ABSTRACT

This chapter analyses the visual style of Israeli director Roy Raz, proposing close readings of four of his music videos. Raz directs both "mainstream" commercials, and short films and music videos, some of which associated with his Tel Aviv night club and party line PAG, and a production company of the same name. Raz' cultural involvement with Anglo-American, French and Israeli culture and "gay scene" make his videos a fascinating object of study for developing an idea of a camp aesthetics that pushes the boundaries of Anglo-European identities. The chapter argues that Raz employs a camp style that uniquely combines the highly polished surface of music video conventions with a surprising conglomerate of diverse people and objects, and breaks down hierarchies of what is "beautiful", "disgusting", "deviant" or "normative". The line between disgust and enjoyment blurs, and the characters' deadly earnest involvement in their irritating activity evokes – in the camp viewer – laughter and pleasure.