiteley and Rycenga, 2006; Jarman-Ivens, 2007).
